Kingdom of Burgundy - First Kingdom of Burgundy

First Kingdom of Burgundy

The first documented, though not historically verified King of the Burgundians was Gjúki (Gebicca), who lived in the late 4th century. In the course of the Crossing of the Rhine in 406, the Burgundians, an East Germanic tribe, settled as foederati in the Roman province of Germania Secunda along the Middle Rhine. Their situation worsened when about 430 the Burgundian King Gunther started several campaigns into neighbouring Gallia Belgica, which led to a crushing defeat by joined Roman and Hunnic troops under Flavius Aetius in 436 near Worms—the origin of the mediæval Nibelungenlied poem.

The remaining Burgundians from 443 onwards settled in the Sapaudia (i.e. Savoy) region, again as foederati in the Roman Maxima Sequanorum province. Their efforts to enlarge their kingdom down the Rhone river brought them into conflict with the Visigothic Kingdom in the south. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, King Gundobad allied with the mighty Frankish king Clovis I against the threat of Theoderic the Great. He was thereby able to secure the Burgundian acquisitions, leaving the Lex Burgundionum, an Early Germanic law code.

The decline of the kingdom began when they came under attack from their former Frankish allies. In 523 the sons of King Clovis campaigned the Burgundian lands, instigated by their mother Clotilde, whose father King Chilperic II had been killed by Gundobad. In 532 the Burgundians were decisively defeated by the Franks at Autun, whereafter King Godomar was killed and finally Burgundy was annexed by the Frankish Empire in 534. Between 561 and 584 as well as between 639 and 737 several rulers of the Frankish Merovingian dynasty bore the title of a "King of Burgundy". In the course of the 843 partition by the Treaty of Verdun, Burgundy became part of Middle Francia (Lotharii Regnum) ruled by Emperor Lothair I, except for its northwestern part, the Duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne), which fell to West Francia.