Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations (19 page)

Gundahar’s kingdom was centred on the old Celtic capital of Borbetomagus (Worms), stretching south to Noviomagus (Speyer) and Argentoratum (Strasbourg). The newcomers, initially some 80,000 strong, were settled among a well-established Gallo-Roman population. They are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon poem
Widsith
, in a brief recitation of fifth-century rulers. Widsith, the ‘Far Traveller’, was bold enough to claim that he had visited Gundahar’s kingdom in person:

Mid Þyringum ic waes

  … ond mid Burgendum.

Þaer ic beag geþah.

Me þaer Guðohere forgeaf

Glaedlicne maþþum

Songes to leane.

Naes þaet saene cyning!

I was with the Thuringians

  … and with the Burgundians.

There, they gave me a ring.

There Gunthere gave me

A shining treasure

To pay for my songs.

He was no bad king.
²⁰

Gundahar’s position, however, was shaky from the start. As soon as the Roman authorities regained their composure, they determined to expunge him. In 436 the Roman general Flavius Aetius, servant of the Emperor Valentinian III, called in Attila’s Huns, and used them to do the bloody work. Reputedly, 20,000 Burgundians perished.

The massacre of the Burgundians passed into the annals of North European myth. Echoes of it found a place in many of the Norse sagas; and it lay at the heart of the tales of the
Nibelungen
, or as the Norsemen called them, the
Niflungar
, the descendants of Nefi and owners of a fabulous Burgundian treasure. Gundahar reappears as Gunnar; and
Gunnar’s sister Gudrun gives rise to a famous lineage after her marriage to Atli (Attila). The Eddaic poem the
Atlakvida
, or ‘Lay of Atli’, contains many events and names characteristic of the fifth and sixth centuries, including Gunnar and Gudrun.
²¹
In the German tradition, by contrast, the mythical realm of
Niflheim
(Mist-Home) is inhabited by warring giants and dwarfs. Nybling is the original guardian of the hoard; Gundahar becomes Günter; Gudrun Kriemhild; and Kriemhild weds Siegfried, meaning ‘Peace of Victory’, son of Siegmund and Sieglind. In these later myths and sagas the Burgundians are frequently described, anachronistically, as Franks. The late-medieval
Nibelungenlied
is driven by a mix of fact and fantasy, though the basic historical underlay is rarely disputed by modern scholars:

Uns ist in alten maeren wunders vil geseit

von helden lobebaeren, von grôzer arebeit,

von freuden, hôchgezîten, von weinen und von klagen,

von küener recken strîten…

(‘We’re told of wonders in the ancient tales, / of praise-worthy heroes, of great ordeals, / of joy and feasting, of weeping and wailing / and of the clash of bold warriors…’)
²²

Following the massacre at Borbetomagus, the trail of the Burgundians briefly goes cold, but it soon resurfaces in accounts of the battles between Aetius and the Huns. There is a strong probability that one group of Burgundian warriors had been captured and conscripted by the Huns, while others under the new king, Gundioc (r. 437–74), were taken into Roman service. Burgundians in consequence fought on both sides in the great Battle of the Catalaunian Fields in June 451 (see p.
21
, above), between the Roman general Aetius and the Huns, where according to Gibbon ‘the whole fate of western civilisation hung in the balance’. After his victory, Aetius made Gundioc the grant of a kingdom in the province of Sabaudia (an old form of the modern Savoy: see
Chapter 8
). This time, the Burgundians were settling in the Empire with official approval, though a mass of survivors from Borbetomagus could have fled south spontaneously, and the imperial grant might merely have confirmed a fait accompli. Sabaudia does not figure on Bryce’s list, and one has to wonder why he did not choose to count the realms of Gundahar and Gundioc as separate kingdoms. They eminently match his definition of a geographical or political name applied ‘at different times to different districts’. Gundahar’s parameters were ‘early fifth century, Lower Rhine’; those of Gundioc ‘mid-fifth century, Upper Rhône and Saône’. There was no overlap. One meets modern descriptions of Gundioc’s realm classed either as the ‘second federate kingdom’ or as ‘the last independent Burgundian kingdom’.
²³

The frontiers of the Burgundians’ second kingdom expanded rapidly. The initial centre was Genava (Geneva) on Lake Lemanus, where they filled a space recently created by the displacement of the Helvetii tribe. Soon afterwards, they turned their attention onto the district at the confluence of the Rivers Arus (Saône) and Rhodanus (Rhône) in the heart of Gaul. Within a decade, they had entered Lugdunum (Lyon), Divio (Dijon), Vesontio (Besançon), Augustodunum (Autun), Andemantunnum (Langres) and Colonia Julia Vienna (Vienne). Frontier fortresses at Avenio (Avignon) near the Rhône delta and at Eburodunum (Embrun) in the mountains protected a highly compact territorial unit with first-rate communications.

The little that is known about the Burgundians at the time of their arrival comes from a Gallo-Roman writer, who saw them enter his native Lugdunum. Sidonius Apollinaris would have been about twenty years old in 452 when he met them. He makes references in his correspondence to ‘hairy giants’, ‘who are all seven feet tall’, and who ‘gabble in an incomprehensible tongue’.
²⁴
Even less is known about the Burgundian language. A handful of words have survived in the text of legal codes (see below), and the recorded names of Burgundian rulers have decipherable meanings. Gundobad means ‘bold in battle’, Godomar is ‘celebrated in battle’. A few modern place names can be traced to a personal name combined with the Scandinavian suffix -
ingos
. The village of Vufflens in the Vaud, for example, has been explained as ‘Vaffel’s Place’.
²⁵
It is not much to go on.

In the century which separated the fall of the first kingdom from the fall of the second, five kings are recorded, all from Gibica’s ancient line:

Gundioc/Gunderic (r. 437–74)

Chilperic I (r. 474–80)

Gundobad (r. 480–516)

Sigismund (r. 516–23)

Gundimar/Godomar (r. 523–34)

The foundations of a Burgundian royal palace dating from
c
. 500, including a hall and a Christian chapel, have been identified within the Roman site at Geneva,
²⁶
and the historicity of King Godomar is affirmed by a tombstone in the old abbey cemetery of Offranges, near Evian:

IN HOC TUMOLO REQUIESCAT BONAE MEMORIAE EBROVACCUS QUI VIXIT ANNS XIII ET MENSIS IIII ET TRANSIT x KL SEPTEMBRIS MAvURTIO VIRO CLR CONSS SUB UNc CONSS BRANDOBRIGI REDiMITIONEM A DNMO GUDOMARO REGE ACCEPERUNT.
²⁷

The first part of the inscription is clear. A boy, Ebrovaccus, aged thirteen years and four months, who ‘lies in this mound’, died during the consulship of Mavortius. The second part has inspired many guesses. ‘Godomar being King’, a Celtic-sounding tribe, the Brandobriges, were redeemed or ransomed. The earliest Burgundian coins were minted under imperial licence at Ravenna in the early sixth century, showing Gundobad’s monogram and the head of the Roman (Byzantine) emperor. They nicely illustrate the status of a
rex
as a recognized imperial deputy.
²⁸

The Burgundian kings made the most of dynastic marriages. Gundioc married his sister to Ricimer (405–72), sometime assistant to Flavius Aetius and de facto arbiter of the dying Empire. In the next generation, Chilperic’s daughter Clothilda (474–545) was married to Clovis, king of the Franks, a dozen years before he defeated the Visigoths at Vouillé (see pp.
24–6
, above). As St Clothilda, she is celebrated for persuading her powerful husband to adopt Catholic Christianity, and is buried in the church of St Geneviève in Paris.
²⁹

Clothilda’s uncle, Gundobad, who prided himself in the title of Roman patrician, only gained full control of his inheritance after thirty years of family strife, which saw the Burgundian kingdom partitioned and ruled simultaneously from three centres, Lugdunum, Julia Vienna and Genava. This civil war weakened the nascent state at a juncture when it might otherwise have mounted a more active challenge to both Franks and Visigoths.
³⁰
Gundobad owed his Roman career to his kinsman Ricimer, and he had the brief distinction of elevating an emperor, Glycerius, to the throne at Ravenna. But much of his subsequent life was spent battling his own relatives, and he kept the Franks at a distance by paying them tribute. His brother Godesigel, accompanied by Clothilda’s mother, Caretana, held out in Genava until the turn of the century. After that, he stopped the Frankish tribute, and concentrated on Church organization and law-making. Two law codes are attributed to him, the
Lex Romana Burgundionum
and the
Lex Gundobada
.

The Burgundian Code (or codes), which survives in thirteen extant manuscripts, is typical of the period when the Germanic peoples were adopting Christianity, entering literacy and codifying law.
³¹
Unlike the
Codex Euricianus
(see above, p.
23
), it is to be regarded as supplementary to existing Roman law, consisting of a collection of customary laws (
mores
) for the Burgundians and a number of statutes (
leges
) intended for the ex-Roman citizens living among them. The standard modern edition of the Burgundian Code presents 105 ‘constitutions’, plus 4 additional enactments. Mainly promulgated at Lugdunum by Gundobad, and revised under Sigismund, they cover a huge range of subjects, starting with Gifts, Murders and the Emancipation of Slaves and finishing with Vineyards, Asses and Oxen taken in Pledge. For almost all offences, they set a price for restitution, and a separate sum for a fine or punishment:

XII Of Stealing Girls

If anyone shall steal a girl, let him be compelled to pay the price set for such a girl ninefold, and let him pay a fine to the amount of twelve
solidi
.

If a girl who has been seized returns uncorrupted to her parents, let the abductor compound six times the
wergeld
of the girl; moreover, let the fine be set at twelve
solidi
.

If indeed, the girl seeks the man of her own will and comes to his house, and he has intercourse with her, let him pay her marriage price threefold; if moreover, she returns uncorrupted to her home, let her return with all blame removed from him.
³²

One constitution lays down elaborate rules for the setting of wolf-traps with drawn bowstrings,
tensuras
(XLVI). Others provide measures for ‘Jews who Presume to Raise their Hands against a Christian’ (CII), or double the tariff for theft or trespass in vineyards at night (CIII).
³³
Fixing the tariff was a major concern:

• A dog killed, 1
solidus

• A stolen pig, sheep, goat or beehive, 3
solidi