The Germanic Kingdoms

The overthrow on September 4, 476, of the last Roman emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, by a barbarian chieftain, Odoacer, King of the Heruli, marked the conquest of the Western portion of the former Empire by the Germanic peoples (Pohl 2002, 15-16), who had been settling there since the late fourth century— although officially it was understood as a reunification of the Empire in the person of the Near Eastern Emperor Flavius Zeno.

5.2.1 Diversity Versus Unity

In contrast to the unity of the Imperial Era, the West thereafter broke into a series of “kingdoms”, the most important being:

- The Visigoths, who between 418 and 507 established themselves in southern France, setting up their capital at Toulouse. In this period reigned Euric (466­484), the most powerful Germanic king within the borders of the old Western Roman Empire. With him ended what Heather (2004, 166-178), has called the “Transformation of the Goths”, which began in 376. After being severely defeated by the Franks at Vouille in 507, the Visigoths migrated to Spain where Leovigild (573-586), fixed the new Visigothic capital at Toledo, which became the West’s most well-structured Germanic kingdom until it was wiped out by Islamic occupation in 711. Herwig Wolfram has even called the Spanish Kingdom of the Visigoths, the “First Nation of Europe” (Wolfram 1997, 260­278).^[165]

- The Ostrogoths, headed by Theodoric. After driving out Odoacer in 493, they settled in Italy for 60 years, developing one of the most Romanized Western Germanic kingdoms (Heather 2004, 216-258), until Justinian’s reconquest in 552. Three decades later, the Lombards arrived in the Italian peninsula, their reign to last for two centuries (568-774).

- The Vandals arrived in Spain in the early fourth century, and proceeded to Africa, where they would remain for practically a century (435-534), until the territory was occupied, first by Justinian and then by the Muslims.

- The Suebi, also present in Spain since 409, founded an independent kingdom in the northwestern region of the Peninsula that lasted until they were conquered by the Visigoths under King Leovigild in the year 585.

- The Burgundians, who established themselves between Geneva and Lyon, retained their kingdom for nearly a century (443-534), until they were con­quered by the Franks.

- The Franks, forged into a kingdom by Clovis in 481, rapidly expanded through­out Gaul after defeating the Visigoths in 507 and the Burgundians in 534, which enabled them to establish a protectorate over the territories already occupied by the Alamanni and the Bavarians (James 1991, 79-87). After the Muslim occu­pation of Visigothic Spain, the Frankish realm became the most important of the West’s Germanic kingdoms (Becher 2011, 179-198).

- Finally, between 500 and 650, the Angles and Saxons settled most of southern Great Britain, confining the Britons to the western reaches of Cornwall and Wales (Stenton 2001, 31).

5.2.2 The Social and Political Transformation

of the Germanic Peoples

After the disappearance of the Western Roman Empire, the Germanic kings became independent. The establishment of solid political structures in these new Germanic kingdoms, however, was no easy task, because the Germanic tribes traditionally had a model of political organization which might be described as “collective”, in the sense that it contrasted sharply with the “monarchical” structure of the Roman Empire. As a result, the kings’ power was undercut by their patrimonial conception of their kingdoms, and the considerable power wielded by the chiefs of the clans making up the Germanic peoples. As Noble (2006, xiv) affirms, the old idea that barbarian tribes suddenly toppled Rome and replaced its Empire with their own kingdoms and cultures, has been replaced by the conclusion that, in reality, the Germanic gentes adapted to, accommodated and absorbed Rome.

Originally, the most characteristic feature of the Germanic tribes was that they governed themselves “collectively”. The Germanic peoples described by Julius Caesar in his Bellum Gallicum (Murray 1983, 42-50), and especially by the Roman historian Tacitus (55-120), were initially, nomadic societies featuring a military structure in which major decisions were made by all the warriors gathered in assemblies.^[166] The Germans, at this stage, had no kings but those occasionally elected as leaders to lead the army in war, and who held power only as long as war was being waged.

When these peoples came into contact with the Roman Empire beginning in the late third century, the structures of their polities underwent a profound transforma­tion, as they abandoned their nomadic ways and became sedentary peoples occu­pying fixed territories (Goffart 2006, 195-216). As a result, they began to gradually abandon their traditionally collective decision-making and to exhibit practices more akin to the Roman model. To begin with, the Germanic warlords gave way to “kings”, although the traditional spirit of their assemblies did survive to some extent in the ecclesiastical councils, where the king met with the members of the aula regia and the bishops, and the creation of the popular jury as an instrument to resolve legal conflicts.

5.2.3 Roman Monarchy vs. German Royalty

The Germanic peoples had no tradition of politically structured societies. Unlike the Romans, the Germans did not feature “monarchy”, that is, the sustained possession of power by one individual. In fact, it should be noted that the Germans did not use the Latin word “rex”, of Indo-European origin that designates the leader of a human group, the one person (monarch) who exerts the political power, the drafter of the “rules” (regula) (Lupoi 2007, 233).

In times of war Germans used to designate a temporary military commander, elected to lead their people or tribe’s army during a campaign. Wolfram (1997, 19­20) makes a difference between tribal kingship and military kingship. Though there is very little information in sources about archaic tribal kingship, as they are only dimly visible in old names and tales of abandoned cults, the tribal kings,—theodcyning— were charitable “normal” gods, as they had divine ancestors. They were “heros” that assured the “eternal return” of traditional order and maintained a geographically small, stable system of laws and traditions by ensuring fertility and peace. On the contrary, the military kings of the age of migration came always from a good family ex nobilitate and his military success was the precondition to be named king.^[168]

In any case the Germanic king, thus, was no dominus with absolute power over a territory and its inhabitants. He stood at the head of a people who elected him, but after his appointment power still resided in the community. Traditionally the most important decisions were made by the assembly of all the free men (mallus). Over time, however, between the assembly of free men and the king, a group of eminent members of the community came to intercede (nobiles, magnates), the equivalent of the old companions of the emperor (comes) comprising the comitatum (Gefolgschaft in German). They swore allegiance to the king, in return for which they obtained a substantial portion of the spoils from military campaigns. As Halsall (2009, 497) has indicated, the fall of the Empire and the barbarian migra­tions did not overturn the traditional bases of aristocratic power.

Delving into the realm of concrete examples, in the case of the Visigoths, before establishing themselves in Spain (sixth century), the king was assisted by an assembly of elders belonging to the most influential families (seniores).^[169] In Visigothic Spain, this assembly endured, initially as the senatus, until the late sixth century, to be replaced by a new assembly: the Aula Regia, also called Palatium Regis or Oficium Palatinum.

Consequently, the power of these Germanic kings, unlike that of the Roman dominus, was by no means absolute. First, because they were elected and could be deposed. Secondly, because, in principle, the kings were bound by their traditional law. Such was the case, for instance, with the Frankish kings (James 1991, 162-65). Thirdly, because the vast majority of their subjects were former Roman citizens who had their own institutions and who, generally, were truly led by the only territorial power which had remained intact after the demise of the imperial state: the Church. If the bishops exercised clear influence on the emperors from the fourth century onwards, their power over the new monarchs became even more crucial, as they represented Romans constituting some nine tenths of the kingdom’s population.

5.2.4 The Gradual Assimilation of the Roman Imperial Tradition

After their settlement in the territory of the extinct Western Roman Empire, a sedentary lifestyle transformed the political practices of the Germanic peoples. Once they had an increasingly territorial state structure, the new “barbarian” leaders assimilated some features of the former Roman state.

First of all, the Germanic peoples, once settled, began to choose kings, which triggered constant conflicts and struggles for the crown between the various clans, led by notabiles, which quite often ended with the monarch’s murder at the hands of a rival family.

If in the field of succession the Germanic kings gradually moved away from the Roman imperial tradition, in the legislative and jurisdictional fields they moved closer to it. They not only began to legislate, but appointed judges. Originally, the law for the Germans had been the custom of each people, clarified by the assembly of warriors when there was a conflict. The same assembly was the entity which judged cases and issued verdicts. Thus, law was not created ex novo. Rather, the unwritten tradition was simply concretized when necessary.

From the time when the Germanic kingdoms emerged, however, monarchs strove to monopolize the legislative function by following the example of the emperors of the Dominate. Submission to the traditional or customary law of each people, inspired by the practices of past Germanic kings, gave way in many cases to monarchs gradually enacting laws. Some of them consolidated this new power to create law with the support of the Church, as happened, for example, at the councils of Toledo in the Visigothic kingdom, which approved the laws proposed by the monarch (King 2006, 23-51).

The kings also tended to monopolize the exercise of judicial functions, whether by themselves or through judges they appointed to act on their behalf. Thus, emerged a relatively bureaucratic administration of justice in which judges were organized hierarchically, with the possibility of appealing decisions of lower courts, following the scheme of Late Roman due process (cognitio extraordinem) all the way up to the king himself.

5.2.5 The Structural Weaknesses of the New Kingdoms: Patrimonial Possession, Inheritance and Protofeudalism

Despite the progressive assimilation of the concepts and structures of the former Roman state, the Germanic monarchies were politically very unstable, though there were exceptions, of course. Thus, when a charismatic monarch came along, such as the Franks’ Clovis (481-511), of the Merovingian dynasty, he was able to forge a great kingdom by way of conquest.

However, these moments of brilliance were most often limited to a single reign. First, because an uncharismatic monarch was seldom respected by his subjects and, above all, by the representatives of the rival clans. Secondly, because when the Roman Empire dissolved the abstract notion of the state and its leadership, con­ceived as public authority, disappeared along with it. The Germanic kings adopted a patrimonial conception of their kingdoms, envisioned as the property of the reigning family, which caused, among other things, hereditary divisions among the heirs of the deceased monarch.^[170] Finally, the need to establish an effective administration of the royal domains demanded that they cede parts of the territory to nobles, who ended up ruling with considerable autonomy. This is what the special­ized historiography has termed protofeudalism, as it was the first step towards feudal fragmentation, a phenomenon which ultimately took root when royal power faded in the Early Middle Ages.

5.3