Amalafrid

Amalafrid (* before 531; † 552) was the son of the Thuringian King Herminafried and Amalaberga and, through his sister, the brother-in-law of the Lombard King Audoin .

After the fall of the Kingdom of Thuringia in 531, he and his mother first fled to the Ostrogoths in Ravenna . After it was conquered by Eastern Roman troops in 540, Amalafrid and his mother were brought to Constantinople in the wake of the Eastern Roman magister militum (army master) Belisarius . A military career in the Byzantine service made him rise to the magister militum himself around the year 550 . During the Longobard- Pidean War, Emperor Justinian I sent Eastern Roman auxiliary troops to the Lombards in 552 under the leadership of Generals Justin and Justinian , the sons of Germanus , as well as Aratius , Suartuas and Amalafrid. The Eastern Roman army was stopped in the bishopric Ulpiana (near today's Lipljan in old Serbia ) by religious unrest. Amalafrid was the only one to reach his brother-in-law Audoin with his units on time. A reply to the letter to Amalafrid of Saint Radegunde shows that Amalafrid was killed in the Gepid War. He had a son named Artachis .

swell

• Prokopios , De Bello Gothico, IV, 25.
• Venantius Fortunatus , Carm. App. 3.

literature

• Reiss Museum Mannheim (ed.): The Franks, trailblazers Europe. 1500 years ago. King Clovis and his heirs. 2 volumes. von Zabern, Mainz 1996, ISBN 3-8053-1813-8 (catalog for the exhibition).
• Berthold Rubin : The Age of Justinian. Volume 2. Edited from the estate of Carmelo Capizzi. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-11-003411-5 .