Daily Medieval

Although during the horrific events of the first recorded appearance of the Bubonic Plague during the time of Justinian we read that rivals...

Just because deaths during the Justinian Plague were so numerous that they couldn't dig graves and had to resort to piling them up in s...

Sometimes a disaster strikes a civilization that kills so many so fast that the systems for providing support and burial cannot keep up. Suc...

The Plague of Justinian in the 540s was determined to be an early strain of the Bubonic Plague by researchers in recent years who were able...

One of the chief sources of the Gothic Wars and of 6th century Byzantine history is Procopius of Caesarea (c.500 - c.565), a Greek scholar a...

There were several people writing during the time of the Justinian Plague  (540s CE). One was Evagrius Scholasticus (c.536 - 594), a lawyer ...

Long, long ago I made a brief mention of the Plague of Justinian, and I've made many posts dealing with the Bubonic Plague , the Black ...

For the sake of ending the Byzantine invasion of Italy to conquer the Ostrogoths and unify the old Western Roman Empire with the Eastern Byz...

Ravenna, in the far north coast of Italy on the Adriatic, was the capital city of the Ostrogoths. Capturing it could bring the Gothic Wars t...

The insubordination of John the Sanguinary that led to the division in the Byzantine army between the forces commanded by Belisarius and th...

The outcome of the insubordination of John the Sanguinary created a dangerous precedent. General Narses disagreed with General Belisarius...

I thought we'd elaborate a little on the conflict mentioned yesterday about the taking of Ariminum (modern Rimini) by a Byzantine force...

King Vitiges of the Ostrogoths besieged Rome, that had been taken and inhabited by the Byzantine forces of Justinian I , led by General Beli...

Whatever the catalyst was—murder of his friend Amalasuintha , or just a desire to avenge Rome and Romans against the Goths—Byzantine Emperor...

The Ostrogothic prince Eutharic took as his wife Amalasuintha, daughter of Theodoric the Great . Eutharic was in line to succeed Theodoric ...

The sons of Clovis saw Burgundy as a target. Sigismund of Burgundy (c.475 - 524) became king in 516. His father, Gundobad, had slain Chilper...

Clodoald (522 - c.560CE) was (along with Theodebald and Gunthar) one of the three sons of King Chlodomer of Orléans. When Chlodomer was kill...

When King Hermanfrid of Thuringia offered part of Thuringia to Theuderic if Theuderic would help him defeat Hermanfrid's brother and co-...

Radegund (c.520 – 13 August 587) was another wife of Clothar I . She was a princess, daughter of Bertachar, a king of Thuringia who co-ruled...

The father of the four sons who were mentioned fighting each other's divided Frankish kingdoms yesterday was Clothar I (one of the four...

Yesterday's post mentioned that the Franks fell into civil war and became less of a threat to Lombardy . The Frankish Kingdom had a lon...

There was a period in the history of the Kingdom of Lombardy when they had no king. Two kings in a row had been murdered—the first by his wi...

The past few days have been filled with discussion about the Lombards, aka the Langobards, and their origin according to medieval texts. Th...

The History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon drew heavily on other works, especially about prior times. One of these was a 7th-century w...

Paul the Deacon assembled information from some of the greatest scholars and historians and his own observations to create his Historia Lan...

Paul the Deacon (c.720s – 13 April c.796-799) has many writings attributed to him (some probably erroneously, like a life of Gregory the Gr...

Winfrid was born about 720 in the Duchy of Friuli, the northern part of the Italian Peninsula that was the kingdom of the Lombards. His pare...

There was a rebellion against Charlemagne in 792 by a handful of Frankish nobles headed by Charlemagne's eldest son, Pepin the Hunchback...