The Capturing story of the English

The kings of the first Germanic kingdoms

THE YEARS between 500 and 900 in Western Europe can best be understood if they are regarded as a period of transition from the civilizations of the early Germans and the Romans to the civilization of the Middle Ages. During this period the Germanic peoples settled down and developed their institutions. The political and legal customs of roving tribes became the government and laws of organized states. The rather haphazard agricultural techniques of semi-nomadic peoples were fashioned into reasonably effective methods of exploiting the rich soil of northern Europe. These same years saw the evangelization of all the Germanic peoples except those of Scandinavia and the disappearance from their ranks of Arian heretics. By 800 Western Europe was firmly Christian and Roman Catholic. While the process of wiping out all traces of pagan beliefs and imposing the Christian system of ethics was to take several more centuries, by the end of this period it was well started. Here then are the two themes of this chapter: the development of the Germanic states and their institutions, and the gradually increasing influence of Christianity upon them. We shall see the creation of a Christian German civilization stretching from the Atlantic to the Elbe and from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.

A nobleman by birth, Alaric served for a time as commander of Gothic troops in the Roman army, but shortly after the death of the emperor Theodosius I in 395, he left the army and was elected chief of the Visigoths. Charging that his tribe had not been given subsidies promised by the Romans, Alaric marched westward toward Constantinople (now Istanbul) until he was diverted by Roman forces. He then moved southward into Greece, where he sacked Piraeus (the port of Athens) and ravaged Corinth, Megara, Argos, and Sparta. The Eastern emperor Flavius Arcadius finally placated the Visigoths in 397, probably by appointing Alaric magister militum (“master of the soldiers”) in Illyricum

• In 401 Alaric invaded Italy, but he was defeated by the Roman general Flavius Stilicho at Pollentia (modern Pollenza) on April 6, 402, and forced to withdraw from the peninsula. A second invasion also ended in defeat, though Alaric eventually compelled the Senate at Rome to pay a large subsidy to the Visigoths. After Stilicho was murdered in August 408, an antibarbarian party took power in Rome and incited the Roman troops to massacre the wives and children of tribesmen who were serving in the Roman army. These tribal soldiers thereupon defected to Alaric, substantially increasing his military strength.

One of the most famous barbarian leaders, the Goth King Alaric I rose to power after the death of the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II in 395 A.D. shattered a fragile peace between Rome and the Goths. When the Western Emperor Flavius Honorius refused to supply Alaric’s forces with land and supplies in 408, Goth forces laid siege to Rome. In the summer of 410, a group of rebellious slaves opened the Salarian Gate, and Alaric’s troops became the first foreign enemy to enter the city in some 800 years. They plundered Rome over three days, but treated its inhabitants humanely. Alaric is thought to have died soon after they left, during a subsequent expedition towards Africa. His descendants, the Visigoths, migrated to Iberia and established their kingdom in what is now Spain.

Like other Celtic women, Boudica (or Boadicea) enjoyed greater liberty than many other women in the ancient world, and trained in fighting and weapons alongside the men of her tribe. When her husband, King Prasutagas of the Iceni people of East Anglia (present-day eastern England), died with no male heir in 60 A.D., the Romans took the opportunity to annex his kingdom, publicly flog Boudica and rape her two daughters. With the Roman provincial governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus absent from the region, the defiant warrior queen led a rebellion of disgruntled Iceni and other tribes to victory over the Roman Ninth Legion. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Boudica’s forces massacred some 70,000 Romans and pro-Roman Britons in their rampage. Paulinus soon returned, and his forces won a standoff at an unknown site. In the wake of that defeat, Boudica likely killed herself with poison.

• Born into a royal family of Huns, a nomadic people based in what is now Hungary, Attila rose to power alongside his brother, Bleda, in 434 A.D.. A onetime ally of Rome against other barbarian groups, including the Burgundians and Goths, Attila accepted hefty subsidies in gold in exchange for not attacking Roman territory—then did it anyway. After having Bleda killed, he assumed total control of an empire that stretched across Central Europe. A complicated series of events involving Western Emperor Valentinian III and his sister, Honoria, inspired Attila to invade Gaul (present-day France) in 450. Though a combined force of Romans and Visigoths blocked the invasion, Attila was undaunted, and in 452 he invaded Italy. The Romans sent Pope Leo I as a peace emissary, and though the details of their meeting are unknown, Attila subsequently withdrew his troops and returned to Hungary. In 453, he was found dead the morning after his wedding (he had multiple wives), apparently the victim of a fatal nosebleed, accidental alcohol poisoning or a murderous conspiracy, possibly involving his new bride, Ildico.

Today, we think of barbarians as uncivilized brutes, but when dealing with the various historical groups that have been called barbarians, this isn’t always the case. Throughout history, many empire builders used the label of “barbarian” to reinforce an us vs. them mentality between between insiders and outsiders, and to justify acts of conquest and war. So here are 25 facts about barbarians of all different shapes and sizes, and you can decide for yourself just how barbaric they really were.

• The word “barbarian” is derived from the Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros), and it didn’t mean exactly the same thing as it does today. It referred to anyone who didn’t speak Greek, and it was actually an onomatopoeic word, because other languages sounded like gibberish to the Greeks—bar bar bar was kind of like the Greek way of saying blah blah blah.
• Countless groups of people have been called “barbarians” over the years. Some of the most famous examples are the Carthaginians, Celts, Egyptians, Etruscans, Goths, Indians, Persians, Phoenicians, Huns, Mongols and Vikings. That sure is a lot of outsiders.
• Although “barbarian” originally meant anyone who didn’t speak Greek, occasionally in history the word has referred to more specific groups of people. In the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, he almost always uses the word “barbarian” in reference to the Persians, who were frequently at war with the Ancient Greeks. He usually uses the term pejoratively to create favourable comparisons to the Greeks.

• While the Greeks were, as a rule, distrustful of outsiders, they certainly learned a lot from them. Much of early Greek culture, language and art was borrowed from an earlier civilization called the Minoans (named after the legend of King Minos and the Minotaur). They also derived their alphabet from the Phoenicians, and they partially adopted the numerical system of the Egyptians. A little hypocritical maybe?
• The development of the term barbarian runs parallel to the history of slavery in Athens. Most of the slaves in the city were non-Greeks, and as slavery spread beyond the wealthy to the homes of the free population of the city, the term took root.
• Political and diplomatic leaders, such as Odoacer and Theoderic the Great, changed the course of history in the late 400s CE and paved the way for later kings and conquerors. Odoacer, a German general, took over the Western Roman Empire in his own name, becoming the first barbarian king of Italy. Theoderic the Great became a barbarian king of Italy after he killed Odoacer. He initiated three decades of peace between the Ostrogoths and the Romans and united the two Germanic tribes.

• Theoderic the Great lived as a hostage at the court of Constantinople for many years and learned a great deal about Roman government and military tactics, which served him well when he became the Gothic ruler of a mixed but largely Romanized “barbarian people.”