The situation was transformed by nomadic, non-Germanic Hunnish horsemen from the east who pushed Germanic peoples into the Roman Empire in several waves. First, in 376, Visigoths were admitted by the emperor Valens as foederati (“allies”) to farm and defend the frontier. This procedure was not without precedent and was unusual only in the enormity of the group involved (traditionally estimated at about 80,000). The Romans were unprepared for such a large group, and their failure to accommodate the group and outright hostility toward the Visigoths led to confrontation. Two years later the Visigoths killed Valens, winning a famous victory at Adrianople (now Edirne, Turkey), though by 382 they had been subdued. Yet, as the Huns moved west, Rome’s frontiers came under increasing pressure, and further large incursions (by Germanic as well as other peoples) occurred in 386, 395, 405, and 406. Some of the invaders were defeated, but Germanic Vandals and Suebi established themselves in Spain and later in North Africa, and the Visigoths exploited the disorder to rebel, especially after the election of Alaric as king. Marching to Italy, they demanded better terms, and, when these were not forthcoming, they sacked Rome on August 24, 410. Even though Rome was no longer capital of the empire, the sack was a profound shock for the people of the empire.
The Roman Empire nevertheless remained an important power in Europe, both militarily and economically. Hence Germanic groups on the run from the Huns were anxious to make peace; even the Visigoths accepted a settlement in Gaul in 418. Since Germanic peoples had no sense of either common interests or common identity, they could be played off against one another; thus the Vandals were savaged by the Visigoths between 416 and 418. Until about 450 fear of the Huns meant that the empire could, in moments of crisis, mobilize at least Visigoths, Burgundians (received into Gaul after being defeated by the Huns in 439), and Franks for its defense. Soon after Attila’s death in 453, however, the Hun empire collapsed, and Rome lost this diplomatic weapon. It also suffered a progressive loss of revenue as territories were either occupied or—like Britain—abandoned by the imperial government. The balance thus swung further in the Germanic peoples’ favour, and they eventually declared themselves independent. In the 470s a Visigothic kingdom emerged in southwestern Gaul and later gained control of most of the Iberian Peninsula. Meanwhile, a Burgundian kingdom arose in southeastern Gaul, and Clovis created a Frankish kingdom in the north. The Vandals already controlled North Africa and the Suebi part of Spain, and Gepid and Lombard kingdoms dominated the Danube. A band of Germans, led by Odoacer, deposed the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 and set up a kingdom in Italy. Ostrogoths freed by the collapse of the Hun empire struggled for a generation to find a new homeland. Their struggles sometimes brought them into conflict with the Eastern Empire, whose ruler, Zeno, sought to mitigate the situation by elevating the Ostrogothic king, Theodoric, to the office of patrician. When this solution failed, Zeno sent Theodoric against Odoacer. Theodoric ultimately defeated Odoacer and established a successful Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy that lasted from 493 to 555.
These Germanic successor states brought the Roman Empire in western Europe to an end. The empire could have resisted any of them singly, but the Hun invasions had pushed too many Germanic groups across the frontier too quickly. Battles, however, were the exception. More often the empire unwillingly, but peacefully, granted areas for settlement, and, as Rome became increasingly weaker, the local Roman provincial population looked to the newly settled Germanic peoples for protection. This period thus continued the transformation of the Germanic world. Because of the danger from Rome and the Huns, Germanic political units again increased in size. The new Germanic groups also fell under the influence of the Roman populations they came to rule. Literate, educated Romans enabled German kings systematically to raise taxation and expand their legal powers. The successor states to the Roman Empire were thus a fusion of Germanic military power and the administrative know-how of Roman provincial aristocrats. Transformation was complete in these regions when Germanic warrior and Roman provincial elites quickly intermarried, bringing into being a new aristocracy that was to shape medieval Europe.
Within the boundaries of present-day Germany, the Hunnish conquest drove Germanic peoples out of the region to the east of the Elbe and Saale rivers during the early 5th century. This area was subsequently settled by peoples speaking Slavic languages, and present-day eastern Germany remained Slavic for some seven centuries. To the west and south, Germanic peoples such as the eastern Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Thuringians, Alemanni, and Bavarians—all speaking West Germanic dialects—had merged Germanic and borrowed Roman cultural features. It was among these groups that a German language and ethnic identity would gradually develop during the Middle Ages. Peter John Heather Merovingians and Carolingians
When the Western Roman Empire ended in 476, the Germanic tribes west of the Rhine were not politically united. The West Germanic tribes, however, spoke dialects of a common language and shared social and political traditions. These traditions had been influenced by centuries of contact with the Roman world, both as federated troops within the empire and as participants in the broader political and economic network that extended beyond the Roman frontier. In particular a strongly military structure of social organization, under the direction of commanders termed kings or dukes, had developed among the federated tribes within the empire and spread to tribes living outside the empire proper. Likewise, the Ostrogothic kings in Italy extended their influence over much of the Germanic world north of the Alps. Merovingian Germany
The Franks, settled in Romanized Gaul and western Germany, rejected Ostrogothic leadership and began to expand their kingdom eastward. Clovis’s eventual conversion to Catholic Christianity improved the position of the Franks in their new kingdom because it earned them the support of the Catholic population and hierarchy of late Roman Gaul. Clovis and his successors, particularly Theodebert I (reigned 534–548), brought much of what would later constitute Germany under Frankish control by conquering the Thuringians of central Germany and the Alemanni and Bavarians of the south. Generally, these heterogeneous groups were given a law code that included Frankish and local traditions and were governed by a duke of mixed Frankish and indigenous background who represented the Frankish king. In times of strong central rule, as under Dagobert I (629–639), this leadership could have real effect. When the Frankish realm was badly divided or embroiled in civil wars, however, local dukes enjoyed great autonomy. This was particularly true of the Bavarian Agilolfings, who were closely related to the Lombard royal family of Italy and who by the 8th century enjoyed virtual royal status. In the north the Frisians and Saxons remained independent of Frankish control into the 8th century, preserving their own political and social structures and remaining for the most part pagan. In areas under Frankish lordship, Christianity made considerable progress through the efforts of native Raetians in the Alpine regions, of wandering Irish missionaries, and of transplanted Frankish aristocrats who supported monastic foundations. The rise of the Carolingians and Boniface
By the end of the 7th century and the beginning of the 8th, Merovingian authority throughout the Frankish world had been seriously diminished by internal divisions among rival noble factions. Although the dynasty would retain possession of the crown until 751, it was effectively replaced by a rising power, the Carolingian family, which controlled the office of mayor of the palace. The Carolingians, or Pippinids as they are known in their early days, first rose to power in the second decade of the 7th century when they assisted Chlothar II in the overthrow of Queen Brunhild. Their leader, Pippin I, was rewarded with the office of mayor, and his descendants would use the office as a means to enhance their power. However, both the Merovingians and Carolingians faced the claims of rival aristocratic families, including the Agilolfings, who also held the office of mayor of the palace. The victory of Pippin II over the Agilolfing mayor at the battle of Tertry in 687 reunited the kingdom in the name of the Merovingian king Theuderic IV and signaled the rising power of the Carolingians. Pippin’s son, Charles Martel, after a struggle with Pippin’s widow, assumed his father’s position and came to be the leading figure in the realm. His position was so secure that he was able to rule during the last three years of his life without a Merovingian king on the throne, and he also was able to divide the kingdom between his two sons as the Merovingians had traditionally done.