Theodoric the Great

There were many Theodorics in the Middle Ages, but only one was called "The Great." As the son of a king, and later a king himself, we can be certain of several details about him.

He was born in 454CE, right after his people, the Ostrogoths, freed themselves from domination by the Huns after the death of Attila a year before. That was not to say the Ostrogoths were from then on masters of their own faith. His father, Theodemir, made a treaty with Emperor Leo I of the Eastern Roman Empire. One of its conditions was Theodoric's removal to Constantinople as hostage to secure good behavior by the Ostrogoths. (There was also a tribute each year to Constantinople of 300 pounds of gold.)

Theodoric, who was about seven or eight years old, benefitted from this move. Because his father had consolidated lands that had belonged to Theodemir's brothers, the Ostrogoths ruled a large territory, making Theodoric as the next heir a valuable partner for the Empire and someone the Empire wanted to make sure would be a valuable ally in the future. He was therefore educated in reading, writing, and arithmetic by the best imperial teachers and learned far more about the world than he might have otherwise.

Theodoric was returned to his family when he was 15 or 16, and was given command of part of the Osgtrogoth kingdom held by one of his uncles. Shortly after, he proved his value to the kingdom when a Sarmatian king, Babai, attempted to invade an area near Theodoric that was under Constantinople's control. Theodoric with 6000 warriors defeated the invaders and killed Babai.

Theodoric increased his reputation in the 470s by leading military campaigns against enemies of the Goths and the Eastern Roman Empire. When Theodoric was successful against Theodoric the Squinter, a Thracian Goth who had led a revolt against the Emperor Zeno, Zeno rewarded him with command of the Eastern Roman forces.

In 471, he was made King of the Ostrogoths. With this position and the favor of the Emperor Zeno, his star was ascendant. Zeno, however, was a fickle emperor, as we shall see next time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoric_the_Great

http://dailymedieval.blogspot.com/2012/08/4-stages-of-gothichistory-culture.html

Fighting the Vandals, Part 2

After Genseric of the Vandals took over Carthage and made it the Vandal capital, they started looting up and down the Mediterranean. Their domination of the sea was so thorough that an Old English name for it was Wendelsæ ("Sea of the Vandals").

This was obviously a challenge to Rome's power, but Rome was busy on another front: Attila the Hun and his brother Blaeda had been a problem for years. Worse, a request from Emperor Valentinian III's sister to Attila for help complicated matters: Attila thought Honoria was offering herself in marriage, and Attila wanted half the Roman Empire as dowry. Being informed by Valentinian that he had clearly misunderstood the situation, Attila attacked Gaul in 453. This was drawing Rome's military forces substantially inland and away from the Mediterranean coasts.

Rome had a stroke of luck in that Attila died not long after the invasion of Gaul. His three sons' eagerness each to rule a part of the Hun empire helped reduce its effectiveness. Rome could now turn its attention to Genseric and the Vandals—for all the good that did.

Valentinian decided on a diplomatic route, offering his daughter in marriage to Genseric's son. This might have satisfied both sides, but for something neither side saw coming: Valentinian was murdered on 16 March 455 by the senator Petronius Maximus. Maximus bribed the Senate to support him; he married Valentinian's widow, married Valentinian's daughter to Maximus' own son.

Maximus got to be emperor for two and a half months. Genseric, understandably enraged at this betrayal, headed to Rome. Valentinian's widow supposedly sent a message to Genseric or his son requesting saving from Maximus. Maximus requested help from the Visigoths, but it was not forthcoming. He fled Rome as the Vandals arrived, became separated from his retinue in the chaos of escaping, and was killed. The Vandals went on to sack Rome (illustrated above in a 19th-century painting).

The only contemporary account of the sacking of Rome comes from Prosper of Aquitaine (also one of the rare early sources of info on St. Patrick). Prosper says that Pope Leo I ("the Great") asked Genseric to satisfy himself with pillaging, but refrain from murder and destruction. The Vandals not only left Rome with many treasures, but also with Valentinian's widow and daughter.

It would seem that nothing prevented the Vandals from ruling that part of the world indefinitely. Their fortunes were about to turn, however, and we'll see how that happened next time.

Merovech

The Merovingians were the predecessors of the Carolingians (Charlemagne's family) and can be considered the founders of France. I've mentioned the Merovingians a few times (check the list to the right), but hardly spoken about their eponymous founder, Merovech.

Merovech (aka Mérovée, Merowig, and in Latin Meroveus) was on the scene from about 411 until 458 CE. He was king of the Salian Franks, the tribe that became the primary tribe in France. Details are hazy, but his father may have been Chlodio, also king of the Salian Franks.

The Roman historian Priscus, writing about the conflicts between Attila the Hun and Rome, mentions a beardless youth with long hair adopted by Roman general Aetius. This turns out to be Merovech, looking for Roman support in his bid to succeed Chlodio. His rival was his elder brother who aligned with Attila the Hun. The Romans fought the Huns in Gaul, and Merovech became king.

At some point, it apparently became necessary to enhance Merovech's origin. The Chronicle of Fredegar states that Chlodio and his queen were at the sea shore when she went bathing. She was attacked by a sea creature and became pregnant with Merovech. Adding a veneer of divinity wasn't unusual in the Classical and Medieval periods to elevate a ruler's reputation. This origin was adopted and exaggerated by writers in the 20th century to link Merovech to the bloodline of Jesus, to the Illuminati, to Masonic lore, and to horror fiction.

But all this is largely...legendary. The Merovingian dynasty—although named for Merovech—starts officially with Childeric I. He is next up.

Resisting the Huns!

A representation of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields

We mentioned here that the Huns under Bleda and Attila negotiated a treaty with the Eastern Roman Empire. In 450, as sole ruler of the Huns after his brother Bleda's death, Attila put the Western Roman Empire in his sights. The Western Emperor's (Valentinian III) sister, Honoria, sent a message to Attila requesting help; she was betrothed to a senator named Herculanus who kept her confined.

Attila considered Honoria's request for help as an offer of marriage, and thought her dowry should include half the Empire. Emperor Valentinian made it clear that Attila was misunderstanding the situation completely. Attila reacted as one might expect: he invaded Gaul in 451, attacking the town of Metz on 7 April and reaching Orleans (then called Aurelianum) in June.

The general of the Western Roman forces, Flavius Aetius, left Italy for Gaul to counter the Huns. With support from the Visigoths, he reached Aurelianum on 14 June just as Attila had breached the city, chasing him off. (Attila was already in the city, but to remain when news came of an approaching army meant the chance they would be surrounded and besieged themselves.) The combined Roman and Visigothic forces caught up with the Huns on 20 June in the Catalaunian Fields (true location unknown, but presumed to be Chalons in the Champagne region).

We are told by Jordanes that Attila, according to Hunnic custom, had a bird killed and its entrails examined to determine how the battle would go. The prediction was defeat for the Huns but death for an enemy commander. Theodoric, at the head of the Visigoths, was killed. When his son wanted to avenge him, Flavius convinced him to go home and secure the throne. As the Visigoths withdrew from the battlefield, Attila thought it was a ruse to lure him into a trap, so he withdrew the Hunnic troops and abandoned the battle.

Some historians have seen the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields as a pivotal moment when the Huns were prevented from taking over Western Europe. But Attila was not opposed to continue his assault on the Empire. The following year he approached Rome with the goal of claiming Honoria after all. Pope Leo I met him at the edge of Rome, and Attila turned away. When Attila died a year or so later, the Huns became less of a threat to Europe.

Life with the Huns

A 6th century Roman politician named Jordanes turned to writing history in his retirement. He wrote Romana, about Rome, and Getica, about the Goths (of whom he was one). He is the best contemporary source we have for information about the Goths.

In the Getica he tells us about one of the rivals of the Goths, the Huns. He obviously looked down on them as savages (I imagine this was similar to the way Romans looked down on Goths when the Goths approached Rome to conquer it). He claims that their origin was with the Goths themselves, when a Goth ruler expelled witches from the tribes. These witches wandered until:

There the unclean spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through the wilderness, bestowed their embraces upon them and begat this savage race, which dwelt at first in the swamps, -- a stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance to human speech. Such was the descent of the Huns who came to the country of the Goths. [Goths, Chapter 24]

The Huns were ferocious in actions and appearance:

For by the terror of their features they inspired great fear in those whom perhaps they did not really surpass in war. They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearful, and they had, if I may call it so, a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes. Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds. 

Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and arrow, and have firm-set necks which are ever erect in pride. Though they live in the form of men, they have the cruelty of wild beasts. [Ibid.]

Jordanes had no trouble describing them as inferior despite the problems they caused for Rome. Tomorrow we will look at what happened when the Huns under Attila turned their sights back to Rome five years after they negotiated a treaty.

The Huns

Today is the anniversary of Attila the Hun's attack on the town of Metz in Gaul.

In the 1st century CE, the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned a group of people living near the Caspian Sea. They were nomadic, and supposedly had come from the east. Tacitus called them Hunnoi. Ptolemy in 139 CE called them Chunnoi and said they were on the southern shores of the Black Sea. It is not certain if these two were the same peoples, or if they were the same as the Xiongnu people who lived north of China in the 3rd century BCE and later moved westward, as one 18th century scholar proposed.

We know, however, that there was an "empire" of Huns established in eastern Europe by the 4th century CE. They were so feared, conquering and absorbing peoples and dominating their lands, that it has been suggested that the Huns caused the great westward migration of other groups into western Europe.

Its peak of power was under a pair of brothers, Bleda and Attila. They were nephews of the leader Rugila, and took over when Rugila died in 434. The Huns at that time had been causing trouble for the Eastern Roman Empire, and they were in negotiations with Emperor Theodosius II. Several tribes that had been conquered by the Huns had taken refuge within the borders of the Roman Empire, and the Huns wanted them "back home."* Theodosius' legate agreed to push those tribes out of the Empire; the Empires of the Romans and Huns also agreed to trade with each other, and 350 pounds of gold as tribute was paid to the Huns to seal the deal (as well as gold ransoms for the Roman soldiers Huns had captured in recent fighting).

The Huns then turned their attention to invading the Persian Empire, leaving Rome alone for the next five years. They eventually turned back to attacking Europe when conquering Armenia proved difficult, falling into conflict with Rome again.

Bleda, the elder brother, ruled for 11 years. Upon his death, Attila took over. There has been speculation for centuries that Attila killed Bleda, but there is no evidence for it. The Hun Empire lost its focus after Attila's death in 453.

*Sounds a little like Putin annexing the Crimea.

The Lazy Kings

What do you do when a dynasty seems to become useless? You name them Le Rois fainéants (The do-nothing Kings).

The Merovingians are the descendants of Merovech or Merovius, a semi-legendary figure whose father was—according to various reports, such as the Chronicle of Fredegar, expanding on something said by Gregory of Tours—a sea deity. Whatever the case, his son Childeric I (c.457-481) was known to be leader of the Salian Franks, and his son Clovis I united all of Gaul.

The Salian Franks came to an agreement with the Roman Empire. The Salians settled in what had been Roman territory at one time, built a decent political alliance with Rome, and slowly adopted some Roman culture, shifting from the reputation of the Germanic tribes as uncouth and warlike. When Attila and his Huns became a problem for Rome, the emperor was able to call on the Salian Franks—by now well-established as the Merovingian dynasty—for aid, ending the threat to Europe from the Huns.

The adoption of Christianity was another trend that helped change the composition of Frankish culture in Gaul. Although Goths and others adopted the heretical Arianism, the baptism of Clovis cemented ties between the Frankish kingdom and Roman Catholicism, giving them the support of the Pope as well as the Emperor.

Clovis' thirty-year rule may have been the high point of the dynasty, however. The Salic Law confirmed royal inheritance exclusively to male descendants, but not limited to the eldest. Clovis' kingdom was divided among his four sons upon his death. Sibling rivalry often turned into civil war among Clovis' descendants. Even worse: over the next two centuries, these frequent struggles between adjacent sub-kingdoms and the desire to reunite them under one banner had an unintended consequence. Young heirs sometimes became tools of strong military leaders who wanted to cement some power for themselves but needed a divinely anointed king under which to do it. By the 7th century, with much of Frankish land brought together again, the Merovingian line became a series of weak kings who seemed disinterested or simply unable to take control and do anything notable. From 675 (Clovis III, king of Austrasia for one year) to the death of Theuderic IV in 737 (after which the throne was empty for seven years), there were a half-dozen kings of the Franks who are called le rois fainéants because of their uselessness and complete lack of administrative agenda or ability. It was a sad ending to what might have been a noteworthy dynasty in that part of the world.

So...what if you were a competent administrator working in the palace, seeing the problems and wishing you could help get the kingdom back on track? Well, if you are a top administrator with the nickname "Charles the Hammer," you take things into your own hands—for the good of the kingdom, of course. That's a good story for tomorrow.