Gepid

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The realm of the Gepids in the Carpathian Basin between 539 and 551

The Gepids (also Gepidi , Gebidi ; Latin: Gipedae , Gepidae ) were an East Germanic tribe in the area of ​​today's Hungary and Romania , which was possibly related to the Goths . They became known when they drove the sons of Attila from what is now Hungary under Ardarich at the Battle of Nedao (454 or 455) . The Gepidenreich established afterwards on the central Danube existed until the 6th century.

history

The Gepids are often referred to as relatives of the Goths in late antique sources , but their exact origin is unknown. Assumptions in older research that they could come from Scandinavia have not proven to be well founded, especially since statements in this regard are to be rated as topos in some sources . In the context of such gentile narratives (see Origo gentis ) such descent were often constructed. Due to the archaeological findings, it is not possible to record unambiguously gepidic finds from the early Roman Empire . It is therefore quite possible that the Gepids only emerged as an independent group in the 3rd century.

The Roman Empire under Emperor Hadrian , the Gepids then lived in the Vistula region

In the middle of the 3rd century, at the time of the imperial crisis of the 3rd century and the ensuing period of weakness in the empire, the Gepids, under their king Fastida , advanced south across the Vistula. In this context, they are said to have defeated the Burgundians and finally reached northern Transylvania . Some then moved to the Black Sea with the Goths. However, it is unlikely that the Gepids took part in the related incursions into the Empire. Only in the very controversial Historia Augusta are they mentioned twice in this regard. However, the sources report that the Gepids were involved in battles with the Goths at the end of the 3rd century.

There are no reports of clashes with the Romans in the 4th century. Apparently the Gepids were busy trying to assert themselves in conflict with their neighbors. During the migration period in the early 5th century, perhaps part of the Gepids moved with the Vandals to Gaul (see Rhine crossing from 406 ). Most of the Gepids, who had come under the rule of the Huns , remained in the Tisza area. In the battle on the Catalaunian fields , the Gepids fighting on the Hunnic side were defeated by the Franks on the Roman side .

Ardarich and his Ostrogothic counterpart Valamir had been close followers of Attila . When Attila died in 453, he left a number of teenage sons, the eldest of which was Ellac . The new, mutually disagreed leaders of the Huns distributed war-experienced kings like the servants of a house and thus provoked a revolt of the Skiren , Rugier , Heruler , Goths , Gepids and other groups, at the head of which the Gepid Ardarich sat. Ardarich obtained the benevolent neutrality of Valamir and won on the Nedao (454 or 455). Ellac fell with several of his warriors. This broke the Hun domination in this area and the Hun empire, which was loosely built up anyway, quickly fell apart. The Gepids took over what is now Transylvania . The resultant Gepidenreich under Ardarich's leadership quickly established itself as an important power factor in this area. But soon the decline of their position of power began to decline. The Ostrogoths settled in Pannonia and put some pressure on their neighbors. In 469 a coalition force, which included the Gepids, was defeated by the Ostrogoths in the Battle of the Bolia . Nevertheless, they gave up their Pannonian dominion around 473. Some parts went into Roman service, others formed a Roman federated empire in the Balkans. After the Ostrogoths withdrew, the Gepids were able to regain some influence in this area. They also occupied Sirmium , where the Gepid kings resided in the period that followed.

In 488, the Gepids unsuccessfully opposed the procession of the Ostrogoth Theodoric , who wanted to invade Italy with Eastern Roman approval in order to overthrow Odoacer there. The Gepid King Thraustila fell in these battles. After his death, the Gepid kingdom seems to have been divided: While Thraustila's son Thrasaric continued to reside in Sirmium, a certain Gunderith ruled over the Theissgepids. In 504 Thrasaric was driven out of Sirmium by Theodoric, who had meanwhile established himself in Italy. After Theodoric's death, the Gepids tried to retake Sirmium. After this initially failed in 530, the capture finally succeeded after the Goths had to fight against Eastern Roman troops in Italy (see Gothic Wars ). The position of the Gepids on the central Danube seemed to be strengthened again, but towards the middle of the 6th century the Lombards became opponents of the Gepids, with Ostrom trying to build up the Lombards as a counterweight to the Gepids.

In the dispute over the succession of the Lombard king Wacho and the murder of his son Walthari , the grandson Tatos , Hildigis, made claims to the throne, but had to flee from the usurper Audoin to the Gepids. Conversely, the Gepid pretender Ostrogota had to flee from the Gepid usurper Turisind to the kingdom of the Lombards. These two troublemakers of the then ruling power structure were killed by their guest tribes without further ado. With that, peace could have reigned, but both warring kings armed themselves. In 547 the first war broke out between the Gepids and the Lombards. This was however contractually terminated. As early as 549 there was the next confrontation, but it ended strangely with a strike by the warriors. The fighters refused to obey their kings and fled from the battlefield in panic; It is believed that a total lunar eclipse from June 25th to 26th, 549 was the reason, but it could also be that the warriors refused allegiance to the two usurpers.

The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I was evidently primarily interested in eliminating the Gepids as a disruptive power factor in this area, sometimes pretending to support the Gepids, but secretly helping the Lombards. Three years later (552) the Gepids suffered a heavy defeat in a decisive battle, the son of their king Turisind was killed. A peace treaty was then concluded, but tensions remained. In the year 567 the Gepids under their king Kunimund were defeated and killed by the Longobards under Alboin . Alboin had previously agreed an alliance with the Avars , the new power factor in this area, which threatened the Gepids from two sides. To avoid a two-front war , the Gepids had attacked the Lombards, and they were defeated. Allegedly the Gepid King was killed by Alboin himself. Even this defeat brought the Gepid Empire to collapse, which is why the Avars did not have to intervene in the fighting. The fall of the Gepid Empire was also connected with the death of Justinian and the changed Eastern Roman foreign policy under his successor Justin II . Already in 565 he rejected a request for help from the Gepids. After their victory, the Lombards in turn left the Gepid Empire and their own tribal area in western Pannonia to the Avars and withdrew to Italy in 568.

The majority of the surviving Gepids (and Kunimund's daughter Rosamunde ) moved with the Lombards to Italy, others remained under Avar rule or transferred to Eastern Roman territory. It is conceivable that Alboin wanted to achieve with the agreed occupation of the Gepidia by the Avars that a large part of the Gepid would join him. It is possible that he was planning the march to Italy at the time of the Gepids War, whereby it was advantageous to integrate as many warrior groups from the Carpathian Basin as possible into his Longobard network.

The Gepid royal city of Sirmium apparently fell into Eastern Roman hands after the defeat against the Lombards. Their gepidish commander Usdibad as well as Kunimund's nephew Reptila and the Arian bishop Thrasaric had handed over the royal treasure of the Gepids to Ostrom and had gone into exile. When the Avars took possession of the Gepidenland, they besieged the city unsuccessfully and demanded the surrender of Usdibad. In the years 599 and 601, many areas of land populated by the pezidae were devastated by the generals Priskos , Petros and Komentiolos as part of the Balkan campaigns of Maurikios , who was the first Roman emperor to take the triumphal name Gepidicus at the beginning of his reign . Then the tracks of the Gepids are lost.

Leaders and kings of the Gepids

archeology

From the historically handed down settlement area of ​​the Gepids east in Transylvania and in the Hungarian lowlands east of the Tisza , treasure finds and grave fields are known that can be associated with this tribe. These include the treasure trove of Szilágysomlyó and the rich graves of Apahida , early medieval row grave fields with numerous grave goods such as weapons and fibulae were found in Szentes- Nagyhegy and in Hódmezővásárhely- Kishomok , for example .

swell

  • Pál Lakatos: Source book on the history of the Gepids (= Opuscula Byzantina. Vol. 2, ISSN  0139-2751 ; = Acta Universitatis de Attila József Nominatae. Acta antiqua et archaeologica. Vol. 17). JATE, Szeged 1973 (Latin and Greek sources, no translation).

literature

  • István Bóna : The Dawn of the Middle Ages. Gepids and Longobards in the Carpathian Basin . Corvina, Budapest 1976.
  • István Bóna, Margit Nagy, János Cseh and others: Gepidic burial grounds in the Tisza region . (= Monumenta Germanorum Archaeologica Hungariae . Volume 1–2). 2 volumes. Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Budapest 2002-2005, ISBN 963-9046-77-9 (volume 1); ISBN 963-7061-17-7 (Volume 2).
  • Wilfried Menghin , Tobias Springer, Egon Wamers (eds.): Teutons, Huns and Avars. Treasures of the Migration Period. The archeology of the 5th and 6th centuries on the middle Danube and the east Merovingian row burial period . Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 1987, ISBN 3-9801529-4-4 (exhibition catalog).
  • Walter Pohl : The Gepids and the Gentes on the central Danube after the collapse of the Attila Empire . In: Herwig Wolfram , Falko Daim (ed.): The peoples on the middle and lower Danube in the fifth and sixth centuries . (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Memoranda . Volume 145 = Publications of the Commission for Early Medieval Research . Volume 4). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-7001-0353-0 , pp. 239–305.
  • Günter Neumann , Margit Nagy, Walter Pohl , Áttila B. Tóth:  Gepiden. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 11, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, ISBN 3-11-015832-9 , pp. 115-140. (introductory article)
  • Walter Pohl: The Avars. A steppe people in Central Europe 567–822 AD . 2nd updated edition. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-48969-9 .
  • Dieter Quast : Goths and Gepids. Text fragments from the Wulfila Bible . In: Matthias Knaut (Ed.): The migration of people. Europe between antiquity and the Middle Ages (= archeology in Germany . Special issue 2005). Theiss, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1574-X , pp. 46-48.
  • Roland Steinacher: Rome and the barbarians. Peoples in the Alpine and Danube region (300-600). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2017.
  • Ágnes B. Tóth: Gepid settlements in the Tisza region (= Monumenta Germanorum Archaeologica Hungariae. Volume 4). Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Budapest 2006, ISBN 963-7061-33-9 .

Web links

Commons : Gepids  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Jordanes chap. XVII (94) Jordanes "Getica" in engl. Translation by Charles C. Mierow; University of Calgary web publication, Ed. J. Vanderspoel
  2. ↑ Basically at this time see Pohl: The Gepids and the Gentes on the middle Danube after the collapse of the Attila Empire.
  3. ↑ Karin Priester: History of the Longobards: Society - Culture - Everyday Life , p. 30. Konrad Theiss Verlag , Stuttgart 2004.
  4. ↑ Cf. Pohl: The Avars. P. 52ff.
  5. ↑ Walter Pohl : The migration of people. Conquest and Integration. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 2002, ISBN 3-17-015566-0 , p. 195 f.