The Alemanni or Alamanni were a confederation of Germanic tribes on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the Agri Decumates in 260, and later expanded into present-day Alsace and northern Switzerland, leading to the establishment of the Old High German language in those regions, which by the eighth century were collectively referred to as Alamannia.
The Merovingian dynasty was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gallo-Romans under their rule. They conquered most of Gaul, defeating the Visigoths (507) and the Burgundians (534), and also extended their rule into Raetia (537). In Germania, the Alemanni, Bavarii and Saxons accepted their lordship. The Merovingian realm was the largest and most powerful of the states of western Europe following the breakup of the empire of Theodoric the Great.
Pope Stephen II was born a Roman aristocrat and member of the Orsini family. Stephen was the bishop of Rome from 26 March 752 to his death. Stephen II marks the historical delineation between the Byzantine Papacy and the Frankish Papacy. During Stephen's pontificate, Rome was facing invasion by the Lombards when Stephen II went to Paris to seek assistance from Pepin the Short. Pepin defeated the Lombards and made a gift of land to the pope, eventually leading to the establishment of the Papal States.
The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons, were the Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony which became a Carolingian "stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. They were the northern neighbours of the Franks and Thuringians, and the eastern neighbours of the Frisians.
The 280's decade ran from January 1, 280, to December 31, 289.
Aquitaine, archaic Guyenne or Guienne, is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It is situated in the southwest corner of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain; for most of its written history Bordeaux has been a vital port and administrative centre. It is composed of the five departments of Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. Gallia Aquitania was established by the Romans in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably.
Irene of Athens, surname Sarantapechaena, was Byzantine empress consort to Emperor Leo IV from 775 to 780, regent during the childhood of their son Constantine VI from 780 until 790, co-ruler from 792 until 797, and finally empress regnant and sole ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire from 797 to 802. A member of the politically prominent Sarantapechos family, she was selected as Leo IV's bride for unknown reasons in 768. Even though her husband was an iconoclast, she harbored iconophile sympathies. During her rule as regent, she called the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which condemned iconoclasm as heretical and brought an end to the first iconoclast period (730–787). During her 5 year sole reign, her public figure was polarizing, due to the setbacks faced by the Empire and her iconophilic stances, often attributed to her gender and the influence of her retinue. Her reign as sole ruler made her the first ever empress regnant, ruling in her own right, in Roman and Byzantine imperial history.
Maximian, nicknamed Herculius, was Roman emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Trier but spent most of his time on campaign. In late 285, he suppressed rebels in Gaul known as the Bagaudae. From 285 to 288, he fought against Germanic tribes along the Rhine frontier. Together with Diocletian, he launched a scorched earth campaign deep into Alamannic territory in 288, refortifying the frontier.
Constantine VI, sometimes called the Blind, was Byzantine emperor from 780 to 797. The only child of Emperor Leo IV, Constantine was named co-emperor with him at the age of five in 776 and succeeded him as sole Emperor in 780, aged nine. His mother Irene exercised control over him as regent until 790, assisted by her chief minister Staurakios. The regency ended when Constantine reached maturity, but Irene sought to remain an active participant in the government. After a brief interval of sole rule Constantine named his mother empress in 792, making her his official colleague.
Septimania is a historical region in modern-day southern France. It referred to the western part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed to the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septimania was ceded to their king, Theodoric II. During the Early Middle Ages, the region was variously known as Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia, or Narbonensis. The territory of Septimania roughly corresponds with the modern French former administrative region of Languedoc-Roussillon that merged into the new administrative region of Occitanie. In the Visigothic Kingdom, which became centred on Toledo by the end of the reign of Leovigild, Septimania was both an administrative province of the central royal government and an ecclesiastical province whose metropolitan was the Archbishop of Narbonne. Originally, the Goths may have maintained their hold on the Albigeois, but if so it was conquered by the time of Chilperic I. There is archaeological evidence that some enclaves of Visigothic population remained in Frankish Gaul, near the Septimanian border, after 507.
The Kingdom of the Franks, also known as the Frankish Kingdom, the Frankish Empire or Francia, was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era.
In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. Particularly during the period from AD 395 to 476, there were separate, coequal courts dividing the governance of the empire into the Western provinces and the Eastern provinces with a distinct imperial succession in the separate courts. The terms Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire were coined in modern times to describe political entities that were de facto independent; contemporary Romans did not consider the Empire to have been split into two empires but viewed it as a single polity governed by two imperial courts for administrative expediency. The Western Empire collapsed in 476, and the Western imperial court in Ravenna disappeared by AD 554, at the end of Justinian's Gothic War.
Chlodio, also Clodio, Clodius, Clodion, Cloio or Chlogio, was a Frankish king who attacked and then apparently ruled Roman-inhabited lands around Cambrai and Tournai, near the modern border of Belgium and France. He is known from very few records.
The Salian Franks, also called the Salians, were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Lower Rhine in what was then the Roman Empire and today the Netherlands and Belgium.
This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic peoples. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings, later Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire that started in the late second century BC, and more. The series of conflicts was one factor which led to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire in particular and ancient Rome in general in 476.
The Kingdom or Domain of Soissons is the historiographical name for the de facto independent Roman remnant of the Diocese of Gaul, which existed during late antiquity as a rump state of the Western Roman Empire until its conquest by the Franks in AD 486. Its capital was at Noviodunum, today the town of Soissons in France.
The Franks were a western European people during the Roman Empire and Middle Ages. They began as a Germanic people who lived near the Lower Rhine, on the northern continental frontier of the empire. They subsequently expanded their power and influence during the Middle Ages, until much of the population of western Europe, particularly in and near France, were commonly described as Franks, for example in the context of their joint efforts during the Crusades starting in the 11th century. A key turning point in this evolution was when the Frankish Merovingian dynasty based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire first became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. From this starting point they imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire.
Ascaric or Ascarich was an early Frankish war leader, who, along with his co-leader, Merogais, are the earliest known leaders explicitly called Frankish, although the name of the Franks is earlier.
Ascaric, Ascarich or Anscharic is a Germanic name that appears in Latin sources as Asacarius, Assacarius, Assaccarius, Ascaricus or Askericus. It is a compound name derived from Proto-Germanic asca-, "ash," probably species of Fraxinus, meaning also "spear," and Proto-Germanic -ric < Celtic *rig-, meaning "ruler." Asca- may allude to the spear of *Wodanaz, a symbol of his inspirational power, or the name of the first man in the Germanic creation myth. -Ric was a common name suffix among early Germanic and Celtic men of status. Ascaric was used mainly by the Franks and Visigoths. It can refer to:
