Battle on the Asfeld
The battle on the Asfeld took place in 552 between the Gepids and Lombards . Turismod, the son of the Gepid king Turisind , was killed by Alboin , son of the Lombard king Audoin . The name Asfeld ( Germ. For "battlefield") goes back to the monk Paulus Diaconus , who hereby proves himself to be a good expert on Germanic mythology. The place of the armed conflict is believed to be between the Danube and the Save .
prehistory
Under the Lombard king Audion, an alliance was concluded with the Eastern Roman Empire , which was directed against the Gepids . Emperor Justinian I left the “Urbs Pannoniae” and the “Norikon Polis” (southern Pannonia and the Pannonian- Norse fringe areas) to Audion . The Danube , which ran from north to south, became the border between the Lombards and the Gepids. In addition, after the death of the Frankish king Theudebald , who was a bitter opponent of Byzantium , Audion was able to establish an alliance with the Franks and thus take away the last ally of the Gepids.
Wars with the Gepids
As a result, there were several armed conflicts between these two peoples, of which the first two (547 armistice and 549 flight of both armies) were ended without fighting; at the encounter of 552 the Gepids fled after the death of Turismod and suffered a heavy defeat. But the encounter was not over yet, Alboin was to be included in his father's round table, which he was only allowed to do if he had received his weapons from a foreign king. Therefore he went to Thurisind with forty men and told him about his request. He was warmly received, even a quarrel that broke out during the banquet was settled by Thurisind, and he gave Alboin the weapons of his fallen son; de facto this was an adoption as a "son of a weapon". After his return, Alboin was able to participate as a table companion at his father's table.
Fifteen years later there was an alliance between the Lombards and the Avars against the Gepids. But the latter no longer had to intervene in the dispute, as the Lombards were already victorious. The Gepid king Kunimund was personally killed in this battle in 567 by the Lombard king Alboin and the Gepids were completely defeated. The Avars had been granted the territory of the Gepids; a year later the Lombards moved to Italy and the Avars were able to occupy all of Pannonia.
consequences
Audion was grateful for the Eastern Roman support by sending his core force of 5500 warriors to Narses in Italy. This troop formed with about 3000 Herulers the shock troop of the Byzantine army 552 in the decisive battle at Busta Gallorum , in which the king of the Ostrogoths Totila was killed.
Alboin married Rosamunde , daughter of the Gepid King Kunimund, for the second time . According to a legendary account, he is said to have forced her to drink from a drinking vessel ( scala ) made from the skull of her father Kunimund. This then led in 572 or 573 to a conspiracy of the Italian Gepids instigated by Rosamunde and to the murder of Alboin.
literature
- Paulus Deacon : Historia Langobardorum . (Ed. And translated by Wolfgang F. Schwarz: History of the Longobards.) Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , Darmstadt 2009. ISBN 978-3-534-22258-2 .
- Karin Priester: History of the Longobards: Society - Culture - Everyday Life. Konrad Theiss Verlag , Stuttgart 2004. ISBN 380621848X .
Individual evidence
- ↑ István Bóna: The Dawn of the Middle Ages: Gepids and Longobards in the Carpathian Basin , p. 26 f. Corvina-Verlag, Budapest 1976. ISBN 9631344959 .
- ^ Paulus Diaconus, 1st book 23/24.