Arborychoi

rdf:langString Arborychoi

rdf:langString The Arborychoi (Greek: Αρβόρυχοι) were a people mentioned by Procopius as living in Gaul in the 5th century AD. There is no consensus on who they were. Procopius mentions the Arborychoi in his description of the land and peoples west of the lower Rhine. Based on his description, they would have "occupied the coast of what is today Belgium." Writing in the 550s, he probably got his information from a Frankish embassy. It forms part of a passage explaining the origins of the Franks and their power. It should probably be associated, insofar as his garbled account is historical, with the reigns of the Frankish kings Childeric I and Clovis I. The Arborychoi are described as having been foederati of the Roman Empire. They are said to have changed their form of government, probably meaning that they came to recognize rulers other than the Roman emperors. They fought an inconclusive war with the Franks before allying and intermarrying with them, becoming one people. They were both Christians (i.e., Chalcedonians, not Arians) at this time, which situates it after the conversion of Clovis. In his own day, Procopius writes, the descendants of the Arborychoi still mustered according to the old Roman muster-rolls and carried their old banners. The name Arborychoi is usually regarded as a corruption of Latin Armorici or Armoricani. This identification was current as early as the 18th century, when it was questioned by Edward Gibbon on the basis of geography. Ernst Stein accepted it, but Ferdinand Lot argued that Procopius had garbled the Latin word aborigines (natives). Thomas Charles-Edwards notes that a confusion of b and m also occurs in the treatment of the Conomor by Procopius' contemporary, Gregory of Tours, who calls him Chonomoris and Chonoober. Edward James accepts the etymology, but points out that the term cannot refer to the people of Armorica (then being conquered by the Bretons) but only the , a Roman military region corresponding to Gaul north of the Loire and west of the Seine, an area inhabited by Gallo-Romans. In this sense, it may refer not to a people, but to the Roman army on the Loire. Jean-Pierre Poly considers the identification of the Arborychoi with the Armoricani "unlikely if not impossible". He proposes that Arboruchoi is in fact a misspelling of Arboruchtoi and is cognate with the Boructuari of Bede. This name means "first" or "great" Bructeri (etymologically "ere-brought"). According to Maurits Gysseling, it is preserved in the early medieval place name Boroctra (Borchtergo). The presence of six Rhenish pagi with bant (banner) in the name may be a record of the long use of Roman banners noted by Procopius.