Barbarians are people who were foreigners to the ancient Greeks, and then to the Romans, spoke an incomprehensible language and were alien to their culture. In the new time, barbarians began to designate the aggregate of peoples who invaded the Roman Empire (barbaric conquests), taking advantage of its weakening, and establishing independent states (kingdoms) on its territory.
In a figurative sense, barbarians are ignorant, rude, cruel people, destroyers of cultural values.
Ancient History
In the ancient world, the word was used by the Greeks to refer to non-Greek peoples, including civilized ones. In ancient Rome, the term applies to the peoples who lived outside the Roman Republic (later – the empire). Thus, in the archaeological sense, the term “barbarians” is synonymous with the term ” Iron Age ” for peoples who existed during the ancient world, but were not included in the circle of civilizations of that time:
Celts
Germans
Thracians (including Dacians , Geth )
Illyrians and Messaps
Scythian – Sarmatian tribes, etc.
Slavic tribes
Goths
Vandals
The Huns
Medieval History
In the Middle Ages, the Vikings were considered barbarians – early medieval Scandinavian seafarers, who in the 8th — 11th centuries made sea trips from Vinland in North America to Biarmia in northern Eastern Europe and from the Caspian Sea to North Africa. In the bulk, these were free peasants who lived on the territory of modern Sweden, Denmark and Norway, who were pushed beyond the borders of their home countries to overpopulation (after a period of medieval warming in northern Europe) and a thirst for easy money.
The reasons for the expansion of the Vikings, which took various forms (the search for new lands and resettlement, predatory attacks, piracy and large military campaigns, trade trips, closely intertwined with piracy and robbery), were diverse. The decomposition of the communal-tribal system among the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians was accompanied by the strengthening of the nobility, for whom military booty served as the most important source of enrichment; Many ordinary members of the community (bonds) left their homeland due to the relative overpopulation of the coastal regions of the Scandinavian Peninsula and the lack of cultivable land. The progress of shipbuilding among the Scandinavians – from the earliest times of skillful navigators – made possible their sailing not only in the Baltic Sea, but also in the waters of the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea.
There are also a lot of nomadic people seen throughout the middle ages that could clarify in this term.
China
The Great Wall of China becomes a symbol of the division between civilization and barbarism, conditionally separating the “civilized” agricultural culture from the nomadic one. One consequence of this division was the abandonment of dairy products, which had become entrenched in Chinese cooking, as a sign of disregard for herding.
The attitude of the “civilized” Chinese to the “barbarians” was expressed in a dansemic diplomatic system and the famous kowtow rite, which complicated the Middle Kingdom’s contacts with the powers of the New Time.
Chen An (9th century) argued that “the difference between the Chinese and the barbarian is in the heart.” According to other thinkers, this distinction was racially based. The attraction of Chinese culture was expressed in the sinification of the Khitan, Jurchen, Mongol, Manchurian and other peoples. The reign of non-autochthonous dynasties (Yuan, Qing, and others), which greatly influenced the appearance of Chinese civilization in its modern form, made the question of barbarism in China a complex cultural problem.
Sources:
Barbarians // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86
Alfan L. Great barbarian empires: from the Great Migration to the Turkic conquests of the 11th century
Ancient Europe. Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. Vol. 1-2.
V.M. Makarevich, I.I. Sokolov. Encyclopedia world history
Musse L. Barbaric invasions of Western Europe