Gone Medieval - Theoderic the Great

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great, a warrior-king who ushered in decades of peace and stability in Italy as king of Goths and Romans. Theoderic transformed his roving “warrior nation” from the periphery of the Roman world into a standing army that protected his taxpaying Roman subjects with the support of the Roman elite. He not only stabilized Italy but also extended his kingdom to the western Balkans, southern France, and the Iberian Peninsula. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis talks to Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, author of Theoderic the Great: King of Goths, Ruler of Romans, the first full-scale history of Theoderic and the Goths in more than 75 years, which traces the transformation of a divided kingdom into a great power.This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world,

to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Right at the dawning of our period, one man stood above the competing warlord scrapping for a share of the remnants of the Roman Empire. He was a goth, a killer of rivals, and the restorer of peace in a shattered Italy. Hans Ulrich Vima has written the first full-length biography of Theodoric the Great in more than three quarters of a century. Welcome to Gone Medieval. It's great to have you on here.

I don't know very much about Theodoric the Great at all. So this is right at the opposite end of the medieval period from where I normally focus my attention. So I'm really, really keen to understand Theodoric and his background and his impact on the really early medieval period. So I guess to start us off with, Oli, who is Theodoric? When are we talking about and where does he come from? As you said, Theodoric,

was a gothic king, both in the sense that he himself viewed himself as a goth, and in the sense that he led a people that, at least in its majority, was proud to belong to the goth. He was the son of a gothic king named Theudema, and Theodima was one of three brothers leading Gothic warriors in Pannonia, what is more than Hungary, in the area of Lake Palaton. Theodoric grew up in Constantinople, where he stayed as a hostage for 10 years. So he came to know the East Roman court quite well as a young man. He returned to Penonia in 471, and in 474, succeeded his father. His father, Thudimir, had meanwhile led the so-called Panonean Gulf into Macedonia. And for several years, Theodoric fought a Gothic king and rival claimant to imperial favor, who was likewise named Theodoric, modern scholars,

normally call him Strabo to avoid confusion. They followed a long struggle between the two Theoderates, between the Goth who had come from Pannonia and others called Pannonian Goth, and the Goth led by Strabo, who were based in Thrace, modern Bulgaria, and in scholarly literature, others referred to as the Thracian Gulf. In this period, Theoros fortunes varied extremely, and his following grew and shrank according to the fortunes he enjoyed in his struggle for imperial recognition, imperial subsidies.

The means to maintain the large following he had. which consisted not only of warriors, but also of their families. It was only after Strabo's death in 481 that our Theodoric was able to unite these two large warrior confederations under his leadership. And they followed a period when his relations with the court in Constantinople were very good. He was appointed master of the soldiers and even nominated consul in the year 484. But this good understanding between the Gothic king and the emperor did not last. Theoderic soon turned against his imperial master. And finally, in 488, an agreement was reached between the king and the emperor that

Theoderich should lead his army to Italy, deposed the King Odo Aether, who had been ruling Italy since 476, and to rule there in place of the emperor until one day the emperor would himself be able to come to Italy. Theodoric succeeded in ousting Odo Atha, in fact he killed him by his own hand, and thus became sole ruler of Italy in the war. the spring of fall 193. And he held on to power until his death in 526 for more than 30 years, which by any standards is a remarkable feat in the period that we are talking about. Absolutely. In that period in the Eastern Empire, was he just one of many different warlords, or did he particularly stand out?

Beginning he was simply one of several warlords. And it was by no means foreseeable that In the event, he would oust all his rivals, especially the other Theodric, the man who led the so-called Thracian goth, and for some time had much stronger support from the emperor. Yeah. If we just take a little step backwards, and I was struck by the way you described his emergence and then his move to Rome, that it sounded a little bit like that Eastern Emperor sort of didn't know what to do with Theodric once he'd become so powerful. So it's sort of, there's a place over there where we can push him so he's not on our doorstep and he's, to some extent, someone else's problem. Before we get him back over to Rome, could you just describe me a little bit who the Goths were that make up Theoderic's army? They're also, I think, sometimes called Ostrogoths.

Is there a difference between those two terms? Yes, definitely. We do find ethnic groups which are labeled as goth in our sources. the middle of the third century and the first crop up on the lower Danube, crossing the Danube for aiding into the joining provinces and even defeating famously Roman Emperor Diches in 251, I think. The warrior group from which Theodoric's father and his uncles drew their power much later, we first see them in the retinue of Attila.

They accompanied Artila on his raids into goal and also into Italy, and they only became independent leaders after Artila's death, when this very loose power structure fell apart, and the various groups of warriors that Attila had been able to subject to his rule, finally became independent players. And we see that they settled somewhere in Pannonia, modern Hungary. We cannot precisely define the areas where they settled. And settlement is perhaps not the most appropriate term anyway,

because they were always on the move. They must have had some sort of base or several bases, just as Attila had a large camp to which he could come back. the winter after he had crossed thousands of kilometers with his army. The difference between goth and Austro-Goth, as it is used in modern literature, refers to the Goth was settled in Italy. And we can trace back their history to the followers of Artila. In contrast, we refer to withy goth for a Gothic group that formed much earlier and was settled in southwestern. go in Aquitania that developed the first Gothic kingdom on Roman territory.

At the time of Theodoric, this withy Gothic kingdom expanded into the Iberian Peninsula. Theodoric was in the end able to take possession of this withy Gothic realm and in his lifetime to unite these two large group of Gothic peoples. But inside these realms, the term used was always goth. The chancelary of Theodoric didn't style Theodoric king of Austrogoth. In Italy, he was simply king of the goth. And you mentioned when Theodoric gets to Italy, he's faced with Odoessa, who is there. Who is he?

How important a ruler is he? Odo Aether, not only deposed. the reigning emperor, but also somehow managed to get the Senate in Rome to send an embassy declaring to the emperor in Constantinople that no longer was an emperor needed. In Italy, one emperor would suffice for the whole emperor and the affairs of Italy would be taken care of. So, in fact, he abolished an institution that had developed since the mid-fourth century. And that was a bold, step to take, I would argue. And he managed to hold on to power for at least 10 years without spectacular successes, but also without strong opposition, be it from the secular elites,

from senators or bishops, or from his own army. He was not, however, able to build a stable relationship with Constantinople and he had to rely on an army which was heterogeneous and could not owe to his credit binastic legitimacy or striking successes as a military leader. He was the man of the soldiers themselves had made king and he owed everything to them. One could argue that it was win situation for the emperor and Constantinople because if Theodoric would be able to succeed, depose Odo Aether, a uncontrollable force, which had caused serious trouble since 474, would be far removed from the center of imperial power. And in case he failed, the same result would be reached, and one could think of other means of getting rid of Odo Aether in time.

So when Theoderic is sent over to Italy, is there an element of the Eastern Empire feeling like they can just put two problems together here and perhaps they'll sort each other out or they'll just be left with one person to deal with instead of two problems? There certainly was a sense of belonging in the warrior group Theodoric led to Italy and that they shared a common language, a particular Christian creed, and presumably also a certain lifestyle, what really held them together as a social group, where the experiences they had made over decades as a community of warriors, or what I have called a community of violence, community held together by values and abilities that ensure that you can ensure your will against

physical resistance. And they used it at least for 30 years while they were highly mobile and thus had lost roots or they had never had a chance to have roots in particular places. They weren't even able to bury to worship the grace of their. ancestors because the graves that they have ducked during their travels all over, the Balkans might be hundreds of kilometres away in the next year. And you mentioned that the kind of the opening set piece for the book is the meeting between Theoderic Odoacer, they make an alliance, they're going to rule Italy together and then Theodoric just cuts O'Doeser in half with his own sword and Odoacer is dead. Given that Theodoric,

has those advantages of a loyal band of men, but is a stranger in Italy. How does he go about settling his rule in Italy? At first he had to satisfy the demands of his warrior people. And this he did by confiscating estates and giving the titles of ownership of these estates to his men. So he basically transformed a band of warriors into a standing army

whose members collected rents from estates. But that would not in the long run have been sufficient to build a stable relationship with the key players in Italy, the immensely rich

and socially powerful senators and also with the Catholic bishops. And so he had to strike some sort of compromise. And this he did, by guaranteeing the privileges the senators always been enjoying, and by entrusting them with running the civilian administration of Israel.

And this was still a very efficient apparatus to collect taxes from almost every subject. It made Theodoric the by far richest king, apart from the emperor, of course, He controlled resources, which exceeded by many times the resources that his ancestors had been able to dispose of. So we have a Roman civilian administration in Theoderix, Italy, which is run by Romans, appointed by the king. and there were always more than enough Roman senators who were happy to cooperate with Theoderic as the ruler of a realm in which the old elites enjoyed the protection

and the many sorts of privileges that they felt entitled to. You also managed somehow to build a good working relationship with the Catholic bishops, which is remarkable in view of the fact that he himself belonged to a Christian congregation, which was regarded by the Catholic bishops in Italy as just another manifestation of that arch heresy,

Arianism. And he was never tempted to convert, for example, the Frankish king Clovis, and he always gave his support to this small, congregation that had come with him into Italy. Modern scholars speak of the Homoian church because they confessed a creed which assert the basic similarity between God, the father and his son Jesus. So in the eyes of the Catholic bishops, the king was a heretic. And that meant that he could not fulfill many of the functions that good emperors were expected to fulfill.

I was going to ask how close he was in style and authority to an old Roman emperor. And I guess maybe that partly answers the question that he is a very different beast to an old Roman emperor. He definitely looked different from Roman emperor in that he had long hair and in that he wore a mustache. It was also different from Roman emperors in that his mother tongue was gothic and Latin at best his second language. His Latin was simply sufficient to make himself understood to even senators. But he left it to educated Romans to express his will in the style that had become typical of every public pronouncement of the Roman emperor. And in fact, one of these senators dominates the evidence we have for Theodoric.

He was called Cassiodorus, and he has left us several hundreds of letters he wrote for Theodorichs, and they do not basically differ in style from the laws and letters that survived from the chancelary of the later Roman emperors. If we consider that very few subjects had a chance ever to meet Theodoric in person, and that visual media did play a relatively small role in late antiquity. The representation created by texts, by letters, which were formulated in the name of the king and expressed what had to be regarded as the king's will surely show his Roman side as very present in many.

levels of society. I imagine that many of these letters were actually read out and if they were addressed to Goth also translated. Which I guess is interesting that he's willing to go in there and play the game. He's not looking to smash the stadium apart. He's looking to play the game of being a Roman emperor almost. He did on some occasions, especially during his famous visit to Rome in 500, He did entertain the masses in a way that was typical of Roman and especially late Roman emperors, upper games in the hippodrome. But there is no evidence there even was a hippodrome in Ravenna. And definitely he cut back on expenses for this sort of entertainment radically.

And he also made it known that he thoroughly disliked. the two watch for hours with men-killing beasts of the pleasure of the crowd. You mentioned a little bit earlier that Theoderic was able to extend his reach beyond Italy, so into southern Gaul and into the Iberian Peninsula even a little bit. How was he able to do that? Was there still a sense that some regions still craved the stability of the Roman Empire, perhaps? Were they happy to accept another ruler from Rome? No, I would not think so. He simply exploited opportunities that came up. We can distinguish different phases in his foreign policy. In the first phase, he tried to secure his position in Italy by striking alliances with other Germanic leaders by marriage. And he actively intervened in the war between Alaric, the withig.

Gothic king and Clovis, only after he had, he tried to prevent an armed confrontation. But when he had decided to intervene, he seized upon the opportunity and used it to the full. He not only had his generals conquer the paws, but he also sent them to the Iberian Peninsula and managed first to install their grandson of his named Amalric and even officially became king of the Withigoth for the rest of his life. So that made him in the second decade of the 6th century, the most powerful ruler in the Western Mediterranean and his writ run from Ravenna to Kordoba. He did not, however, incorporate the Wittigothic realm into the administrative struts. of Italy. He created a new Praetorian prefecture for the promont, but he did not do that for Spain.

And the status of Spain always remained a bit undefined until his unexpected, at least for him, unexpected death in 526. Yeah. So how is Theodoric remembered? I mean, in his own lifetime, was he loved or feared or both? I have no doubt that he was able to inspire fear in people. He was known to have killed people by his own hands and his wrath could be dangerous. On the other hand, he was also perceived as a ruler who was able of rationally calculating his interests and who respected what he considered to be reasonable demands of people on which he had to rely. I would also think it's necessary to distinguish between different groups within that large

heterogeneous, socially, culturally, religiously, body of subjects he ruled in Italy. For example, it's very likely that the Jews appreciated his rule in Italy because he upheld the privileges that the Roman emperors had granted to them and defended them against illegal violence. On the other hand, for slaves or dependent peasants didn't really make much of difference who the ruler was in whose names Texas and rents were collected. With one important proviso, though,

in the end it became clear that he had managed to give Italy a very long period of mostly undisturbed peace. And that was a sharp contrast to what people were to experience from 535 onwards. So looking back on Theoderic in the mid-sixth century, many people would have thought that was the best time in our lives. And do you think his lasting legacy might lie in some of that stability? Does he have a really lasting legacy in that region? I would say the legacy he left this is afterlife.

The institutions have vanished, and if one wants to trace continuity between institutions in Theoderix, Italy and modern Europe, these institutions had been created long before Theodoric, and he only preserved that. But his afterlife is quite remarkable. He acquired a legend that must have happened sometime in the early Middle East, ages, although the text that give testimony to this legend are from the high middle ages,

but they go to show that stories about a king, Dietrich, which is only another form of the name Theodoric, had once ruled in Italy. These stories were told all over the Germanic-speaking world. We can find them in Scandinavia, in Germany, also in England, and in Iceland. But in the process of being transformed into a legend, the historical Theodric lost almost all characteristics that we recognize him by. He was a king who had been driven from his kingdom in Italy, an exile at the court of Attila. called Edsel, and he made endless efforts to finally reconquer his realm. And he also lost our connection to the Goth.

The medieval Dietrich is a Germanic king, but he's no longer connected to any particular Germanic tribe. He had a second life, so to speak, or second afterlife in the modern period. And that's in part an untastey story, deeply influenced by nationalist and even racist ideologies, which came to hell's way in many European countries in the late 19th and early to mid-20th century, but which were particularly strong in Germany. The Nazis tried to instrumentalize Theoderic for their ideas, of a race-conscious king, but they have a problem that the historical Theodoric had protected the Jews

and didn't act according to what imperatives of Pan-Germanic solidarity, far from it. These attempts to educate the Germans by referring to Theodoric as a model Germanic king didn't really catch on in the academy, and they remained restricted to the feel of propaganda and also education, sadly. It's interesting how he seems to have become a representative of something that he absolutely wasn't. The real Theodoric has to be lost so that he can represent all of these things that he would surely not have recognised. No, you wouldn't have recognized himself in the Theodoric of the National Socialists.

He would not have recognized himself in the theodoric as a king whose throw for Italian unity, an image that was very popular in bourgeois milieu's in 19th century Europe. In England, where intellectuals often sympathized with the Italian Risorgimento and, of course, in Italy itself. Many intellectuals of the 19th century considered him as the man who had. defended Italian unity and the demise of the Gothic kingdom in Italy as the catastrophe of the Italian nation, which had to wait until the 19th century to reunite again. And just to finish on, Theoderic sits on the cusp of the transition between what we think of as the ancient world and the early medieval world. Do you think Theodoric would have recognized himself in that period of,

change, did he play any role in bringing about that change between the ancient and medieval worlds? The Tripodai Division of History, Antiquity, Middle Ages, a modern age, has rightly gone out of fashion with people who work on late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. These categories no longer suffice. They are not really suited to cover the complexity of developments in the Mediterranean, let's say, between Constantine and the rise of Islam. That's why most historians would now be much more comfortable in using terms like late antiquity or the transformation of the Roman world. Having said that, it is undisputable that much changed over these centuries and that in the history of Italy, Theodoric rather belongs to the last

phase of late Roman history than to the beginning of the Middle Ages. The war that Justinian led to reconquer Italy for the East Roman Empire made a much deeper impact on Italy. It was really devastating and Justinian had no intention of rebuilding a Western Roman Empire. He simply wanted to incorporate these lands as provinces into his realm. And that was the major reason why the Senate in Rome ultimately vanished. And then, of course, there was the plague. It's still difficult for us to assess precisely the impact of the plague in the 6th and 7th century. It does not seem to have impacted the war against that Justinian,

led very much of a copious, doesn't mention it in that context, and he should have known having been on the staff of a leading East Roman general. And as every medievalist knows, re-conquist was ephemeral, Longobot. Warrior bands came into Italy in 568, and the political unity of Italy split into an area which was controlled by Constantinople and several Longaberbart Dachis. So the political landscape changed dramatically after Theodric. So Theodric is sort of the final death throes of that ancient world.

He sort of holds the line for a little bit longer than it otherwise might have stood. Well, thank you so much for joining it. It's been fascinating to talk about Theodoric and to get into that kind of cusp of change, even if, as you say, Theodric might not have recognized where he was. He has for a long time marked a big changing point in the history of the world, I think. It's been fascinating to explore him in a little bit more depth. So thank you very much for joining us. Uli's book Theoderic the Great King of Goths, ruler of Romans, is a must-read and a great

foundation for the coming medieval period. It's out now, so be good to yourself and grab a copy. There are new episodes of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please do join us next time for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcast from and to tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please do drop us a review or rate us anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. It really does help new listeners to find us.

Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hits.