Amalaric
| Amalaric | |
|---|---|
| King of the Visigoths | |
 Illustration of Amalaric Painting of Amalaric by a renaissance painter | |
| Rex Hispania | |
| Reign | 522 - 531 |
| Predecessor | Gesalec |
| Successor | Theudis |
| Born | 502 |
| Died | c. 531 (29 years) |
| Spouse | Chrotilda |
| Father | Alaric II |
| Mother | Theodegotha |
| Religion | later Arianism |
Amalaric (Gothic: 𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃, Amalareiks;[1] Spanish and Portuguese: Amalarico; 502–531) was king of the Visigoths from 522 until his assassination. He was a son of king Alaric II and his first wife Theodegotha, daughter of Theodoric the Great.
Biography
When
In 522, the young Amalaric was proclaimed king, and four years later, on Theodoric's death, he assumed full royal power, although relinquishing Provence to his cousin Athalaric.[3] His kingdom was faced with a Frankish threat from the north; according to Peter Heather, this was his motivation for marrying Chrotilda, the daughter of Clovis.[5] However, this was not successful, for according to Gregory of Tours, Amalaric pressured her to forsake Orthodoxy and convert to Arian Christianity, at one point beating her until she bled; she sent to her brother Childebert I, king of Paris, a towel stained with her own blood.[6] It is worth noting Ian Wood's advice that although Gregory provides the fullest information for this period, where it touches Merovingian affairs, he often "allowed his religious bias to determine his interpretation of the events."[7] Peter Heather agrees with Wood's implication in this instance: "I doubt that this is the full story, but the effects of Frankish intervention are clear enough."[5]
Childebert defeated the Visigothic army and took Narbonne. Amalaric fled south to Barcelona, where according to Isidore of Seville, he was assassinated by his own men.[8] According to Peter Heather, Theodoric's former governor Theudis was implicated in Amalaric's murder, "and was certainly its prime beneficiary."[9] As for Chrotilda, in Gregory's words, she died on the journey home "by some ill chance". Childebert had her body brought to Paris where she was buried alongside her father Clovis.[6]
Notes
- ^ Kelsie B. Harder, Names and their varieties: a collection of essays in onomastics, American Name Society, University Press of America, 1984, pp. 10-11
- ^ Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, translated by Thomas J. Dunlap (Berkeley: University of California, 1988), p. 244
- ^ a b One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Amalaric". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 777.
- ^ Wolfram, History of the Goths, p. 245
- ^ a b Peter Heather, The Goths (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), p. 277
- ^ a b Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, III.10; translated by Lewis Thorpe, History of the Franks (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), pp. 170f.
- ^ Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms: 450-751 (London: Longman, 1994), p. 171
- ^ Isidore of Seville, History of the Goths, chapter 40. Translation by Guido Donini and Gordon B. Ford, Isidore of Seville's History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi, second revised edition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), p. 19
- ^ Heather, The Goths, p. 278
External links
Media related to Amalarico at Wikimedia Commons
Further reading
- Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 39
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