Chamavi

Their name probably survives in the region called Hamaland, which is in the Gelderland province of the Netherlands, near present day Deventer between the IJssel and Ems rivers.

However, it has been argued that the Cananefates (in present day South Holland) were unlikely to be in conflict with the Romans at this point, and that the original text may have referred to the Chamavi instead, implying that they lived near the Rhine, and west of the other two tribes at this time.

[2] Tacitus reports in his Annals that in the time of Nero (apparently 58 AD), the Ampsivarii, having been ejected from their homes further to the north near the river Ems, pleaded with Roman authorities to allow them to live in a military buffer zone on the northern bank of the Rhine, saying that "these fields belonged to the Chamavi; then to the Tubantes; after them to the Usipii".

This is known because during an earlier campaign against the Germanic tribes in 12 BC, the settlement area of the Usipii which is believed to be the same one mentioned by the Ampsivarii, bordered the Lippe to the south, which is where the country of the Sicambri began at that time.

Tacitus also reports that behind the Chamavi and Angrivarii, further away from the Rhine, lived "the Dulgubini and Chasuarii, and other tribes not equally famous", and in the other direction lay the Frisians.

[8] But the text is notoriously garbled, having combined older sources with different formats, apparently including an itinerary map similar to the Tabula Peutinger.

Neighbouring them to the south, the Chatti and Tubanti (ὑπὸ δὲ τοὺς Καμαυοὺς Χάτται καὶ Τούβαντοι), and Schütte noted that these tribes "have equally been transplanted from the Rhenish districts to interior Germany".

[14] In the Jura region in present day France, there is district which was traditionally known as Comté d'Amaous [fr], which was originally named during the Roman era after a settlement of Chamavi, the pagus (Ch)amavorum.

[15] The "4th panegyric" of 321 AD says that Constantine the Great, the son of Constantius successfully fought the Bructeri, Chamavi, Cherusci, Lancionae, Alamanni, and Tubantes, who eventually joined in an alliance against him.

[20] In the Spring of 358 AD, Julian the apostate, not yet an emperor, was based in Trier and made a rapid attack against both the Salians and the Chamavi, who were both making inroads within Roman territory around the Rhine-Meuse delta.

The reason for this was primarily that he needed to ensure the arrival of 600 grain carrying ships coming up the rivers from Britain, and he preferred not to simply pay the tribes off, as previous administrators had been doing.

[20] Similar accounts are given by Julian himself in his letter to the Athenians, Ammianus Marcellinus who served under him,[21] Libanius who wrote his funeral oration, and the later Greek historians Eunapius and Zosimus.

Despite these differences in terminology, Zosimus and Eunapius both remark how the barbarian Charietto was brought from Trier to neutralize this group's raiding, and how Julian captured the son of their king.

Neither tribe confronted him, but their allies the Ampsivarii and the Chatti were under the military leadership of the Frankish princes Marcomer and Sunno, and they appeared "on the ridges of distant hills".

It was in a region similar to the Chamavi, between the IJssel and the Rhine rivers, and it included the modern Dutch cities of Deventer, Doesburg, Zutphen, and Elten.

The Lex Chamavorum Francorum (law of the Chamavi Franks) is a modern name invented for a Frankish legal code which describes itself as the Ewa ad Amorem.