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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

VIII. THE GERMANS TO 476 A.D.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Germany and the Germans   * Breaking of the Danube Barrier   * Breaking of the Rhine Barrier   * Inroads of the Huns   * End of the Roman Empire in the West, 476 A.D.   * Germanic Influence on Society

Page 8

KINGDOM OF THE VISIGOTHS, 415-711 A.D.

From Rome Alaric led his hosts, laden with plunder, into southern Italy. He may have intended to cross the Mediterranean and bring Africa under his rule. The plan was never carried out, for the youthful chieftain died suddenly, a victim to the Italian fever. After Alaric's death, the barbarians made their way northward through Italy and settled in southern Gaul and Spain. In these lands they founded an independent Visigothic kingdom, the first to be created on Roman soil.

 

ROMANIZATION OF THE VISIGOTHS

The possessions of the Visigoths in Gaul were seized by their neighbors, the Franks, in less than a century; but the Gothic kingdom in Spain had three hundred years of prosperous life. The barbarian rulers sought to preserve the institutions of Rome and to respect the rights of their Roman subjects. Conquerors and conquered gradually blended into one people, out of whom have grown the Spaniards of modern times.

 

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy