(
Der Wastl aus dem Oberland "
Wastl from the
Oberland"),
clerk (
Gerichtsschreiber "court secretary"), shirker (
Invalid in Friedenszeiten "peacetime-invalid"), petty bourgeois (
Münchner Hausvater "Munich pater familias"), Julius Adam,
Die Gartenlaube (1875).
Origins The
Baiuvarii were the early Bavarians, who are known from records starting in the 6th century. Their name indicates a connection to the
Bohemian Forest area, which had been the territory of the
Boii during antiquity, although the nature of this connection is uncertain. The name is Latinized from the ethnonym *Bajōwarjōz, meaning "citizens of
Bohemia" from Proto-Germanic *Bajōhaimaz (Boiohaemum, Bohemia), meaning "Boii home", which was a term already mentioned by
Tacitus in his
Germania at the end of the 1st century AD, by which time parts of the Celtic Boii had already left the area, leaving it to be dominated by
Suevic
Germanic groups in close contact with the Romans, such as the
Marcomanni in what is now the
Czech Republic, and their neighbours the
Hermunduri and
Varisci in what is now northern Bavaria. On the southern side of the river
Danube were the
Vindelici in the Roman-controlled province of
Raetia. Bavarians are first mentioned in the mid-6th century, in the foothills north of the
Alps, on both sides of the Danube. It is difficult to distinguish the mobile and mixing groups of the Danube in this period archaeologically. The timing comes after the period when the neighbouring
Alamanni (to the west) and
Thuringians (to the north) had come under
Frankish hegemony, and in Italy the kingdoms of
Theoderic and
Odoacer had come to an end, creating a new power vacuum in the Alpine region. They seem to have been closely related to the
Lombards who were developing as a force to the east of them. Their legal system shows heavy Roman influence, and their unification appears to have been under a Duke installed by the Franks (Old Bavarian law codes refer to five main lineages). The Danubian frontier between the Roman empire and "
Germania" had by this time become a region where older populations had been added to significantly by generations of Roman border troops, Germanic clients, and then various "
barbarian" peoples from outside the empire, some of whom had been under the hegemony of
Attila the Hun. "
Elbe Germans", came from the river
Elbe to the north, which was under Thuringian rule, and is where the Lombards had also been. But also more northern groups had moved along the Elbe from the direction of the
North Sea, as did some
Saxons who joined the Lombards, and possibly the
Heruls. Also,
East Germanic groups such as the
Goths had entered the
Pannonian region east of the Bavarians in the generations leading up to the empire of Attila. These peoples had not only contributed to the Hunnic empire, but also sometimes been settled peacefully as Roman
foederati. Also entering the area, more contemporary with the Bavarians and Lombards, were
Slavs, who particularly settled the Upper Palatinate as well as around Regensburg itself (distr. Großprüfening). Neighboring the emerging Bavarian people in the 6th to 7th centuries were the Alamanni to the west (with the river
Lech as boundary, which remains a dialectal division today), and Thuringians to the north, both dominated to some extent by the Franks as were the Bavarians (in the late 7th century however, there was a period where
Radulf, King of Thuringia rebelled and some independence was returned to these three regions for a while).)
Slavs were settling to the north-east, and
Goths and
Langobards to the east and south were later displaced by
Slavs and
Magyars. Much like was the case in neighboring
Alemannia, Bavaria was nominally Christian by virtue of being ruled by Christian dukes from the 6th century, but Christianization of its population was a gradual process lasting throughout the 7th century and into the 8th; Saint
Corbinian was sent by
Pope Gregory II to minister to duke
Grimoald and work towards the evangelization of Bavaria; he became the first
bishop of Freising. A
Diocese of Laureacum (Lorch) had been in existence since the 4th century, in the 8th century moved to
Passau, which became a bridge-head for the Christianization of Austria and Hungary. The
Bishopric of Regensburg was founded in 739 by
Boniface. The
Lex Baiuvariorum was a codex of
Germanic law, comprising 23 articles of traditional law recorded in the 740s. Bavaria within the
Carolingian Empire was bordering on
Swabia in the west,
Thuringia in the north,
Lombardy in the south and
Slavic Carinthia in the east.
Holy Roman Empire The
Duchy of Bavaria was a
stem duchy of the
Holy Roman Empire, established in the 10th century, derived from an earlier duchy ruled by the Frankish
Agilolfings during the 6th to 8th centuries. The
Margraviate of Austria was formed an eastern march to the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and became a duchy in its own right, the
Duchy of Austria, in 1156, in the 13th century falling under the dominion of the
House of Habsburg. In the 14th and 15th centuries, upper and lower Bavaria were repeatedly subdivided. Four Duchies (or "partial duchies",
Teilherzogtümer) existed after the division of 1392: Lower
Bavaria-Straubing, lower
Bavaria-Landshut,
Bavaria-Ingolstadt and
Bavaria-Munich.
Munich, now the capital and cultural center of Bavaria, was founded in the high medieval period, and was the capital of the "partial duchy" of
Bavaria-Munich 1392–1503. In 1503, Bavaria was re-united by Duke
Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich (although the formerly Bavarian offices
Kufstein,
Kitzbühel and
Rattenberg in Tirol were lost in 1504) and established Munich as the capital of all of Bavaria in 1506. In 1623, Bavaria was elevated to
Electorate (
Kurfürstentum).
Modern history 1816, including the Rhenish Palatinate The
Kingdom of Bavaria was established at the
Peace of Pressburg (1805), in the wake of the French victory at
Austerlitz. The kingdom's territory fluctuated greatly over the following years, eventually fixed at the
Treaty of Paris (1814), which established most of what remain the borders of the modern state. The kingdom in 1837 was divided into eight administrative regions (
Regierungsbezirke),
Upper Bavaria,
Lower Bavaria,
Franconia,
Swabia,
Upper Palatinate and
Palatinate.
Ludwig I of Bavaria changed his royal titles to
Ludwig, King of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, Duke in Swabia and Count Palatinate of the Rhine. As of 1818, the total population of the kingdom was at 3.7 million, rising to 4.4 million by 1840 and to 6.2 million by 1900, reaching 6.5 million in 1910. Modern Bavaria has 12.5 million inhabitants (as of 2012); the population of
Altbayern or Bavaria proper is at 6.7 million. ==List of notable Bavarians==