Non-Roman Kingdoms in the Western Roman Empire, c. 370–550s

The western Roman Empire came under great pressure from the incursions of non-Roman peoples—barbarians, the Romans called them, meaning “brave but uncivilized”—that took place in the fourth and fifth centuries. The emperors had traditionally admitted some multiethnic groups from east of the Rhine River and north of the Danube River into the empire to fight in the Roman army, but eventually other barbarians fought their way in from the northeast. The barbarians wanted to flee attacks by the Huns (nomadic warriors from central Asia) and share in Roman prosperity. By the 370s, this human tide provoked violence and a loss of order in the western empire.

The immigrants slowly transformed themselves from loosely organized tribes into kingdoms with newly defined identities. By the 470s, one of their commanders ruled Italy—the political change that has been said to mark the fall of the Roman Empire. However, the interactions of these non-Roman peoples with the empire’s residents in western Europe and North Africa seem closer to a political, social, and cultural transformation—based on force more than cooperation—that made the immigrants the heirs of the western Roman Empire and led to the formation of medieval Europe.