Burgundians

The Burgundians (Latin: Burgundiones or less commonly Burgundii) were a Germanic people of the Roman imperial era, who established the powerful Kingdom of the Burgundians within the Roman empire in what is now western Switzerland and south-eastern France. Burgundian rule of the kingdom ended when it was incorporated into the Frankish empire in 534, but they are the source of later names related to the nearby region now known as Burgundy, including medieval entities such as the Duchy of Burgundy. In earlier periods, Burgundians were also reported by Roman sources to have lived in regions now within Germany and Poland, and there are probably connections between these and the later Burgundian kingdom. The kingdom's core group were non-Roman soldiers under the leadership of the Gibichung dynasty, who had previously held a kingdom as foederati in Roman territory on the Rhine border, probably near Worms in present day Germany. The kingdom on the Rhine was destroyed when the Romans and their Hun allies killed many of the Burgundians along with their king Gundahar in 436, accusing them of rebellion. The death of Gundahar at the hands of the Huns became a central theme in medieval Germanic heroic legend, including the Nibelungenlied (where he is “Günther”) and the Völsunga saga (where he is “Gunnar”). After the remnants resettled in Sapaudia near Lake Geneva in about 443, their territory expanded to include the regional Roman capital of Lyon, which subsequently became the new Burgundian capital. The Burgundians are one of the so-called "disappearing and reappearing tribes" listed by historian Peter Heather, appearing in early Roman records in one place, only to reappear much later in another place. The earliest Burgundians mentioned by Greco-Roman writers lived near the Vistula river in present day Poland, between the first and third century. Roman panegyrics reported that...