Visigothic Kingdom

The Visigothic Kingdom, Visigothic Spain or Kingdom of the Goths (Latin: Regnum Gothorum) was a barbarian kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th century. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwest Gaul by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of Hispania. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, whose attempts to re-establish Roman authority in Hispania were only partially successful and short-lived. The Visigoths were romanized central Europeans who had moved west from the Danube Valley. They became foederati of Rome, and sought to restore the Roman order against the hordes of Vandals, Alans and Suebi. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD; therefore, the Visigoths believed they had the right to take the territories that Rome had promised in Hispania in exchange for restoring the Roman order. Under King Euric—who eliminated the status of foederati—a triumphal advance of the Visigoths began. Alarmed at Visigoth expansion from Aquitania after victory over the Gallo-Roman and Breton armies at Déols in 469, Western Emperor Anthemius sent a fresh army across the Alps against Euric, who was besieging Arles. The Roman army was crushed at the nearby Battle of Arles, resulting in Euric capturing Arles, securing much of southern Gaul. Sometimes referred to as the Regnum Tolosae or Kingdom of Toulouse after its capital Toulouse in modern historiography, the Visigothic kingdom lost much of its territory in Gaul to the Franks in the early 6th century, except the narrow coastal strip of Septimania. The kingdom of the 6th and 7th centuries is sometimes called the Regnum Toletanum or...