HIST-301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 37: Olive Oil, Stirrup, Hildebrandslied
9 Oct 2020
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Wheat and barley dominated their earliest farms, but other ce- reals like oats and rye were also grown. Their diet focused on cereals, meats, dairy products, fish, and beer; viticulture was unknown to them, as, therefore were olive oil and wine. There are signs that their populations swelled significantly starting in the first century b. c. and continuing until the third century a. d. Increased need for food and the desire to avoid asiatic nomads like the alans and huns began to force many thousands of these germans toward the. Thus by the time the romans became familiar with germanic culture in any detail, they en- countered germans displaced from their agricultural way of life and living largely as pastoralists, hunters, and warriors. This false impression of germanic culture, canonized by tacitus in his germania, lingered for many centuries. Conditions were harsh for them because the new territory they inhab- ited beyond the rhine-
