The Legacy of Germanic Kingdoms to West European Civilization Remained for Centuries

Most of the Germanic Kingdoms got united under Charlemagne (768-814)

Within a century of the Germanic invasions there were settled kingdoms in western Europe, except in Britain where bands of invaders still met stubborn resistance. Among these the Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric the Great (493-526) was outstanding. But the apparent stability proved short-lived. Monarchical institutions were still weak and religious differences divided the Arian rulers from their Catholic subjects. Justinain’s attack on the Ostrogothic kingdom destroyed the existing equilibrium in the west and opened the way for the advance of the Franks to the leading position.

The Franks also had appeared on the scene as scattered war-bands, but Clovis (486-511) ruthlessly eliminated his rivals, made himself sole king and reconciled the Gallo-Roman population by embracing the Catholic faith. He then turned against the neighboring peoples, the Alemanni and Burgundians, defeated the Visigoths at Vouille (507) near Poitiers, and forced them to withdraw to Spain and Septimania. But Theodoric’s support for the other Germanic kingdoms checked further advance, and only after his death was a new phase of Frankish expansion possible. Deprived of Ostrogothic support the Thuringians, Burgundians and Alemanni succumbed and in 537 the Franks seized Provence.

Once the initial wave of conquest was spent, however, decline set in. division of the royal patrimony dynastic quarrels and alienation of the royal estates to buy aristocratic and ecclesiastical support, seemed after the death of Dagobert I (629-39) to presage the break-up of the kingdom. In Britain, on the other hand, the seventh century saw the emergence and consolidation of the kingdoms known as the Heptarchy. It seems that the kingdoms of the south-east (Sussex, Kent, Essex, East Anglia) were prevented from expanding by geographical obstacles and leadership passed first to Morthumbria and then to Mercia. The progress of Northumbria was helped by its early conversion to Christianity, but it was resisted by pagan Mercia under Penda during 632 to 654, sometimes in alliance with the Britons and by the time of Offa the preeminence of Mercia, now Christian was unquestionable. It controlled the four eastern kingdoms and even Wessex recognized Mercian overlordship.

In the Frankish lands the turning point came with the battle of Tertry in 687, when the leaders of the Austrasians aristocracy established their preponderance. This was the beginning of the rise of the Carolingian dynasty. Ruling at the first indirectly but after 751 with the royal title, the Carolingians restored Frankish fortunes and inaugurated a great surge of territorial expansion. Charles Martel (714-41) won a famous victory over the Arabs at Poitiers in 732. His son Pepin expelled them from Aquitana in 752. Charles the Great or Charlemagne conquered Lombardy in 774 and established Frankish rule in Italy. But his great victories were in the east against the Bavarians, the Avars and the Saxons finally subdued in 804. His coronation as emperor by Pope Leo III in 800 marked the apogee of Frankish success.

However the Charlemagne’s last ten years were beset by problems, the frontier marches safe from attacks; and after his death the inherent institutional weaknesses quickly became apparent. Civil war led to a first partition in 843. But the famous treaty of Verdun was only a first step and at Meersen (870) the ‘Middle Kingdom’ was eliminated and the familiar outlines of Europe began to take shape. In 888 the Carolingian empire collapsed but its legacy to European civilization remained.