Vanished Kingdoms

by Norman Davies

  In December 2010, hit by the severest of the snowstorms that paralysed much of northern Europe, Bornholm was declared a disaster area. The Danish Metereological Institute measured a minimum snowfall of 55 inches (140 centimetres) across the island, though some parts were blocked by drifts up to 20 feet (6 metres). After a week of vainly trying to dig themselves out, the inhabitants called for help. They had to rely on military vehicles to deliver supplies, and to dump mountains of snow into the sea.14 Apart from the news that this was the coldest December since records were first kept in 1874, they had no time whatsoever to think about history.

  II

  Few subjects in European history have created more havoc than that summarized by the phrase ‘all the Burgundies’. Conflicting information is supplied by almost every historical or reference work one cares to consult. As long ago as 1862, James Bryce, Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, was sufficiently worried to include a special note ‘On the Burgundies’ in his pioneering study of the Holy Roman Empire. ‘It would be hard to mention any geographical name’, he wrote, ‘which… has caused, and continues to cause, more confusion …’15

  Bryce was a man of indefatigable stamina. He was a Glaswegian, an Alpinist, a Gladstonian liberal, an ambassador to the United States, and a meticulous fact-checker. (He once climbed Mount Ararat to check where Noah’s Ark had rested.) His once famous ‘Note A’ lists the ten entities which, by his calculation, had borne the name of Burgundy ‘at different times and in different districts’:

  I. The Regnum Burgundionum (Kingdom of the Burgundians), ad 406–534.

  II. The Regnum Burgundiae (Kingdom of Burgundy), under the Merovingians.

  III. The Regnum Provinciae seu Burgundiae (Kingdom of Provence or of Burgundy), founded 877, ‘less accurately called Cis-Jurane Burgundy’.

  IV. The Regnum Iurense, or Burgundia Transiurensis (Kingdom of the Jura, or of ‘Trans-Jurane Burgundy’), founded in 888.

  V. The Regnum Burgundiae, or Regnum Arelatense (Kingdom of Burgundy or of Arles), formed in 937 by the union of III and IV.

  VI. Burgundia Minor (the Lesser Duchy, Klein Burgund).

  VII. The Free County or Palatinate of Burgundy (Franche-Comté, Freigrafschaft).

  VIII. The Landgrafschaft or Landgravate of Burgundy, part of VI.

  IX. The Imperial Circle of Burgundy, Kreis Burgund, established 1548.

  X. The Duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne), which was ‘always a fief of the Crown of France’.16

  The complexities are self-evident; one need not delve into Bryce’s Note too deeply before doubts arise. Yet it is one of the few attempts to see the Burgundian problem as a whole. It naturally invites further exploration.

  The Kingdom of the Burgundians (No. I on Bryce’s list) was a short-lived affair. It was set up by a tribal chief or warleader, Gundahar, on the west bank of the middle Rhine in the first decade of the fifth century. He and his father Gibica had brought their people over the river into the Roman Empire, probably during the great barbarian irruption in the winter of 406–7, and then helped elevate a local usurper, Jovinus, who was proclaimed ‘anti-emperor’ at Moguntiacum (Mainz); Jovinus in his turn pronounced the Burgundians to be imperial ‘allies’. In Rome’s opinion, the whole arrangement was deeply irregular.

  Where exactly the Burgundian horde had come from is the subject of much learned speculation.17 Their presence in the late fourth century on the River Main (immediately to the east of the Roman limes) is documented in Roman sources, as are their wars with the Alemanni. A memorial inscription in Augusta Treverorum (Trier), attests to the Roman service of one Hanulfus, a member of the Burgundian royal family. Earlier stages of the Burgundian itinerary are less certain. One hypothesis proposes a four-stage trek,18 the first part of which would have taken them from Scandinavia to the lower Vistula by the first century ad. The second stage sees them moving to the Oder, the third to the middle Elbe by the third century, and the fourth to the Main.

  The Burgundians spoke a Germanic language similar to that of the Goths, who also hailed from Scandinavia. Like the Goths, they had adopted the Arian form of Christianity, and may well have been familiar with the Gothic Bible (as translated by Wulfila, a converted Goth from northern Bulgaria).19 Furthermore, through interaction with various non-Germanic tribes, they had acquired the Hunnic practice of female head-binding, which was applied to girls during infancy and elongated their skulls for life. This has had the unintended consequence of making their graves instantly recognizable to archaeologists.

  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 appr
oval, 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

  • A woman raped, 12 solidi

  • A woman whose hair is cut off without cause, 12 solidi

  • A murdered slave, 30 solidi

  • A murdered carpenter, 40 solidi

  • A murdered blacksmith, 50 solidi

  • A murdered silversmith, 100 solidi

  • A murdered goldsmith, 200 solidi 34

  (Women’s hair would be cut off in order to enable them to fight as warriors.) Except for an occasional Burgundian phrase, such as wergeld or wittimon, the Code was written in Latin. A number of counts appended their seals to it as witnesses, thereby leaving a rare list of Burgundian personal names:

  Sigismund, son of Gundobad, a convert and a saint of the Catholic Church, is often credited with the wholesale conversion of his people. Together with his royal brothers, he campaigned none too successfully against the Franks, but was better at suppressing the Arian enclaves which had survived during the kingdom’s partition. He is reputed to have strangled his infant son to exclude him from the succession, and, abducted by the Franks, he ended his life at the bottom of a well at Coulmiers, near Orléans. He was declared a martyr, and his cult spread to many parts of Europe.36 Among his lasting achievements were a long correspondence (c. 494–523) with his
chief adviser, Archbishop (later Saint) Avitus of Vienne, 37 and the foundation of the abbey at Agaunum (now St Maurice-en-Valais), a site of the laus perennis or ‘unceasing praise’ of God.38

  The ‘Catholic’ ascendancy in Burgundy was systematized in 517 at the Council of Epaon (possibly Albon in the modern Dauphiné), where Avitus, whose letters constitute a very rare contemporary source, laid down guidelines for social and ecclesiastical practice. The rules whereby Arians could be reconciled to the Church were relaxed. Rules governing monasteries and convents were tightened, as were those relating to marriage and consanguinity. This last measure so enraged King Sigismund that he withdrew from communion with the Church, threatening to revert to Arianism. He relented when the bishop of Valence helped cure him when he was ill.39

  The suppression of the (second) Kingdom of the Burgundians came about as a result of the Frankish victory in the seemingly endless Franko-Burgundian wars in the first decades of the sixth century. The key role played in those wars by Clothilda, Clovis’s Burgundian widow (Clovis died in 511), was traditionally attributed to her support for Catholicism, but it was equally marked by her political engagement on behalf of her sons in their feud with her Burgundian kinsmen. The kingdom came under attack from the Franks, both from the north and, in the wake of their victory over the Visigoths at Vouillé, from the west. In 532 or 534, Gundimar, trapped between them, was proscribed, pursued and executed, and his birthright annexed.