Burgundians

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

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Kingdom of the Burgundians in around 500

Burgundians were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and were later moved into the empire, in the western Alps and eastern Gaul. They were possibly mentioned much earlier in the time of the Roman Empire as living in part of the region of Germania that is now part of Poland.

Variants

• Burgundiones
• Burgodiones
• Latin: Burgundes, Burgundiōnes, Burgundī;
• Old Norse: Burgundar;
• Old English: Burgendas;
• Greek: Βούργουνδοι)
• Burgundian (बरगंडियन)
• Burgundians (बरगंडियन)
• Frugundiones - Frugundiones? may have been a variant of Burgundiones with the "B" as an "F" Furgundiones > Frugundiones
• Phrungundiones
• Burgiones

Jat clans

• Barkia
• Birk
• Bura

History

The Burgundians are first mentioned together with the Alamanni as early as the 11th panegyric to emperor Maximian given in Trier in 291, and referring to events that must have happened between 248 and 291, and they apparently remained neighbours for centuries.By 411 a Burgundian group had established themselves on the Rhine, between Franks and Alamanni, holding the cities of Worms, Speyer, and Strasbourg. In 436, Aëtius defeated the Burgundians on the Rhine with the help of Hunnish forces, and then in 443, he re-settled the Burgundians within the empire, in eastern Gaul.

This Gaulish domain became the Kingdom of the Burgundians, in the western Alps region. This later became a component of the Frankish Empire. The name of this kingdom survives in the regional appellation, Burgundy, which is a region in modern France, representing only a part of that kingdom.

Another part of the Burgundians formed a contingent in Attila's Hunnic army by 451.]

Uncertain early history: Before clear documentary evidence begins, the Burgundians may have originally emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the Baltic island of Bornholm, and from there to the Vistula basin, in the middle of what is now Poland.

The origins of the Burgundians before they reached the area near the Roman-controlled Rhine is a subject of various old proposals, but these are doubted by some modern scholars such as Ian Wood and Walter Goffart. As remarked by Susan Reynolds:

Wood suggests that those who were called Burgundians in their early sixth-century laws were not a single ethnic group, but covered any non-Roman follower of Gundobad and Sigismund. Some of the leaders of Goths and Burgundians may have descended from long-distant ancestors somewhere around the Baltic. Maybe, but everyone has a lot of ancestors, and some of theirs may well have come from elsewhere. There is, as Walter Goffart has repeatedly argued, little reason to believe that sixth-century or later references to what looks like names for Scandinavia, or for places in it, mean that traditions from those particular ancestors had been handed through thick and thin.

They have long been associated with Scandinavian origin based on place-name evidence and archaeological evidence (Stjerna) and many consider their tradition to be correct (e.g. Musset, p. 62). According to such proposals, the Burgundians are believed to have then emigrated to the Baltic island of Bornholm ("the island of the Burgundians" in Old Norse). By about 250 AD, the population of Bornholm had largely disappeared from the island. Most cemeteries ceased to be used, and those that were still used had few burials (Stjerna, in German 1925:176). In Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar (The Saga of Thorstein, Viking's Son), a man (or group) named Veseti settled on a holm (island) called borgundarhólmr in Old Norse, i.e. Bornholm. Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius uses the name Burgenda land to refer to a territory next to the land of Sweons ("Swedes"). The 19th century poet and mythologist Viktor Rydberg asserted from an early medieval source, Vita Sigismundi, that they themselves retained oral traditions about their Scandinavian origin.

Early Roman sources, such as Tacitus and Pliny the Elder, knew little concerning the Germanic peoples east of the Elbe river, or on the Baltic Sea. Pliny (IV.28) however mentions a group with a similar names among the Vandalic or Eastern Germanic Germani peoples, including also the Goths. Claudius Ptolemy lists these also, as living between the Suevus (probably the Oder) and Vistula rivers, north of the Lugii, and south of the coast dwelling tribes. Around the mid-2nd century AD, there was a significant migration by Germanic tribes of Scandinavian origin (Rugii, Goths, Gepidae, Vandals, Burgundians, and others)towards the south-east, creating turmoil along the entire Roman frontier. These migrations culminated in the Marcomannic Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and the first invasion of Italy in the Roman Empire period. Jordanes reports that during the 3rd century, the Burgundians living in the Vistula basin were almost annihilated by Fastida, king of the Gepids, whose kingdom was at the mouth of the Vistula.

In the late 3rd century, the Burgundians appeared on the east bank of the Rhine, apparently confronting Roman Gaul. Zosimus (1.68) reports them being defeated by the emperor Probus in 278 near a river, together with Silingi and Vandals. A few years later, Claudius Mamertinus mentions them along with the Alamanni, a Suebic people. These two peoples had moved into the Agri Decumates on the eastern side of the Rhine, an area today referred to still as Swabia, at times attacking Roman Gaul together and sometimes fighting each other. He also mentions that the Goths had previously defeated the Burgundians.

Ammianus Marcellinus, on the other hand, claimed that the Burgundians descended from the Romans. The Roman sources do not speak of any specific migration from Poland by the Burgundians (although other Vandalic peoples are more clearly mentioned as having moved west in this period), and so there have historically been some doubts about the link between the eastern and western Burgundians.

In 369/370, the Emperor Valentinian I enlisted the aid of the Burgundians in his war against the Alemanni.

Approximately four decades later, the Burgundians appear again. Following Stilicho's withdrawal of troops to fight Alaric I the Visigoth in AD 406–408, a large group of peoples from central Europe north of the Danube, came west and crossed the Rhine, entering the Empire, near the lands of the Burgundians who had moved much earlier. The dominant groups were Alans, Vandals (Hasdingi and Silingi), and Danubian Suevi. The majority of these Danubian peoples moved through Gaul and eventually established themselves in kingdoms in Roman Hispania. One group of Alans was settled in northern Gaul by the Romans.

Some Burgundians also migrated westwards and settled as foederati in the Roman province of Germania Prima along with the Middle Rhine. Other Burgundians however remained outside the empire and apparently formed a contingent in Attila's Hunnic army by 451.

Consolidation of the kingdom

According to Gregory of Tours, the years following Gundobad's return to Burgundy saw a bloody consolidation of power. Gregory states that Gundobad murdered his brother Chilperic, drowning his wife and exiling their daughters (one of whom was to become the wife of Clovis the Frank, and was reputedly responsible for his conversion). This is contested by, e.g., Bury, who points out problems in much of Gregory's chronology for the events.

In c. 500, when Gundobad and Clovis were at war, Gundobad appears to have been betrayed by his brother Godegisel, who joined the Franks; together Godegisel's and Clovis' forces "crushed the army of Gundobad". Gundobad was temporarily holed up in Avignon, but was able to re-muster his army and sacked Vienne, where Godegisel and many of his followers were put to death. From this point, Gundobad appears to have been the sole king of Burgundy. This would imply that his brother Gundomar was already dead, though there are no specific mentions of the event in the sources.

Either Gundobad and Clovis reconciled their differences, or Gundobad was forced into some sort of vassalage by Clovis' earlier victory, as the Burgundian king appears to have assisted the Franks in 507 in their victory over Alaric II the Visigoth.

During the upheaval, sometime between 483 and 501, Gundobad began to set forth the Lex Gundobada (see below), issuing roughly the first half, which drew upon the Lex Visigothorum. Following his consolidation of power, between 501 and his death in 516, Gundobad issued the second half of his law, which was more originally Burgundian.

Name

The ethnonym Burgundians is commonly used in English to refer to the Burgundi (Burgundionei, Burgundiones or Burgunds) who settled in eastern Gaul and the western Alps during the 5th century. The original Kingdom of the Burgundians barely intersected the modern Bourgogne and more closely matched the boundaries of Franche-Comté in northeastern France, the Rhône-Alpes in southeastern France, Romandy in west Switzerland, and Aosta Valley, in north west Italy.

In modern usage, however, "Burgundians" can sometimes refer to later inhabitants of the geographical Bourgogne or Borgogne (Burgundy), named after the old kingdom, but not corresponding to the original boundaries of it. Between the 6th and 20th centuries, the boundaries and political connections of "Burgundy" have changed frequently. In modern times the only area still referred to as Burgundy is in France, which derives its name from the Duchy of Burgundy. But in the context of the Middle Ages the term Burgundian (or similar spellings) can refer even to the powerful political entity the Dukes controlled which included not only Burgundy itself but had actually expanded to have a strong association with areas now in modern Belgium and Southern Netherlands. The parts of the old Kingdom not within the French controlled Duchy tended to come under different names, except for the County of Burgundy.

See also

• Burgundy
• List of Germanic peoples