Of all the main Germanic peoples of the Völkerwanderung Era, the Gepids remain the most elusive to history. Unlike many of their contemporaries, they never succeeded in creating their own state.

The Gepids first appeared in the Roman World when they accompanied the Goths in an invasion of Dacia in the 260's AD but even after the province was abandoned by Rome, a decade later, they did not take possession of it; The very name Gepid is probably from 'Gepanta' meaning 'sluggish' or 'slow', and they had a reputation amongst the Goths of being lazy.

They settled, instead, east of the River Tisza where they were subjugated first by the Ostrogoths, then, along with them, by the Huns (in AD 375). The Gepids provided Attila with the largest of all his 'allied' contingents and their king, Ardaric, was the most favoured of all the great Hun's vassals. They proved staunch allies and formed the right wing of the Hunnic army at the Battle of Châlons (or the 'Catalaunian Fields') in 451.

But after Attila's death, it was the Gepids, still led by Ardaric, who led the alliance of rebel Germans and Sarmatians, which overthrew Hunnic domination at the Battle of the Nedao in 454. It was this victory which provided the Gepids with a homeland in the eastern Carpathians as allies of Rome. Their old enmity with the Ostrogoths continued, however, and Theodoric drove them out in 504. Only in 537, with the Goths distracted by the wars against Justinian, did they settle around Sirmium in the Danube Valley.

In 546, the Romans employed their Lombard allies, under Audoin, to drive the Gepids out of this strategically important region and at the Battle of Asfeld in 552, the Gepids were crushed. What was left of Gepid power and autonomy was wiped out in 567 by the Avars, who had succeeded the Huns as the latest menace to Europe from the Asiatic steppes.

De Gepiden

Thanks to the efforts of Rien van de Wall, this page is now available in Dutch translation at http://users.pandora.be/vroege-middeleeuwen/gepiden.htm (Or just click on the flag).

Mark Furnival, 1998