![]() Mistreatment of the Gothic refugees caused a full-scale rebellion, and in 378 they inflicted a crippling defeat on the Eastern Roman field army in the Battle of Adrianople, in which Emperor Valens ( r.364–378) was also killed. In 376, the Visigoths, fleeing before the Ostrogoths, who in turn were fleeing before the Huns, were allowed to cross the Danube river and settle in the Balkans by the government of the Eastern Roman Empire. The capacity for immigration in a state as large and powerful as the Roman Empire was nearly infinite, but several events and accidents in the fourth through fifth centuries complicated the situation. Inviting peoples from beyond the imperial frontier to settle Roman territory was not a new policy, but something that had been done several times by emperors in the past, mostly for economic, agricultural or military purposes. The migrations were spurred by both invasions and invitations. non-Roman) peoples into the territory of the Roman Empire. The starting point of the process that led to their formation were the migrations of large numbers of barbarian (i.e. The rise of the barbarian kingdoms in the territory previously governed by the Western Roman Empire was a gradual, complex and largely unintentional process. By the time of the coronation of Charlemagne, king of the Franks, as emperor in 800, the event usually seen as marking the end of the age of the barbarian kingdoms, only the Frankish kingdom remained out of the once vast and diverse network of kingdoms.Ģ0th-century painting of Alaric I, leader of the Visigoths 395–410, entering Athens after capturing the city in 395 For the most part, the barbarian kingdoms were highly fragile and ephemeral. As a result, there was a considerable breakdown in living standards as well as social and economic complexity. The major difference between the administration of the old Western Roman Empire and the new royal administrations was their scale, as the barbarian governments, on accounts of controlling significantly less territory, were less deep and less complex. The barbarian kings also adopted many aspects of the late Roman administration, but the old Roman system gradually dissolved and disappeared over the centuries, accelerated by periods of political turmoil. The kings typically also assumed a subordinate position in diplomacy with the remaining Eastern Roman Empire. Virtually all of them assumed the style dominus noster ("our lord"), previously used by the emperors, and many assumed the praenomen Flavius, borne by virtually all Roman emperors in late antiquity. The barbarian kings of the west drew on legitimacy through connecting themselves to the Roman Empire in order to strengthen their rule. It was only after the collapse of effective Western Roman central authority that the barbarian realms transitioned into proper territorial kingdoms. The influence of barbarian rulers, at first local warlords and client kings without firm connections to any territories, increased as Roman emperors and usurpers used them as pawns in civil wars. The formation of the barbarian kingdoms was a complicated, gradual and largely unintentional process, as the Roman state failed to handle barbarian migrants on the imperial borders, leading to both invasions and invitations into imperial territory, but simultaneously denied barbarians the ability to properly integrate into the imperial framework. The barbarian kingdoms, also known as the post-Roman kingdoms, the western kingdoms or the early medieval kingdoms, were the states founded by various non-Roman, primarily Germanic, peoples in Western Europe and North Africa following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. Political map of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East in 476, showing the remaining Eastern Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean and the various new kingdoms in the territory of the former Western Roman Empire ![]()
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