The barbarian kingdoms were states founded by various non-Roman, primarily Germanic, peoples in Western Europe and North Africa following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE., , The barbarian kingdoms were the principal governments in Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages. The time of the barbarian kingdoms is considered to have come to an end with Charlemagne's coronation as emperor in 800, though a handful of small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms persisted until being unified by Alfred the Great in 886.
The most historically significant of the barbarian kingdoms include the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania, the Frankish Kingdom in Gaul, the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy, the Lombard Kingdom in Italy, the Suevic Kingdom in Gallaecia, the Vandal Kingdom in Africa, and the Burgundian Kingdom in Sapaudia.
The formation of the barbarian kingdoms was a complicated, gradual, and largely unintentional process. Their origin can be traced to the Roman state failing to handle barbarian migrants on the imperial borders, which led to both invasions and invitations into imperial territory from the 3rd century onwards. Despite an increasing influx of barbarians, the Romans simultaneously denied them the ability to properly integrate into the imperial framework. Barbarian rulers were at first local warlords and client kings without firm connections to any territory. Their influence only increased as Roman emperors and usurpers began to use them as pawns in civil wars. The barbarian realms only transitioned into proper territorial kingdoms after the collapse of effective Western Roman central authority.
Barbarian kings established legitimacy through connecting themselves to the Roman Empire. Virtually all barbarian rulers assumed the style dominus noster ("our lord"), previously used by Roman emperors, and many adopted the praenomen Flavius, borne by nearly all Roman emperors in late antiquity. Most rulers also assumed a subordinate position in diplomacy with the remaining Eastern Roman Empire. Many aspects of the late Roman administration survived under barbarian rule, though the old system gradually dissolved and disappeared, a process accelerated by periods of political turmoil.
Etymology "The barbarian kingdoms" is the collective term commonly used by modern historians to designate the kingdoms established in Western Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The term has been criticized by some scholars on account of "barbarian" being a pejorative term. Some historians also consider "barbarian kingdoms" to be a misnomer since the kingdoms were supported and to a large degree staffed by former Roman elites. Alternate terms that have been proposed and used by some historians include "post-Roman kingdoms", "Roman-barbarian kingdoms", "Latin-Germanic kingdoms", "Latin-barbarian kingdoms", "western kingdoms", and "early medieval kingdoms".
"Barbarian kingdom" was not a contemporary term and was not used by the populace of the kingdoms to designate their own states. Early medieval writers in the kingdoms sometimes used "barbarian" in reference to denizens of other kingdoms, though never in reference to their own.
Formation Background The rise of the barbarian kingdoms in the territory previously governed by the Western Roman Empire was a gradual, complex, and largely unintentional process. Their origin can ultimately be traced to the migrations of large numbers of barbarian (i.e. non-Roman) peoples into the territory of the Roman Empire. Although the Migration Period ( 300–600) is often referred to as the "Barbarian Invasions", migrations were spurred not only by invasions but also by invitations. Inviting peoples from beyond the imperial frontier to settle Roman territory was not a new policy, and something that had been done several times by emperors in the past, mostly for economic, agricultural or military purposes. Because of the size and power of the Roman Empire, its capacity for immigration was nearly infinite. Several events through the fourth and fifth centuries complicated the situation.
The Visigoths (376–410) In 376, the Visigoths were allowed to cross the Danube river and settle in the Balkans by the government of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Visigoths, numbering perhaps 50,000 (out of which 10,000 were warriors), were refugees, fleeing from the Ostrogoths, who in turn were fleeing from the Huns. The Eastern emperor, Valens (364–378), was pleased at the arrival of the Visigoths as it meant that he could recruit their warriors at low cost, bolstering his armies. Barbarian tribes seeking to settle in the empire were typically broken up into smaller groups and resettled across imperial territory. The Visigoths were however allowed to remain united and to themselves choose Thrace as their place of settlement. Although the Roman state was to provide the Visigoths with food, imperial logistics could not handle the large number of refugees and Roman officials under the command of Lupicinus worsened the crisis by selling off much of the food before it reached the Visigoths. Amid rampant starvation, some Visigoth families were forced to sell their children into Roman slavery for food. After Lupicinus had a group of high-ranking Visigoths killed, the situation erupted into a full-scale rebellion, later known as the Gothic War (376–382). In 378, the Visigoths inflicted a crippling defeat on the Eastern Roman field army in the Battle of Adrianople, in which Emperor Valens was also killed.
The defeat at Adrianople was a shock for the Romans, and forced them to negotiate with, and settle, the Visigoths within the imperial borders. The treaties at the conclusion of the Gothic war made the Visigoths semi-independent foederati under their own leaders, able to be called upon and drafted into the Roman army. Unlike previous settlements, the Visigoths were not dispersed and instead given cohesive lands in the provinces of Scythia, Moesia, and perhaps Macedonia. Although the defeat at Adrianople was disastrous, several modern historians have criticized the idea that it was a decisive step in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Other than the Visigoths remaining a cohesive group, their eventual settlement was not much different from previous groups and they had been effectively pacified and contained by the early 380s.
Roman civil wars in the late 4th century, as well as periods of cold war between the imperial courts of the Western and Eastern Roman empires, allowed the Visigoths under their leader Alaric I (395–410) to become an active force in imperial politics, only tenuously linked to the imperial government itself. Both Visigoths and Romans were aware that Gothic autonomy had only been accepted because there were few alternatives and repeated Gothic casualties in Roman wars likely made the Visigoths increasingly suspicious of Roman motives. In this context, the Visigoths revolted several times under Alaric, who sought to attain a formal position in the imperial framework as a Roman general, as well as pay for his followers as Roman soldiers. Alaric was repeatedly caught in the rivalry and court intrigue between the Eastern and Western empires and his failure to obtain formal recognition eventually led to his forces sacking Rome in 410.
Breakdown in Gaul and Britannia (388–411)
Roman civil wars in the late fourth century were disastrous for the defense of the Western Roman Empire. In 388, the eastern emperor Theodosius I (379–395) defeated the western usurper-emperor Magnus Maximus (383–388). In 394, Theodosius's troops again defeated a western rival, Eugenius (392–394). Both conflicts meant large slaughters of Western Roman regiments. After Magnus Maximus, no significant western emperor ever traveled north of Lyon and there appears to have been very little real imperial activity in Britannia or northern Gaul. In many ways, the Roman Empire ceased to make itself felt in the region; local offices were withdrawn to southern Gaul, aristocrats fled south, and the local capital was moved in 395 from Trier to Arles. Archaeological evidence from Britannia and northern Gaul showcase a rapid collapse of Roman industries, villa life, and Roman civilization as a whole. The effective border of imperial control moved from the Rhine frontier to the Loire.
Between 405 and 407, a large number of barbarians invaded Gaul in what is called the crossing of the Rhine, including the Alans, Vandals, and Suebi. These groups were not from the kingdoms immediately adjacent to Roman Gaul; instead they had likely been heavily dependent on Roman gifts and were provoked to journey west as such gifts stopped and the Huns arrived in the east. The barbarians quickly overwhelmed what remained of the Roman defensive works in the region and led Roman forces in Britain to acclaim the usurper-emperor Constantine III (407–411).
Constantine III managed to keep the barbarians on the Rhine somewhat in check. The end of his reign due to further internal Roman conflict left the armies in Gaul in tatters and led to the tribes being able to penetrate deep into Gaul and Hispania. Without sufficient military force and with administration impossible, the imperial government effectively abandoned Britannia and northern Gaul around 410. In Britannia, this led to fragmentation into numerous local kingdoms. In northern Gaul, dominion was taken over by peoples such as the Franks and Burgundians, who had formerly lived beyond the imperial frontier.
Imperial acceptance (411–476) The second stage in the formation of the barbarian kingdoms was the imperial acceptance of the status quo. The Roman government at no point saw the existence of semi-autonomous barbarian-controlled territories as desirable, but began to tolerate them through the 420s and 430s. Neither the Romans nor the various barbarian groups sought to establish new and lasting territorial kingdoms that replaced the imperial government. The rise of the barbarian kingdoms derived not from barbarian interest in creating them but from failures in Roman governance and a failure to integrate the barbarian rulers into the existing Roman imperial systems.
Early barbarian rulers were tolerated only on the terms of the Roman Empire. Early 'kingdoms', such as those of the Suebi and Vandals in Hispania, were consequently relegated to the edges of less important provinces. In 418, the Visigothic groups formerly under Alaric were settled by Emperor Honorius (393–423) in Aquitania in southern Gaul, establishing the Visigothic Kingdom. The Romans envisioned this as a provisional settlement of loyal clients of the imperial government, whose support could be relied on in internal struggles. The settlement was not seen as an actual ceding of imperial territory, given that the Roman administration was also envisioned as continuing in the granted lands, albeit overseen by the Visigoths as vassals. Though some Roman generals in the time of Honorius had worked to curb the influence and power of the barbarian rulers, the number of civil wars that followed Honorius's death made the status of the barbarians a secondary concern. Instead of suppressing the barbarian kings, emperors and usurpers in the fifth century viewed them as useful internal players.