The Istvaeones, also called Istaevones, Istriaones, Istriones, Sthraones, Thracones, Rhine Germans and Weser-Rhine Germans (Istwäonen, Weser-Rhein-Germanen in German), were a West Germanic cultural group or proto-tribe. Their name was recorded in Germania by Tacitus, a 1st century Roman historian, who categorized them as one of the tribes of the sons of Mannus and labelled them as those tribes who were neither Ingvaeones nor Irminones. The Istvaeones were the tribe of Istaev, son of Mannus. They dwelt around the Atlantic coast (modern day Netherlands, Belgium and northern France) as well as the Rhine and Weser river systems from perhaps 500 BCE, until the differentiation of localized Teutonic tribes (Chatti, Hessians, Franks) in that region circa 250 CE; Istvaeonic, or Low Franconian, is the grouping that includes Netherlandic and related languages in Friedrich Maurer's classification.[1] There is also evidence some of them merged with the North Sea Germans (Ingvaeones).
Jacob Grimm in the book Deutsche Mythologie urged that Iscaevones was the correct form, partly because it would connect the name to an ancestor figure in Norse mythology named Ask, and partly because in Nennius where the name Mannus is corrupted as Alanus, the ancestor of the Istaevones appears as Escio or Hisicion. There the sons of this figure are, fantastically, from Frankish tradition, Francus, Romanus, Alamanus, and Bruttus, the supposed ancestors of the Franks, Latins, Germans and Britons. This seems to reflect Frankish desire to connect the Franks with the people they ruled.
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