Germanic invasions

Migrations and areas of settlement of Germanic tribes, IVth and Vth century AD.

Source 1

Germanic kingdoms, VIth cent. AD.

Source 2

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, History of Rome (Book 21.2), 394 AD.

"The people called Huns (...) are a race savage beyond all parallel. At the very moment of birth the cheeks of their infant children are deeply marked by an iron, in order that the hair instead of growing on their faces, may be hindered by the scars; accordingly the Huns grow up without beards, and without any beauty. They all have closely knit and strong limbs and plump necks; they are of great size, and low legged, so that you might fancy them two-legged beasts (...). They (...) live on the roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw flesh of any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing it between their own thighs and the backs of their horses. They never shelter themselves under roofed houses, but avoid them, as people ordinarily avoid sepulchers as things not fit for common use. Nor is there even to be found among them a cabin thatched with reeds; but they wander about, roaming over the mountains and the woods, and accustom themselves to bear frost and hunger and thirst from their very cradles (...). They can stay on their horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of their steed, and sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety of dream. And when any deliberation is to take place on any matter, they all hold their common council on horseback."

Source 3

ST JEROME, Letter to Ageruchia (17), 409 AD.

"A few of us have hitherto survived them, but this is due not to anything we have done ourselves but to the mercy of the Lord. Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by [German peoples]. (...) The once noble city of Moguntiacum has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangium after standing a long siege have been extirpated. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the Altrebatæ (...), Tournay (...), Strasburg have fallen to Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine (...), of Lyons and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one universal scene of desolation. And those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within. I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse which has been kept from falling hitherto by the merits of its reverend bishop Exuperius. Even the Spains are on the brink of ruin and tremble daily (...)."

Source 4