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Kingdom of the Rugii Regnum Rugurum | |||||||||
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467–487 | |||||||||
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Capital | Vindobona | ||||||||
Common languages | Latin East Germanic | ||||||||
Religion | Arianism | ||||||||
Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
King | |||||||||
• 467-475 | Flaccitheus | ||||||||
• 475-487 | Feletheus | ||||||||
History | |||||||||
• Flaccitheus established an independent Rugian kingdom following the Hunnic defeat at the Battle of Nedao | 467 | ||||||||
487 | |||||||||
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Today part of |
The Kingdom of the Rugii or Rugiland was established by the Germanic Rugii in present-day Austria in the 5th century.
The Rugii were an East Germanic tribe who probably migrated from southwest Norway to Pomerania in the 1st century. In the beginning of the 4th century, the Rugii moved southwards and settled at the upper Tisza in ancient Pannonia, in what is now modern Hungary. They were later attacked by the Huns, and they fought alongside Atilla at the Battle of the Catalunian Plains in 451. In 453, they successfully rebelled against the Huns along with other Germanic tribes at the Battle of Nedao, after which they settled in the counties of Waldviertel and Weinviertel which lie north of the Danube. Nowadays these counties are part of Lower Austria but were never part of the Roman province of Noricum.
By 467, the Rugii ruled a kingdom based in Lower Austria under their king Flaccitheus. After his death in 475, Flaccitheus was succeeded by his son Feletheus, who was married to the Goth Gisa. In 476, Felethus supported the Herulian and Scirian mercenaries of Odoacer, who overthrew the Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus and made himself King of Italy. After the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno attempted to create conflict between the Rugii and Odoacer, Feletheus killed his brother Ferderuchus, who supported Odoacer. Odoacer subsequently invaded the Kingdom of the Rugii, where he utterly defeated the Rugian troops and captured Feletheus and his wife, who were executed in Ravenna in 487. Their territory was subsequently settled by the Lombards. Two years later, the Rugii joined the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, who invaded Italy and defeated Odoacer in 493.
The Ostrogoths were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populations who had settled in the Balkans in the 4th century. While the Visigoths had formed under the leadership of Alaric I, the new Ostrogothic political entity which came to rule Italy was formed in the Balkans under Theodoric the Great.
Romulus Augustus, nicknamed Augustulus, was Roman emperor of the West from 31 October 475 until 4 September 476. Romulus was placed on the imperial throne while still a minor by his father Orestes, the magister militum, for whom he served as little more than a figurehead. After a rule of ten months, the barbarian general Odoacer defeated and killed Orestes and deposed Romulus. As Odoacer did not proclaim any successor, Romulus is typically regarded as the last Western Roman emperor, his deposition marking the end of the Western Roman Empire as a political entity. The deposition of Romulus Augustulus is also sometimes used by historians to mark the transition from antiquity to the medieval period.
The 480s decade ran from January 1, 480, to December 31, 489.
Odoacer, also spelled Odovacer or Odovacar, was a barbarian soldier and statesman from the Middle Danube who deposed the Western Roman child emperor Romulus Augustulus and became the ruler of Italy (476–493). Odoacer's overthrow of Romulus Augustulus is traditionally understood as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire.
The Heruli were an early Germanic people. Possibly originating in Scandinavia, the Heruli are first mentioned by Roman authors as one of several "Scythian" groups raiding Roman provinces in the Balkans and the Aegean Sea, attacking by land, and notably also by sea. During this time they reportedly lived near the Sea of Azov.
The Rugii, Rogi or Rugians, were a Roman-era Germanic people. They were first clearly recorded by Tacitus, in his Germania who called them the Rugii, and located them near the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Some centuries later, they were considered one of the "Gothic" or "Scythian" peoples who were located in the Middle Danube region. Like several other Gothic peoples there, they possibly arrived in the area as allies of Attila until his death in 453. They settled in what is now Lower Austria after the defeat of the Huns at Nedao in 454.
King of Italy was the title given to the ruler of the Kingdom of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The first to take the title was Odoacer, a barbarian warlord, in the late 5th century, followed by the Ostrogothic kings up to the mid-6th century. With the Frankish conquest of Italy in the 8th century, the Carolingians assumed the title, which was maintained by subsequent Holy Roman Emperors throughout the Middle Ages. The last Emperor to claim the title was Charles V in the 16th century. During this period, the holders of the title were crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
The term Western Roman Empire is used in modern historiography to refer to 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.
Rodulf was king of the Heruli kingdom on the Middle Danube in the period around 500, and possibly of Scandinavian origin. He died in a battle with the neighbouring Lombards which led to the splitting up of the Heruli. He is probably the same Heruli king that Theoderic the Great wrote to in two surviving letters, in one of which Theoderic "adopted" him with a gift of arms. Less certainly, he is also sometimes equated to a King Rodulf that Jordanes mentions as having come from Scandinavia to Italy, to join Theoderic.
The Sciri, or Scirians, were a Germanic people. They are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language. Their name probably means "the pure ones".
Severinus of Noricum is a saint, known as the "Apostle to Noricum". It has been speculated that he was born in either Southern Italy or in the Roman province of Africa. Severinus himself refused to discuss his personal history before his appearance along the Danube in Noricum, after the death of Attila in 453. However, he did mention experiences with eastern desert monasticism, and his vita draws connections between Severinus and Saint Anthony of Lerins.
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 Ostrogothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of Italy, existed under the control of the Germanic Ostrogoths in Italy and neighbouring areas from 493 to 553.
Ovida or Odiva was a late Western Roman general and warlord of likely Gothic origin and the last Roman ruler of Dalmatia. Ovida initially served Julius Nepos, ruler of Roman Dalmatia and later western Roman emperor in Italy from 474 to 475. After being usurped in 475, Nepos continued to claim the imperial title in exile in Dalmatia, supported by the Eastern Roman Empire, but he was murdered by Ovida and another general, Viator, in 480. Upon his death, Ovida became the ruler of Dalmatia, a position he held until he was defeated and killed by Odoacer, the first barbarian King of Italy, in 481 or 482.
The Turcilingi were an obscure barbarian people, or possibly a clan or dynasty, who appear in historical sources relating to Middle Danubian peoples who were present in Italy during the reign of Romulus Augustulus (475–76). Their only known leader was Odoacer (Odovacar), but he was described as a ruler of several ethnic groups.
Odoacer's deposition of Romulus Augustus, occurring in 476 AD, was a coup that marked the end of the reign of the Western Roman Emperor last approved by the Western Roman Senate and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, although Julius Nepos exercised control over Dalmatia until 480.
Flaccitheus was the founder of the Kingdom of the Rugii.
Feletheus was the king of the Rugii from 475 to 487.
Tufa was a Germanic warrior active in 5th century Italy.
Frideric was the leader of the Germanic Rugians from 487 to 492/493.