The Burgundian invasion of Gaul. The invasion of Gaul by the Vandals and Alans in 406 A. D. was followed by an inroad of the Burgundians, Ripuarian Franks and Alemanni. The two latter peoples established themselves on the left bank of the Rhine, while the Burgundians penetrated further south. In 433 the Burgundians were at war with the empire and were defeated by Aetius, the Roman master of the soldiers in Gaul. Subsequently they were settled in the Savoy. Thence, about 457, they began to expand until they occupied the whole valley of the Rhone as far south as the Durance.
Yet on the whole they remained loyal foederati of the empire. They fought under Aetius against Attila in 451, and their kings bore the Roman title of magister militum until the reign of Gundobad (473–516), who was given the rank of patrician by the emperor Olybrius.
The Salian Franks. The Salian Franks, as those who had once dwelt on the shores of the North Sea were called in contrast to the [pg 357]Ripuarians, whose home was on the banks of the Rhine, crossed the lower Rhine before the middle of the fourth century and occupied Toxandria, the region between the Meuse and the Scheldt. They were defeated by Julian who, however, left them in possession of this district as Roman foederati. The disturbances of the early fifth century enabled the Salian Franks to assert their independence of Roman suzerainty, and to extend their territory as far south as the Somme. Still, they fought as Roman allies against the Huns in 451 A. D., and their king Childeric, who began to rule shortly afterwards, remained a faithful foederatus of Rome until his death in 481 A. D.
In 486 A. D. Clovis, the successor of Childeric, overthrew the Gallo-Roman state to the south of the Somme and extended his kingdom to meet the Visigoths on the Loire. Thus the whole of Gaul passed under the rule of Germanic peoples.
The Saxons in Britain. After the decisive defeat of the Picts and Scots by Theodosius, the father of Theodosius the Great, in 368 and 369 A. D., the Romans were able to maintain the defence of Britain until the close of the fourth century. But in 402 Stilicho was obliged to recall part of the garrison of the island for the protection of Italy, and in 406 Constantine, who had laid claim to the imperial crown in Britain, took with him the remaining Roman troops in his attempt to obtain recognition on the continent. The ensuing struggles with the barbarians in Gaul prevented the Romans from sending officials or troops across the channel, and the Britons had to depend upon their own resources for their defense.
The task proved beyond their strength and it is probable that by the middle of the fifth century the Germanic tribes of Saxons, Angles and Jutes were firmly established in the eastern part of Britain. Because of the uncivilized character of these peoples, of the fact that Roman culture was not very deeply rooted among the native population, and of the desperate resistance offered by the latter to the invaders, the subsequent struggle for the possession of the island resulted in the obliteration of the Latin language and the disappearance of that material civilization which had developed under four centuries of Roman rule.
V. The Fall of the Western Empire
Honorius, 395–432 A. D. After the murder of Stilicho in 408 [pg 358]A. D., Honorius was faced with the problem of restoring his authority in Gaul, where for a time he had been forced to acknowledge the rule of a rival emperor Constantine who had donned the purple in Britain in 406 A. D. Constantius, a Roman noble who had succeeded Stilicho as master of the soldiers, was despatched to Gaul in 411 and soon overthrew the usurper. Two years later another rival, Jovinus, was crushed with the help of the Visigoths.
Constantius, the leader of the anti-barbarian faction of the court, was now the mainstay of the power of Honorius and used his influence to further his own ambitions. After the surrender of the princess Placidia by the Visigoths he induced the emperor to grant him her hand in marriage (417 A. D.). In 421 A. D. Honorius appointed him co-emperor, but he was not recognized as an Augustus at Constantinople and died in the same year. His death was followed by a quarrel between the emperor and his sister, as a result of which Placidia and her son took refuge under the protection of the eastern emperor, Theodosius II.