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Kingdom of the Burgundians

5th-century kingdom of early Germanic tribes

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The kingdom grew out of the 443 Imperial Roman resettlement of allied Burgundians to the region of Sapaudia, which at that time included Lake Geneva. These Burgundians were built around the remnants of a previous Roman-allied Burgundian kingdom which the Romans had allowed to settle on the western bank of their Rhine border at Borbetomagus, probably near Worms, having previously been Roman allies living east of the Rhine, outside the empire. The tribal ruler who was responsible for this move was Gundahar. In about 436, Gundahar and many of the people he led were killed by the Roman military leader Flavius Aetius working with his Hun allies.

Background

The Burgundians who were settled near Lake Geneva saw themselves as a continuation of the Burgundians led by Gundahar who lived west of the Rhine after about 406, and were slaughtered by the Romans and Huns in 436. The legal code made for the kingdom of the Burgundians by King Gundobad (died 516), mentions his royal predecessors (auctores) as not only his father (Gundioc) and paternal uncle (Chilperic I), but also Gibica, Gundomar, Gislahar, and Gundahar. As apparent descendants (or at least successors) of Gibica, this line of kings are referred to today as the Gibichung dynasty, a name which is drawn from medieval heroic legends, including the Niebelungenlied and the Völsunga saga, which depict the memorable defeat of Gundahar by the Huns in highly fictionalized forms.

The Burgundians of Gundahar crossed the Rhine into Roman Gaul before 409, during a period of crisis on the Roman Rhine border region. They were swept along by massive movements of armed Alans, Vandals and other peoples from the east, and conflicts within the Roman empire itself after the death of emperor Theodosius I in 395, when his two sons were still young. Once his younger son Honorius regained centralized Roman control of the Rhine region from the usurper Jovinus in 413, Gundahar's Burgundians were accepted as Roman foederati - non-Romans living within Roman as allies with military obligations. The exact position of this Rhine kingdom is uncertain, but it is this period of Burgundian history which is fictionalised in the Niebelungenlied, which portrays king Gundahar ruling from Worms, south of Mainz, and so this is traditionally seen as the region where they settled.

Before this, the Burgundians lived east of the Rhine, near the Main river. They became particularly important as Roman allies against their neighbours the Alemanni during the reign of Emperor Valentinian I in 364-375. Roman historians Ammianus Marcellinus and Orosius both noted that their forces were large, and also that they believed themselves to be descendants of people who once defended Roman border fortifications near the Main which the Romans had since lost control of. While it is likely that the Romans encouraged this belief themselves, the reports make it unlikely that the Burgundians had any other clear conception of their origins.

In fact the Burgundians near the Main probably at least partly came from what is now Poland. They were first named in surviving written records by Pliny the Elder in the first century, who only mentioned that within the Germanic peoples, the Burgundians were one of the Vandilic group which also included the Varini and Gutones. From other sources however, we know that the Varini, Gutones, and later peoples referred to as Vandals lived east of the Elbe river, quite far from Roman territories. Similarly, in the second century Claudius Ptolemy described Burgundi west of the Vistula river and Phrugundiones east of it, and both of these people might reflect the same people mentioned earlier by Pliny. In the early third century, sixth-century writer Jordanes reported that the Burgundians were devastated in a defeat by the Gepid king Fastida, who was at this time living near the mouth of the Vistula, and looking to expand his territories. A panegyric made in 291 mentions a second devastating defeat in the third century, this time against the eastern European Goths. It was also during the third century that Burgundians first appeared in Roman records regarding conflicts near the Rhine, in what is now Southern Germany.

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