In the late 4th and early 5th centuries, several Germanic tribes invaded the Western Roman Empire after being displaced by the Huns. This included invasions by the Visigoths, Vandals, Sueves, Alans and later the Ostrogoths. The weak Western emperors were unable to stop these invasions. By 476 AD, the Western Roman Empire had collapsed, broken into various Germanic kingdoms including those of the Ostrogoths in Italy and Visigoths in Gaul and Hispania.

1. THE GERMANIC PEOPLES

2. In 375 AD the Huns (a tribe that came from Asia) invaded the Germanic territories and the
Germanic tribes escaped to the South and fled into the Roman Empire. The Romans were
unable to stop the invasion of the barbarians.

3. GERMANIC TRIBES ON
THE BORDERS OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE

4. THE FIRST INVASIONS
In the Western
Empire, the
emperors were
weak and
incapable of
stopping the
invasions of
the Germanic
tribes.
In 376 AD the Visigoths defeated the Romans in Adrianople and they settled down inside the
Empire: first they settled down near Italy and then in the southwest of Gaul.
At the beginning of the 5th century the Sueves, the Vandals and the Alans crossed the river
Rhine, they came into the Roman Empire and they settled down in Hispania.

5. THE SECOND WAVE OF INVASIONS
In 476, the Ostrogoths deposed the last western Emperor, Romulus Augustulus and the Western
Empire disappeared: it broke up in different Germanic kingdoms.
The Eastern Empire survived under a new name the Byzantine Empire. This Empire survived until
1453.

6. THE GERMANIC KINGDOMS

7. MAIN GERMANIC PEOPLES
-OSTROGOTHS
-VISIGOTHS
-SUEVES
-VANDALS
-ALANS
-ANGLES
-SAXONS
-FRANKS
-BURGUNDIANS
-LOMBARDS
-ALAMANNI

8. PEOPLE
CAME FROM
SETTLED DOWN IN
SUEVES
Present Germany, near
the Baltic SEa
West of Hispania
VANDALS
Present Poland
Centre and South of Hispania.
Later expelled to the North of
Africa
ALANS
Near the Caucasus, present
Russia
Hispania
VISIGOTHS
Present Romania
South of Gaul and Hispania
OSTROGOTHS
Present Ukraine
Italian Peninsula
ANGLES
Present Denmark
Great Britain
SAXONS
Present West of Germany
Great Britain
FRANKS
Near River Rhine
Present France
BURGUNDIANS
Between present Germany and
Poland
Burgundy and Eastern France
ALAMANNI
Present Germany
Eastern France (present Alsace)
LOMBARDS
Present Austria, near the Danube
North of the Italian Peninsula

9. -POLITICS: elective monarchy (an assembly of noblemen chose the kings.) When a
king died, they elected a new one.
-LAW: customary law (no written laws. Their law was based on custom)
MAIN
FEATURES
-ECONOMY: main activities: agriculture and stockbreeding, more primitive than
the Romans. Subsistence economy (they produced almost all they needed), little
trade (they frequently used barter: exchange of products for other products)
-RELIGION: Some peoples were pagans (polytheistic) and some were Arians
(heresy of Christianity that denied the divine nature of Jesus Christ)
-CULTURE: lower than Roman culture. Precious metal work was their only
original contribution
At the beginning, the Germanic peoples didn´t mix with the Romans (intercultural marriages
were forbidden...), but as time went by the higher culture of the Romans prevailed. The two
communities intermingled, the Germanic became Christians and they learnt Latin (although
some words of the Germanic languages were incorporated to Latin).

10. With respect to the Roman Empire, the Germanic Kingdoms ‘ period was a time of
regression: cities declined, trade collapsed and society ruralized.