Burgundians

The Burgundians or Burgundes were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr (the Island of the Burgundians), and from here to mainland Europe. In the Thorsteins saga Víkingssonar, Veseti settled in an island or holm, which was called Borgund's holm, i.e. Bornholm. Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius uses the name Burgenda land. The poet and early mythologist Victor Rydberg (1828–1895), (Our Fathers' Godsaga) asserted from an early medieval source, Vita Sigismundi, that the Burgundians themselves retained oral traditions about their Scandinavian origin.

Early History

Tribal Origins

The Burgundians' tradition of Scandinavian origin finds support in place-name evidence and archaeological evidence (Stjerna) and many consider their tradition to be correct (e.g. Musset, p. 62). Possibly because Scandinavia was beyond the horizon of the earliest Roman sources, including Tacitus (who only mentions one Scandinavian tribe, the Suiones), they don't tell from where the Burgundians came, and the first Roman references place them east of the Rhine (inter alia, Ammianus Marcellinus, XVIII, 2, 15). Early Roman sources thought they were simply another East Germanic tribe.

Related Topics:
Tacitus - Suiones - Rhine - Ammianus Marcellinus

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Ca 300, the population of Bornholm (the island of the Burgundians) largely disappeared from the island. Most gravefields ceased to be used, and those that were still used had few burials (Stjerna, in Nerman 1925:176).

Related Topics:
300 - Bornholm

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In the year 369, the Emperor Valentinian I enlisted their aid in his war against another Germanic tribe, the Alamanni (Ammianus, XXVIII, 5, 8-15). At this time, the Burgundians were possibly living in the Vistula basin, according to the mid-6th century historian of the Goths, Jordanes. Sometime after their war against the Alamanni, the Burgundians were beaten in battle by Fastida, king of the Gepids and were overwhelmed, almost annihilated.

Related Topics:
369 - Valentinian I - Alamanni - Vistula - Goths - Jordanes - Fastida - Gepids

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Approximately four decades later, the Burgundians appear again. Following Stilicho?s withdrawal of troops to fight Alaric I the Visigoth in AD 406-408, the northern tribes crossed the Rhine and entered the Empire in the Völkerwanderung, or Germanic migrations. Among them were the Alans, Vandals, the Suevi, and possibly the Burgundians. The Burgundians migrated westwards and settled in the Rhine Valley.

Related Topics:
Stilicho - Alaric I - Visigoth - 406 - 408 - Völkerwanderung - Alans - Vandals - Suevi - Rhine Valley

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There was, it seems at times a friendly relationship between the Huns and the Burgundians. It was a Hunnish custom for females to have their skull artificially elongated by tight binding of the skull when the child was an infant. Germanic graves are sometimes found with Hunnish ornaments but also with skulls of females that have been treated in this way; west of the Rhine only Burgundian graves contain a large number of such skulls. (Werner, 1953)

Related Topics:
Huns - Rhine

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Religion

Somewhere in the east the Burgundians had been converted to the Arian form of Christianity, which proved a source of suspicion and distrust between the Burgundians and the Catholic Western Roman Empire. Divisions were evidently healed or healing circa AD 500, however, as Gundobad, one of the last Burgundian kings, maintained a close personal friendship with Avitus, the Catholic bishop of Vienne. Moreover, Gundobad's son and successor, Sigismund, was himself a Catholic, and there is evidence that many of the Burgundian people had converted by this time as well, including several female members of the ruling family.

Related Topics:
Arian - Gundobad - Avitus - Vienne - Sigismund

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Early Relationship with the Romans

Initially, the Burgundians seem to have had a stormy relationship with the Romans. They were used by the Empire to fend off other tribes, but also raided the border regions and expanded their influence when possible.

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