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The Visigoths were a division of the Goths, one of the most important groups of Germans, having
settled in the region W of the Black Sea in the 3d cent. A.D., the Goths soon split into two divisions,
the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths.

By the 4th cent. the Visigoths were at the borders of the East Roman Empire, raiding across the
Danube River, and peacefully infiltrating the trans-Danubian provinces. Constantine I was troubled by
the Visigoths, but they became a real menace only after the middle of the 4th cent. At that time
groups of Visigoths had settled in Dacia as agriculturalists, and many had accepted Arian Christianity
(see Arianism), partly as a result of the work of Ulfilas. About 364 a group of Visigoths devastated
Thrace, and punitive measures were undertaken against them. They were also involved in the revolt
(366) of Procopius.
Until 369 Emperor Valens waged war successfully against the Visigoths, who were led by Athanaric.
Athanaric asserted his supremacy over Fritigern, a rival Visigothic leader who then retired into the
Roman Empire and obtained Roman aid against Athanaric. However, the internal affairs of the Goths
became of secondary importance to the invasion (c.375) of their lands by the Huns. Athanaric retired
to Transylvania, and the majority of the Visigoths joined Fritigern and fled (376) into the empire.
Subjected to oppressive measures by Roman officials, these Visigothic settlers soon rose in revolt.
Opposed by Emperor Valens at Adrianople in 378, the Goths won a decisive victory. They then swept
across the upper Balkan Peninsula and ravaged Thrace. Theodosius I immediately took up arms
against them. In 382 peace was finally concluded, and the Goths under Athanaric were settled in
Thrace. Friction, however, continued.
In 395, after the death of Theodosius I, the Visigothic troops in Roman service proclaimed Alaric I their
leader; under his strong guidance they first developed the concept of kingship. Alaric led a revolt in
the Balkan Peninsula but was checked by Stilicho. In 401 Alaric began his attacks on Italy; he was
halted by Stilicho, but after Stilicho’s death he succeeded in his invasion, and the Visigoths became
masters of Italy. Negotiations between Alaric and Emperor Honorius failed, and in 410 the Visigoths
sacked Rome. Alaric died soon afterward.

Who Were the Huns?: The Huns were a group of nomadic (roaming) herdsmen, warlike people from the
steppes (grasslands) of North Central Asia north of China (Mongolia) who terrorized, pillaged, and
destroyed much of Asia and Europe from the 3rd through 5th centuries. The use of the stirrup gave
the Huns a technological advantage over other warriors of the time. Stirrups are loops hung from a
saddle that support a horse rider's feet; these let the Huns brace themselves on their horses while
wielding swords or shooting arrows.

Hordes Attack Asia and Europe: The Chinese successfully defended themselves against the Huns in the
3rd century (the Huns were then led by Mao-tun, the first great leader and uniter of the Huns). The
Chinese started building their Great Wall to defend themselves against the Huns. The people of India,
Persia (what is now Iran), and eastern and central Europe were invaded by separate hordes of Hunnish
warriors attacking on horseback. In Europe, groups of Huns defeated the Goths (Germans) of eastern
Europe, the Slavs, the Franks (French), the Roman Empire, and many others. The Huns settled in the
area that is now called Hungary.
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The Ostrogoths are the eastern division of the Goths that had split into western and eastern
kingdoms. The Ostrogoth King Ermanarich created a huge kingdom that was attacked and soon
overrun by the Huns from central Asia in about 370. They were then put into the army of the victors,
and the Ostrogoths did not regain their freedom until 453, with the death of Attila. Until this time they
had settled in Pannonia. From there they migrated into Italy.

When they went into Italy they wanted to adopt Roman culture and to be accepted and equals with the
Romans. They helped protect the civilized world against other barbarians. Although the Ostrogoths
were a barbarian people, they fought against them. The Ostrogoths became Arian Christians, which
caused conflict between them and orthodox Roman Catholics.

The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century,
perhaps best known for their sack of Rome in 455. Although they were not notably more
destructive than other invaders of ancient times, Renaissance and Early Modern writers who
idealized Rome tended to blame the Vandals for its destruction. This led to the coinage of
"vandalism", meaning senseless destruction, particularly the defacing of artworks that were
completed with great effort.
The Goth leader Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths and regent of the Visigoths, was allied by
marriage with the Vandals as well as with the Burgundians and the Franksunder Clovis I. Like the
Goths, the Vandals, whose influence can best be judged in their longest-lasting kingdom in
North Africa, were continuators rather than violaters of Roman culture in Late Antiquity.

The Lombards (Latin Langobardi, whence the alternative namesLangobards and Longobards) were a Germanic
people originally fromNorthern Europe who settled in the valley of the Danube and from there invaded Byzantine Italy in
568 under the leadership of Alboin. They established a Lombard Kingdom, later named Kingdom of Italy, which lasted until
774, when it was conquered by the Franks. Their influence on Italian political geography is apparent in the regional
appellation Lombardy.

In the extreme north of the empire too, there were problems. In the first half of the fifth century, the
Romans withdrew from Britain, and the Anglo-Saxons came to dominate the land. Groups of Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes crossed the North Sea and conquered large parts of the island, encroaching upon
the native population. Gradually, the Cornish and the Welsh were nudged into the western and
northern parts of the isles. The Germanic people were not the only ones exerting pressure on Britain,
for the Picts and Scots were conducting constant raids at the same time.

In place of the romanised Britons rose several Germanic kingdoms that maintained both
independence and a loose spirit as a common group. These Germanic people had never been
immersed in Roman culture, and so they were more interested in replacing Roman traditions, rather
than retaining them (as Theodoric the Ostrogoth tried to do).

The Anglo-Saxons who came to Britain were originally pagan, but converted to Christianity through
two different sources. One source of conversion came from Ireland, which in the fifth century had been
introduced to a monastic version of Christianity associated with the eastern part of the empire.
Beginning in the latter half of the sixth century, Irish mendicants from a monastery on Iona (an island
near the coast of Scotland) started to travel around northern Britain and convert the population
there.
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The other source of Christianity was the missionary Augustine of Canterbury, who was sent to
Britain by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 A.D. Augustine became the bishop of Canterbury, and helped
spread a form of Christianity that was quite different in practice from the one being introduced by
Irish monks in the north of Britain. While the form coming from Ireland was monastic and did not have
a rigid, centralised structure, Augustine’s form was hierarchical and had the pope at the head of the
Church.

As these two forms spread across Britain, there came the inevitable conflict between religious
practices, and in 664 A.D., the Synod of Whitby was called together to decide the debate. The Roman,
centralised form of Christianity was adopted, and Christian Anglo-Saxon culture grew significantly in
the next one hundred and fifty years. During this time, Christian England (land of the Angles) became
home to two important learning institutions of the whole region, the monasteries of Monkwearmouth
and Jarrow, which produced one of the best scholars of the age, Bede (673 – 735 A.D.). England
furthered its legacy and influence across the continent when it began to send out its own missionaries
in the eighth century to the regions of Europe where her Anglo-Saxon ancestors had come from.

The weakness and the irreversible decline of the Roman Empire offered many Barbarian populations the
chance of settling down inside its territory to form several reigns, after more or less violent invasions
or their admission within the empire to serve as soldiers. The Burgundians were one of these
populations, but their most ancient native land was very far: Bornholm Island, in the Baltic Sea,
between southern Sweden and northern Germany (today, Danish territory), from which they suddenly
disappeared for unclear reasons about 250 A.D. They appeared again between western Germany and Poland in
the following years, until they were recruited by the Roman emperor Valentinian I to fight against the Alamanni in 369 A.D.
but, few years later, they were defeated by the Gepids.
At the beginning of the V century, after the wars between the Roman general Stilicho and the Visigoths, led by Alaric I, the
Burgundians settled within the borders of the Roman Empire, in the Rhine Valley. They had adhered to the Arian
Christianity and this didn’t ease their relations with the Roman Christians that remained very difficult in this early period.
The Roman emperor recognized the Burgundians as “foederati” (“federate” or “allied”), but they made frequent bloody
incursions in northern Gallia under their king Gundahar who had just founded the first Burgundian reign. This situation
lasted until 437, when the Roman Gen. Aetius (equally of German origin) made arrive against Gundahar many Hun
mercenary troops who massacred the Burgundians and killed Gundahar in battle.
Few years before the half of the V century A.D., who survived to this massacre among the Burgundians was resettled again
by Aetius inside the dieing Roman Empire of which they became allied against the new imminent invasion of the Huns led
by Attila. So, the Burgundians were victorious together with the Roman-Barbarian troop led by Aetius on the Huns in the
Battle of Chalons or Catalaunian Fields (451 A.D.). It’s better to remind that this victory was only formally Roman because
the Roman army of those last centuries was formed by Barbarians only, given that the Roman citizens were exempted
from the military service. So, Barbarians fought against other Barbarians to delay the death of an agonizing empire. At this
point, the Burgundians could found their second kingdom; their territory extended between eastern France and
Switzerland
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The Franks
The ancient Slavs
The Franks, as they are known today, were a Germanic tribe who eventually became the French. They came never had it
to inhabit the former wealthy Roman provinces of Gaul and became the most powerful of the Germanic particularly easy.
tribes. It was the Franks who created the strongest and most stable barbarian kingdom in the days after the They always
Western Roman Empire had collapsed. seemed to be
The name "Frank" is closely related to the word that means "fierce" or "free" in the Frankish language.
between powerful
From a linguistic point of view, the most direct descendants of the Franks are the Dutch and the Flemish-
adversaries; stuck
speakers of Belgium. The early Franks were a loose confederation of tribes who shared a similar culture.
Tribal loyalty came before loyalty to the confederation and because of this the confederation was extremely between the
weak. warlike Germans
and the martially
powerful steppe nomads or developing between the Frankish and Byzantine Empires, the super powers of their day. To
the North of the Slavs lived the fierce Scandinavians, a society that produced the mighty Vikings and who conquered
many lands. Yet amazingly the Slavs survived, and bewilderingly, they even thrived. Slavic tribes burst forth from their
homeland and conquered and settled half of Europe, forever changing the history of the continent and the world. Few of
the lands that were slavasized by these ancient warriors were ever taken back by their opponents, and the migration of the
Slavs continue to this day, particularly in their ancient drive to the East. Yet, the ancient Slavs that achieved this great
expansion were never considered to be one of the great warrior societies in history.

Magyars: 9th - 10th century AD

The lower Danube, before the river enters the Black Sea, has been Europe's doorway to tribal groups
arriving from the north and east. Here theVisigoths and Ostrogothsand Slavshave first presented
themselves to the Roman empire, requesting or demanding admission. And here there arrives, in AD
889, another group.

They differ from their predecessors in that they are not Indo-Europeans. They speak aFinno-
Ugriclanguage. They call themselves Magyars, but their federation of tribes is known as On-Ogur,
meaning 'Ten Arrows'. The pronunciation of On-Ogur by their new Slav neighbours leads, eventually,
to the name by which the Magyars are later known - Hungarians.
The Magyars have been living for several centuries near the mouth of the Don, as vassals of
the Khazars. From 889 they spend a few years in the Balkans in the service of the Byzantine emperor,
but soon they move on to the northwest, through the Carpathian mountains.

Since 890 their leader has been Arpad, elected prince by the chieftains of the seven Magyar tribes. His
people number no more than 25,000, but together they subdue (within the space of a few years) the
scattered population of the region now known as Hungary. So Arpad becomes the founder of a nation
which somehow - in all the upheavals of central Europe - retains its identity and its language down
through the centuries.

The Slavs in eastern Europe: from the 6th century AD

The Slavs are first referred to by this name in AD 518 when they press into the Roman
empire across the Danube, though they have been settled for more than a millennium in the
region to the north (between the Vistula and Dnieper rivers).

After the collapse of the empire of the Huns, in the 5th century, the Slavs begin to expand
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their territory. They move west into what are now the Czech republic and Slovakia and south
towards the Adriatic and Aegean - where their separate regional and religious development
as Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Macedonians and Bulgarians later makes the peninsula of
the Balkansone of the most politically complex regions on the face of the earth.

These new barbarians came from Scandinavia and are known to us as the Vikings.
Viking conquerors first began to descend upon Europe at the end of the eighth century. Historians believe that they
ventured south because of the difficulties of providing food for their growing population in the extreme climate of
Scandinavia. Unlike the earlier barbarians, who were primarily small bands of nomads, the Vikings had already
developed a fairly complex agricultural society. Most of the people were farmers, and the Vikings had developed
extensive trading networks in eastern Europe that brought goods from as far away as the Orient. Viking men, however,
joined together for voyages of plunder. Venturing out in their well-made ships, they attacked lightly defended seaside
towns and stole what they could.
Beginning in the late eighth century, and proceeding for several hundred years, Vikings ransacked coastal towns in
Britain and France and established settlements. They were so powerful that for a time they conquered all of England,
establishing the Danish king Canute (d. 1035) briefly as king of England. They also voyaged as far as North America,
briefly landing in present-day Canada in about the year 1000. Eventually the Vikings were converted to Christianity and
absorbed into their respective societies.
Viking clothing was much like that of other Europeans from the same time period. Men wore trousers, a tunic, and
perhaps a coat or a large cloak. Women dressed similarly, though their tunic was long, reaching all the way to the feet.
Viking clothing was made primarily of wool, and sometimes of linen, and was often brightly in colour, with purples,
blues, and greens, Like other clothing from this period, however, few actual garments have survived, leaving much of
what is known to second-hand accounts from other societies.