German Tribes
...westward onto the Rhine-Danube Frontier. The basic Germanic political structure was the tribe, headed by a chief who was elected for his ability as a war leader. It was these tribes that resulted in Rome's losing control of the great frontier. The Roman and Germanic cultures greatly clashed. The Germanic religion was polytheistic, their society was a warrior aristocracy, and finally their societal structure was a mobile one. By 370 A.D., the tribe had become nations led by a warrior king. It was at this time that the Huns swept out of central Asia westward in which they encountered two Germanic nations of Visigoths and Ostrogoths. This was the spark of many years of invasions and warfare that provoked the downfall of the Roman controlled frontier. The following information describes some of the Germanic tribes such as Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, Angles, Saxons, Ostrogoths, Vandals and Lombards.
Originating in central Asia, the Huns were a Mongolian tribe who invaded southeastern Europe c. AD 370 and managed to build a remarkable empire. In their nomadic endeavors, the Huns crossed paths with the Ostrogoths and Visigoths and were able to maintain their dominance, especially at the Danubian frontier of the Roman empire.
This clan of Asiatic warriors invaded Gaul in 451, which became the unofficial center of their civilization. Although the Huns were seemingly primitive pastoralists, they did maintain a distinct, multifaceted society. The frontier along the Danube became the site for trade, where the Huns obtained silk and wine through annual fairs. Slaves captured in battle helped to define this civilization by bolstering the economy, whether it be through the strong output of their menial labor or through the slave market in Rome. Hunnic art added an interesting dimension to the culture as well. Art was expressed in the forms of bronze cauldrons and vessels....
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