Siege of Arles (507–508) | |||||||
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Part of Franco-Visigothic Wars | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Visigothic Kingdom Ostrogothic Kingdom | Frankish Kingdom Kingdom of the Burgundians | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Ibbas Tuluin | Clovis I | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | 30,000 (exaggerated) [1] |
The Siege of Arles between 507 and 508 was a battle between the Franks and Burgundians, who wanted to occupy Provence, and the Visigothic Kingdom, who had the support of the Ostrogothic Kingdom.
After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks created their own kingdom under the Merovingian dynasty, and wanted to expel the Visigoths from Gaul for their Arianism. [2] Aided by the Catholic clergy and the Gallic populations dominated by the Arian Visigoths and Burgundians, Clovis I decided to attack the Kingdom of the Burgundians in 500. [3]
After the severe defeat at the Battle of Dijon, [3] Gundobad left the city and fled south, pursued by Clovis and Godegisel, leaving Lyons and Vienne to Clovis. He finally waited for him at Avignon, where he was besieged and signed peace in return for paying tribute and yielding Vienne to his brother. [3] But he was finally defeated and killed by his rival, when he attacked the capital in 502. [4]
Probably in the autumn of 507, when returning from the campaign in Septimania, the city was besieged by a coalition of Burgundians reinforced by Franks, but far from welcoming these invaders, the city defended itself against the attacks with great energy.
Fearful that the instability in Gaul would spread to Italy, Theodoric the Great sent an army commanded by Ibbas, which set out for Provence on 24 June 508 to secure the border east of the Rhone and the south of the Durance. [5]
A vigorous action by General Tuluin repelled the attackers on the right bank and allowed the control of the Bridge of Constantine , which connects the city with the island of Camargue, to the north of the city, at the foot of the walls. The Frankish and Burgundian troops raised the siege with a great defeat. According to Jordanes, they lost 30,000 soldiers but this seems exaggerated. [1] The Ostrogoths returned to the city and brought a huge number of prisoners who filled the basilica and even the bishop's house. Caesarius of Arles had to melt the silver of the church to free the captives. [6]
Theodoric the Great supported Amalaric as king of the Visigoths, and sent Ibbas to fight Gesalec, taking Carcassonne and Narbonne in 509, forcing him to take refuge in Barcelona, where he was attacked and deposed in 510. [7]
Amalaric was king of the Visigoths from 522 until his assassination. He was a son of king Alaric II and his first wife Theodegotha, daughter of Theodoric the Great.
Alaric II was the King of the Visigoths from 484 until 507. He succeeded his father Euric as king of the Visigoths in Toulouse on 28 December 484; he was the great-grandson of the more famous Alaric I, who sacked Rome in 410. He established his capital at Aire-sur-l'Adour in Aquitaine. His dominions included not only the majority of Hispania but also Gallia Aquitania and the greater part of an as-yet undivided Gallia Narbonensis.
The Burgundians were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared east in the middle Rhine region in the third century AD, and were later moved west into the Roman Empire, in Gaul. In the first and second centuries AD they, or a people with the same name, were mentioned by Roman writers living west of the Vistula river in the region of Germania which is now part of Poland.
The 500s decade ran from January 1, 500, to December 31, 509.
Clovis was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Franks under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of petty kings to rule by a single king, and ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. Clovis is important in the historiography of France as "the first king of what would become France."
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.
Gundobad was King of the Burgundians (473–516), succeeding his father Gundioc of Burgundy. Previous to this, he had been a patrician of the moribund Western Roman Empire in 472–473, three years before its collapse, succeeding his uncle Ricimer. He is perhaps best known today as the probable issuer of the Lex Burgundionum legal codes, which synthesized Roman law with ancient Germanic customs. He was the husband of Caretene.
The Battle of Vouillé was fought in the northern marches of Visigothic territory, at Vouillé, near Poitiers (Gaul), around Spring 507 between the Franks, commanded by Clovis, and the Visigoths, commanded by Alaric II. The Franks' victory resulted in their conquest of Gallia Aquitania and the death of Alaric II.
Gesalic, Gesaleico in Spanish and Portuguese, Gesaleic in Catalan,, was a king of the Visigoths from 507 to 511, and died in 513.
Caesarius of Arles, sometimes called "of Chalon" from his birthplace Chalon-sur-Saône, was the foremost ecclesiastic of his generation in Merovingian Gaul. Caesarius is considered to be of the last generation of church leaders of Gaul who worked to integrate large-scale ascetic elements into the Western Christian tradition. William E. Klingshirn's study of Caesarius depicts Caesarius as having the reputation of a "popular preacher of great fervour and enduring influence". Among those who exercised the greatest influence on Caesarius were Augustine of Hippo, Julianus Pomerius, and John Cassian.
Septimania was the western region of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed under the control of the Visigoths in 462. It passed briefly to the Emirate of Córdoba in the eighth century before its reconquest by the Franks, who by the end of the ninth century termed it Gothia. This article presents a timeline of its history.
Petrus Marcellinus Felix Liberius was a Late Roman aristocrat and official, whose career spanned seven decades in the highest offices of both the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy and the Eastern Roman Empire. He held the highest governmental offices of Italy, Gaul, and Egypt, "an accomplishment not often recorded – Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte are the only parallels that come to mind!" as James O'Donnell observes in his biographical study of the man.
The Visigothic Kingdom, Visigothic Spain or Kingdom of the Goths occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwest Gaul by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of Hispania. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, whose attempts to re-establish Roman authority in Hispania were only partially successful and short-lived.
Gaul was an important early center of Latin Christianity during late antiquity and the Merovingian period. By the middle of the 3rd century, there were several churches organized in Roman Gaul, and soon after the cessation of persecution, the bishops of the Latin world assembled at Arles in AD 314. The Church of Gaul passed through three crises in the late Roman period, Arianism, Priscillianism and Pelagianism. Under Merovingian rule, a number of "Frankish synods" were held, marking a particularly Germanic development in the Western Church. A model for the following Frankish synods was set by Clovis I, who organized the First Council of Orléans (511).
Arles was a major Jewish center between the Roman times and the Renaissance. Due to its location between Spain and the rest of Europe, with its proximity to the Mediterranean coast, Arles became a comfortable and sometimes beneficial city for the many Jews who lived in it. During the Middle Ages, many notable Jews were active in Arles, which functioned as a Jewish philosophy and Arabic-Hebrew-Latin translation center, as it was one of the town known for its Hachmei Provence. No Jewish community was evident in Arles ever since, even though some evidences of former Jewish life can be seen around town and in the local museum. The Jewish community ceased to prosper towards the end of the 15th century, until they were expelled in around the 1490s after which they did not return. Jews were to be found in Arles in the 1960s, though no community was ever evident again.
Maximianus of Trier was bishop of Trier around the turn of the 5th and 6th centuries.
Christianization of the Franks was the process of converting the pagan Franks to Catholicism during the late 5th century and early 6th century. It was started by Clovis I, regulus of Tournai, with the insistence of his wife, Clotilde and Saint Remigius, the bishop of Reims.
The Franco-Visigothic Wars were a series of wars between the Franks and the Visigoths, but it also involved the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths and the Romans. The most noteworthy war of the conflict would be the Second Franco-Visigothic War that included the famous Battle of Vouillé and resulted in Frankish annexation of most of Southern France.
The Battle of Barcelona in 512 was the culmination of the conflict for the Visigoth crown following the death of Alaric II, which pitted the supporters of the deposed king Gesalec against the Ostrogothic troops of General Ibbas, who supported the regency of Theodoric the Great in Hispania on behalf of his grandson Amalaric. The battle, fought near Barcelona, ended with a decisive victory for Ibbas, which eliminated any real possibility of Gesalec's restoration.
Ibbas, also referred to as Ibba, Hibba, or Hibbas, was an Ostrogothic military officer who served his people during the reign of Theodoric the Great in Italy (493–526).