Battle of Vouillé
The Battle of Vouillé or Campus Vocladeus near Poitiers , France took place in the late summer of 507 between the Franks under Clovis I and the Visigoths under Alaric II . Whether the site of the battle is really today's Vouillé (about 15 km northwest of Poitiers) or (according to more modern theses more likely) today's Voulon (about 30 km south of Poitiers) is a matter of debate . Instead of the current form of the name Vouillé, the medieval form of the name Vouglé is sometimes used.
prehistory
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After the victory of the Merovingian Franks over the Alamanni in 506 in a battle near Strasbourg , which finally put an end to the political autonomy of this main association, it was generally assumed that the Franks were expanding their urge to expand further east, especially in Rätien (Raetia prima in Chur , the realm of the Goths belonged, and Raetia secunda in Augsburg would pursue, that was apparently connected to it by contracts).
The Ostrogoth king Theodoric the Great took the necessary precautionary measures and brought his army into position on the Upper Rhine and Iller , but Clovis evidently did not intend to act in this direction; his interests lay in the south, south of the Loire , which at that time formed the border between the Frankish empire and the Visigoth empire.
When Theodoric noticed this, he tried to avert the looming war by sending embassies in different directions ( Burgundy , Thuringian , Heruler and Warnen ). He seemed to be ignorant of the fact that Clovis had already made agreements with the Burgundians on the one hand and Theodoric's most powerful enemy, the Eastern Roman Emperor Anastasios I , on the other before the submission of the Alemanni ; This involved Theodoric on the Ostrogothic eastern border around Belgrade in fights, so that he could no longer come to the aid of the Visigoth king Alaric II in time.
In 507 Clovis declared war on the Visigoths. Although he pretended to be waging a religiously motivated campaign against Arianism , he did not meet with the hoped-for sympathy among the Gallo-Roman inhabitants of Aquitaine .
The battlefield of Voulon
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The sources do not provide any information about a battlefield at Vouillé .
According to the sources, the battlefield of the great Battle of Voulon in 507 is bordered by an equilateral triangle, with a circumference of about 3 × 18 km = 54 km and an area of about 140 km². On its southwest corner are the villages of Voulon and Aché, on its northwest corner Vivône (today Vivonne) and on its eastern corner the town of Gençay. The western side of the triangle, between Voulon and Vivôn (n) e, is marked by the river Clain , which runs in a south-north direction , the northeast side of the triangle, from Gencay to Vivôn (n) e, by the river Clouère , and the south-eastern side, from Voulon to Gençay, by today's road. To the south of this road was the Sycharet camp, in the great plains of Champagné-Saint-Hilaire, where the battle presumably ended. About in the middle of the places Voulon and Vivon (n) e, about 2.5 km from the river Clain, is the place La Mothe (today Motte) -de-Ganne.
The places Mesgon (today Château-Larcher), Vivone (today Vivonne ), Gençay , Anché and La Mothe (today Motte) -de-Ganne were the backdrop of the great battle of 507, as was the village of Voulon.
The course of the battle
As nine years earlier, the Franks advanced from Tours to Bordeaux . Possibly 17 kilometers northwest of Poitiers , near Vouillé , or more likely near Voulon , about 25 km south of Poitiers, the Visigoths, whose nobility had urged the king to fight, were met and won a complete victory. King Alaric II probably fell at the hands of Clovis and his army retreated south.
In the valley of Vienne at the height of Civaux a legend has been handed down, which took place around the end of the battle.
After a long journey, Clovis and his Merovingian army had tried to find a passage through the floods of the Vienne near Civaux . In a miraculous way a deer (French: la Biche ) showed him the place of a ford . His army was then able to cross the river and end the battle (presumably the one described above) victorious. A spring rose under the hooves of the royal horse; the soldiers could be tended and the horses watered. The survivors were baptized in Civaux. A large number of existing sarcophagi provided the opportunity to bury those who fell in battle.
Three field names still remind of these events today: “Le gué de la Biche” (The ford of the deer), “La Font Chrétien” (The Christian spring) and “La Chaise-du-Roi” (The king's chair).
Continuation of the story
Bordeaux had to be given up by the Visigoths. Clovis spent the coming winter there and sent his son Theuderich I from there the following spring to conquer the Auvergne while uniting himself with the Burgundians who had entered the war after the battle of Vouillé (Voulon) to conquer the Visigoth capital of Toulouse . The Gallic Mediterranean coast as far as Provence, however, remained Visigothic, but the Visigoth Empire came under the temporary rule of the Ostrogoths, who came to the aid of the Visigoths under Theodoric.
The losers of the battle were the Visigoths, who then retreated to Spain , where they ruled for another 200 years until they were overrun by the Arabs from the south ; The Franks were the victor, and the Ostrogoths also initially profited, although the Visigoths broke away from them after Theodoric's death (526). The Burgundians, allied with the Franks, who had conquered Toulouse together with Clovis, but whose advance into the Visigothic possessions on the Gallic Mediterranean coast had been stopped, could in the end be happy to have survived the war unscathed - although they soon after the defeat against the Franks, in the battle of Autun in 532 in the Franconian Empire .
See also
List of wars , list of battles
literature
- Eugen Ewig : The Merovingians and the Franconian Empire , Stuttgart a. a. 1993.
- Ralph W. Mathisen, Danuta Shanzer (Eds.): The Battle of Vouillé, 507 CE. Where France Began (= Millennium Studies . Volume 37). De Gruyter, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-1-61451-127-4 .
- Christian Stadermann: Capud victuriarum vestrarum .... The reception of the battle of Vouillé in 507 in 6th century sources. In: Carola Föller, Fabian Schulz (Ed.): East and West 400–600 AD. Communication, cooperation and conflict. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-515-10942-0 , pp. 99–116
- Herwig Wolfram: The Goths , Munich 2001.