The Vandals were one of the more powerful Germanic tribes who penetrated the defences of the Roman Empire on the River Rhine as the empire declined during the 5th century. And this Germanic tribe caused a major headache for not only the western but the eastern. roman empire as well the vandals would occupy the rich provinces of north africa after traveling through much of western europe and they would also comprehensively sack rome no less than 455 ce and on top of that they made
numerous raids all across the Mediterranean as the western half of the empire collapsed. So a very powerful and dangerous adversary as Rome entered its twilight period during the 5th century. Rex Vandalorum at Alenorum is the Latin for King of the Vandals and Alans, and that's a title that...
Rulers like Geiseric and Huneric adopted after their conquest of North Africa and consolidation of their empire as they caused havoc throughout the Roman provinces. The kingdom of the Vandals in Africa didn't last long though, just over a hundred years, and the... whole recorded history of the Vandals only really spans around 170 years. The fact is they disappear quickly from history after they were defeated by Belisarius, the great Byzantine general of the 6th century.
But it wasn't only militarily, but on the religious front as well, that the Vandals posed huge problems for the Roman Empire, which by this time was now officially Christian, or rather Catholic Christian, while Catholicism could be considered the mainstream sect.
There were in the 5th century numerous other versions of Christianity, or heresies as they were termed by the Catholic Church. The Germanic tribes, like the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, and of course the Vandals themselves, had been converted to the...
strain of Christianity called Arianism. Arianism originated from the teachings of the Bishop Arius in Egypt in the early part of the 4th century. Arius had cottoned on to various verses in the Bible where it was written Jesus was begotten rather than being
eternal and therefore he preached that christ was a lesser being than god himself not being eternal and this strand of christianity very nearly became the mainstream of the religion with most of the barbarians having adopted arianism as well as several Roman emperors in the east and west at various periods. Now, Arian Christianity was considered the biggest heresy by the Catholics, so there wasn't much love lost between these two sects of early Christians. This wasn't such a sore issue in...
Europe as the Visigoths and Ostrogoths and other various tribes who had occupied the Western Roman Empire never showed much animus towards Catholic Christians and were... generally tolerant apart from isolated examples of persecution the vandals though were quite the opposite they committed a huge number of atrocities during their time on catholics who they saw in turn as heretics and so in this series of videos
We're going to take a look at the religion of the Vandals, their religious policies, their intolerance and the internecine war and issues between the Christians in North Africa as the Vandals began their persecution of Catholics. But let's take a look at the rise of the Vandals first.
in this video how they came to be such a power in the first place and how they migrated from northern europe to north africa and established their kingdom so let's start with the name of the tribe first where does the name vandal actually originate from well it's
suspected that it comes from perhaps the same word that the modern german word wandeln comes from and wandeln means wanderer and if that's the case then the name is a pretty apt one as the vandals were some of the most widely traveled of the barbarian tribes that moved into the roman empire during the fourth and fifth century the term vandalism itself as used today was coined in the late 18th century and came about because of the excessive destruction the the vandals caused or worse
to have caused in rome during its sacking it was first used by a chap called henry gregoire the bishop of bloys in 1794 during the height of the chaos of the french revolution gregoire saw the destruction carried out on pieces of art by the mobs in the cities as the revolution spread and in his track titled quote report on the destruction brought about by vandalism and on the means to suppress it unquote he made a parallel with the senseless destruction
that he saw in french cities with the vandal sack of rome labeling the mobs acts as vandalism and thus making sure the vandal tribe would always be associated with savage chaos quote i created the word to kill the thing unquote explained meaning the destruction by the mob by labeling it in such a way and so for this reason the name of the tribe will always now be associated with chaos and barbarity
So these videos being on the religious history of the Vandals, let's firstly take a very quick overall look into the Vandal dynasty that we know of and their religious inclinations. The Vandal people had nine rulers that we know of covering the span of roughly...
200 years and in terms of religion it's uncertain when the tribe converted to christianity no contemporary account of that time mentions the actual conversion process some historians reckon the tribe was converted before it crossed into the roman empire while others think the vandals were converted during their time in france and spain but from worshipping the germanic gods they became almost fanatical christians or rather aryan christians accepting this new
Christian belief with very strong religious fervour and becoming strongly intolerant to the cost of the Catholics in Spain and Africa, as we'll find out later. And this became apparent during the reign of Gunderek, the third ruler that we know of onwards during their time in Spain.
But it's one of the more fascinating stories that we have little information on, how a pagan tribe who had the usual allegiance to pagan gods suddenly in the space of a generation became militant Christians, developing more Christian zeal than... any of the other groups of barbarians or even the romans themselves we know stillico the half vandal commander of the western roman army and a christian himself ordered the burning of the sibylline books in rome itself in 405 ce as part of
parcel of measures taken to continue the forcing of pagans to convert to Christianity. This Aryan Christian zeal was strongest during the time of Geyseric and his son Huneric, but continued at a lesser level in terms of persecution. Catholics right till the end of the Vandal Empire. And in fact, it could be said to be part of the reason for the collapse of the Vandal Empire in 534 CE.
For the last king, Gelimer had ousted the previous ruler, Hilderic, because he had a much softer approach towards Catholics than Gelimer was happy with. And this change in regime gave the Byzantine emperor, Justinian, the excuse to declare war against the Vans. candles and destroy the Vandal Kingdom.
so in terms of sources on the vandal history we're lucky to have a number of contemporary or near contemporary sources the best source and certainly on the religious policies of the vandals is quote a history of the african province persecution in the times of
Enseric and Huneric, the king of the Vandals. And that's written by a contemporary of Guy Seric called Victor Vitensis, or Victor of Vita, a chap who experienced the rule and the policies of the Vandals personally. Victor is... to have been the bishop or certainly a man of the church in a place called Vita in North Africa at the time and he wrote his book around 484 CE when the Vandal occupation had been consolidated for some time and Aryan
And his main motive for writing the book, apart from describing the Vandal Conquest, is really, as the name of the book suggests, to narrate the religious persecution that was taking place against his fellow Catholics. on the Vandals is that of Procopius of Caesarea, who was a well-known 6th century Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima and who wrote extensively on the Justinian period of Byzantine history. Procopius' book, The Bello Vandalic...
or the Vandal War was written circa 550 CE and his account as the name suggests is mainly of the war to reconquer this part of Africa by Belisarius. In fact Procopius accompanied the Byzantine army to Africa. the war. So while Victor deals with the earlier part of the Vandal history, Procopius narrates the end of the Vandal kingdom. So together these two books could be considered essential reading as they cover these vital and eventful periods pretty well.
Another source is that of Isidore of Seville, a late 5th century, early 6th century Visigothic scholar in Spain who provides further information in his work called A History of the Gothic, Vandal and Suevi Kings. The section on the Vandals... is a fairly short one although informative.
And I won't bore everyone with details of the various other sources. Suffice to say there are details on the Vandals written in the works of other late Roman and early Byzantine period historians and writers. One of these, for example, is written by Salvian of Marseille.
Salvian was a 5th century Christian living in the province of Gaul or France as we know it now. Salvian in his work The Government of God blames the decline of the Romans on their failure to follow Catholicism with vigour and he criticised the Romans for their
decadence and oppression of the poor their lack of theater and games and he almost goes as far as to show support for the vandals who he says have none of the moral corruption and decadent practices of the romans and he suggests this is the reason and for their success. Salvian is probably the most interesting source we have on the declining state of Roman government and the spread of barbarian rule, the increasing taxes and the general decadence of the twilight period of the West.
and roman empire And there are various other works where the vandals and events related to them are mentioned, including Paulus Erosius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Jordanes, a gothic historian, Zosimus, Priscus, Saint Augustine, Olympiadorus, Hidatius, among
Heidatius in fact wrote the Chronicle which documents the chaotic situation spain found itself in during the fifth century when vandals aylans swaves and gods fought against each other for mastery of the iberian peninsula in terms of modern research by general consensus the best
relatively recent book on the Vandals is that written by Professor Christian Courtois called The Vandals of Africa, which was released in 1957, in which he writes his near three decades worth of research on the tribe. Unfortunately, it's written in French. and I'm not at all sure there's been any translation into English. But if anyone wants to read or check out these sources, I've detailed some of them in the description of the video below.
So let's take a look at what we know of the early history of the tribe. Historians like Tacitus in the first century briefly mention the Vandals. He calls them Vandali, but we have no clear idea of their origins prior to that. Tacitus does mention the Vandals.
Vandals believed, along with two other Germanic tribes, that they were descended from the Germanic god Twisto. And Pliny also mentions the tribe in his work Natural History, which he wrote around 77 CE. Pliny writes that the Vandals were considered one of the... five main tribes in germania the other tribes being the the burgundians the goths and the much lesser well-known varini and charini some sources put the vandals in the crimean region while others show them as originating from
Scandinavia and working their way south. Others put them near the Vistula River in Poland at some point. However, by the late 4th and early 5th century, we know the Vandals had settled in Eastern Europe or on the left bank of the Danube, adjacent to the Roman province. of Pannonia and their king at that time was a man called Gadigasel.
Now, the Vandals had not grown into a serious threat at this stage, and some Vandals actually pop up as Confederates in the Roman army. In fact, as mentioned previously, Stilicho, the famous Roman Generalissimo during the late 4th and early 5th century, was...
half vandal himself his father had been a vandal cavalryman having married a roman woman of high rank after serving the eastern roman emperor valens so we know they had a relatively warm history with the romans extending a few decades before their invasion. As far as the conversion of the barbarian tribes across the Danube, the Goths for example is concerned, we know that this began in earnest around 341 CE and that was when an Aryan Christian Goth called Ulf
Ophelas was made bishop of his people in Antioch and then later sent north of the Danube to begin the conversion of the Gothic tribes. Ophelas would translate the Bible into Gothic and triggered off the conversion of the whole tribe. The Vandals being adjusted.
to the gods in location at this time, it's likely they were converted around the same time. In fact, this is more than likely considering they converted to the Aryan Christianity of Ulfelas rather than Catholic Christianity, which was more likely to happen.
if they'd converted during their time in France and Spain. Although some accounts like Paulus Erosius suggest that they became Christian after they crossed the Rhine and that remains a possibility as well. We simply don't have enough information about this.
conversion now the late 4th century was a pretty uncertain time for the roman empire and the various tribes that bordered roman territory and that was because the much feared huns were advancing from the east and driving all before them and many of these germanic tribes were therefore anxious to move into roman lands for safety procopius the byzantine scholar also attributes the motivation to migrate to famine suggesting there had been several years where the
Crops had failed in the trans-Danube lands, and no doubt the Huns moving westward also helped the decision to be made. And at this time, Gadigasel, the king of the Vandals, also decided to up sticks to escape the Huns.
not all the Vandal tribe migrated, some preferring to take their chance against the Huns. Procopius writes that, quote, when the Vandals originally pressed by hunger were about to remove from their ancestral abodes, a certain part of them was left behind who were reluctant to go and not desirous of following the digger cell
So the decision to move west after having been settled in that area for some time obviously wasn't an easy one. In fact, there are some suggestions that Stilicho, the vandal commander of the Roman army, even invited them in to balance the power of the...
as the Franks had already moved into northern France. And this is mentioned by Jordanes, the Gothic historian, and he writes as follows, quote, consul and patrician and took possession of gaul here they plundered their neighbors and had no settled place of abode but having said that zosimus another chronicler does not mention this however and simply narrates their crossing without any invitation
Quote, some years before Arcadius being in his sixth consulate and Probus was his colleague, the Vandals, uniting with the Elani and the Suevi, crossed in these places and... plundered these countries beyond the alps but whatever the case gadigasel quietly but ambitiously led them from the region of pannonia moving along the banks of the danube river westwards up to and north along the rhine with the intention to cross
over into what is now Belgium. But before they could cross the Rhine, Cadicel lost his life in a hard-fought battle against the Franks, who'd been given that particular area to guard as federates of the Romans. The Vandal army, according to contemporary sources, was only saved by the
timely arrival of their allies, the Aylans. After his death in the battle against the Franks, Gadigasel was succeeded by his eldest son, Gunderek, who would lead them for the next 20-odd years, and he was just as ambitious, it seemed.
as his father. According to the chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine, the Vandals would cross into Gaul on the 31st of December 406 CE, near the city of Mainz or Magontiacum as it was called then. Edward Gibbon writes that the Rhine was quite possibly frozen at this time and therefore bridges or boats were not required making the crossing much easier although it seems this is really only speculation by Gibbon as no contemporary account mentions the river being frozen but after having crossed
the Rhine by whichever means the vandals caused havoc in France as they swept through the country moving southwards. Saint Jerome in 409 CE would in a letter write of the swathe of destruction the vandals caused as they made their way through the province.
comparing it to the coming of satan the the antichrist and perhaps suggesting the tribes including the vandals were the antichrist themselves quote i shall now say a few words of our present miseries 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 hordes of... Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Jepids, Herulis, Saxons, Burgundians, Alemani, and alas for the common will, even Pannonians. For Assur also is joined with them, unquote. Jerome mentions Maine, Strasbourg, and other cities.
along the borders of the empire being destroyed, with the barbarians making their way down south as far as Toulouse in the direction of Spain. But France wasn't the final destination for the Vandals, Aylans and Swayves. The Vandals would settle in Gaul.
for around three years before deciding to head further south into the Iberian Peninsula, or what is now Spain. Unfortunately, despite this three-year-long stint, we still don't really know much about events during this time. None of the first-hand sources
curiously have much at all to say about what the vandals did or which cities they besieged and what their rule was like and so on, which is a great shame. But their stay in Spain is a lot better documented. Spain ended up being divided between the vandals.
The Azdink Vandals, one branch of the Vandal tribe, would for a time occupy Galicia, the extreme northwest of Spain, while the other separate branch of the tribe, called the Selingians, occupied Baitica, the extreme... south of spain meanwhile the suave another germanic tribe would occupy the western part of iberia and the aylans the allies of the vandals got lusitania in the west and carthaginiensis in the center some areas and cities still managed to
remain in roman control even at this time however and so the iberian peninsula was heavily fractured at this point now under king gunderic the vandals would remain in spain for around two decades in which they would plunder the balearic islands
and Seville, amongst other places, before they were pushed out by the more numeric Visigoths, who had also invaded the Iberian Peninsula themselves. This chaos and war between the barbarian tribes fighting for turf meant that these were, by consensus, tough times for the civilians of spain isidori of seville the sixth century church historian writes of their arrival and just as in gaul he describes them rampaging through the peninsula causing huge disruption and damage and hydatius say
bishop in Spain at the time also writes in similar terms quote while the barbarians ran wild through the Spanish provinces and evil pestilence raged the tyrannical tax collector plundered and the soldier used up the supplies stored in the city terrible famine prowled so that human beings were compelled by hunger to devour human flesh and mothers fed on the murdered and cooked bodies of those they had born beasts accustomed to the bodies of those slain by the sword famine and plague and
fed by the bodies of whatever men they had killed, ran wild, bringing death to the human race. And thus, with the four plagues of sword, famine, pestilence and beasts raging through the entire world, those things proclaimed by the Lord through his prophets were... fulfilled unquote from 416 to 418 ce the vandals came under increasing pressure from the visigoths who were now allies with the romans and who with roman encouragement had invaded spain the ceiling vandals who had said
settled in Baitica, were destroyed by the Goths, and the Goths in fact nearly destroyed the Aylans as well, with the Aylan king, Addax, being killed in an encounter. Now... What this meant was that what was left of the Aelan nation would voluntarily accept Gunderek as their king. And this is why the later Vandal kings styled themselves as Rex Vandalorum at Eleanorum, or King of the Vandals and Aelans. But even with these setbacks...
the Vandals under the able leadership of Gunderek and now strengthened by the remnants of the Ailan tribe would get even more daring and by this time the Vandals had mastered the art of building and sailing ships as well and it remains a curious fact that of the numerous tribes that had crossed into the roman borders it was only the vandals who became proficient in the art of seafaring but using these new naval skills they began to make extensive raids across the mediterranean plundering the
Montalieric Islands, for example, and Mauritania in North Africa in 425 CE, which they no doubt found was very weakly defended and may have helped in making their decision to cross to North Africa later on. Now, King Gunderek... would die in 429 CE and Isidore of Seville attributes his death to divine anger, the Christian god he suggests deciding to end his reign of terror against Catholics for Gunderek was already waging war against them in Spain.
Quote, since with the authority of his royal power, he irreverently stretched forth his hands against the basilica of the martyr Vincentius of this city. By the decision of God, he was presently seized by a demon at the gate of the shrine and perished. Unquote.
With his death, Gyseric, his much more famous half-brother, would now become king. And now Gyseric was a military genius and would lead the Vandals into what could be called their golden age. Writing a century later, Jordanes, the goth historian, gives a...
a memorable description gleaned from other sources of the new king of the vandals quote geyseric still famous in the city for the disaster of the romans was a man of moderate height and lame in consequence of a fall from his horse he was a man of deep thought and few words holding luxury in disdain furious in his anger greedy for gain and shrewd in winning over the barbarians and skilled in sowing the seeds of dissension to arouse enmity such was he who as we have said came at the
solicitous invitation of boniface to the country of africa there he reigned for a long time receiving authority as they say from god himself unquote and procopius also writing much later describes him in glowing terms excellently trained in warfare and was the cleverest of all men unquote finally one last surprising thing on the man himself isidori of seville suggests in his writings that guy seric had been a catholic but who had later changed to the arian belief
quote his reign lasted 40 years from a catholic he became an apostate and is said to have been the first to go over to the aryan falsehood unquote now if this is true perhaps some of the vandal tribe too were catholic but it raises the issue of why he and they would convert to Arianism from Catholicism. Most scholars don't seem to accept this, however, and the general impression is that the Vandals were always Arians as converts. So why did Gaiacerik decide to cross over into Africa?
have been several reasons for this the gods as mentioned had moved into the iberian peninsula and had successfully defeated the aylans and vandals recently and they were said to be much more numerous in number as well and therefore had considerably more
sources to call upon and there were also allies of the romans as well so these were important reasons of course but geyseric had also in the vandal raids against north africa perhaps noticed the weakness of the roman position there and the lack of sufficient garrisons in the african cities a third reason speculated is that the roman commander of north africa a general called boniface actually invited the vandals to cross over in a spot of intrigue and politicking with a rival strongman the
famous Roman general Aetius. And this is what Procopius suggests, writing that Boniface sent an embassy over to Gaiseric promising friendship and that if the Vandals crossed into North Africa, he would promise some territory in Libya as well as a pact of... mutual assistance in in case of external threats jordanes leaves a similar account of the intrigue boniface was involved in quote gyseric king of the vandals had already been invited into africa by boniface who had fallen into a dis
with the emperor valentinian and was able to obtain revenge only by injuring the empire so he invited them urgently and brought them across the narrow strait known as the strait of gades scarcely seven miles wide which divides africa from spain and unites the mouth of the tyranian sea with the waters of the ocean unquote now the vandals of course could hardly refuse being promised some of the richest provinces of the roman empire in fact north africa was the bread basket of the empire
in terms of grain, with other exports being oil, olives, grapes, pomegranates, dates and all sorts of vegetables. So it was a very tempting target. And it wasn't just food either. There was a vast amount of marble too.
being quarried in these provinces and exported all across the empire. So a very wealthy province indeed. And in fact, Alaric the Goth, after sacking Rome in 410 CE, was known to be heading south, hoping to cross into... africa as well so other tribes like the the gods had had their eyes on these provinces too whatever the case we know the vandals moved to malaria or tarifa as it's known today just to the west of gibraltar and where they would make their crossing gyseric seems to have been
pretty meticulous in working out his strength and the numbers he needed for the crossing, going as far as a headcount of the entire Vandal and A-land contingent, including men, women and children. And they seem to have crossed over lock, stock and barrel by all.
accounts procopius describes the crossing quote the vandals and the aliens he arranged in companies appointing over them no less than 80 leaders whom he called chillarks leaders of a thousand making it appear that his host of fighting men in active service amount to 80,000 and yet the number of the vandals and aliens was said in former times to amount to no more than 50,000. So from this number if we exclude women and children we can estimate a fighting strength of around 15 to 20,000.
So a relatively strong force, although one which could have been dealt with by the Romans had they had sufficient strength amongst the garrisons in Africa. The crossing itself would take place in May of 429 CE. The Vandals sailing across the... straits of gibraltar to the province of mauritania and apparently sources say they landed near tingis or tangiers as it's known today and having crossed and met little or no opposition gai seri quickly occupied the whole of mauritania
And the Vandals had the fortune of finding allies as soon as they crossed as well. The Aylans, as well as the other tribes, had also crossed over with them. But they also got the support of the local Moors, who saw a chance to throw off the yoke of the Romans.
Procopius writes that Gaiaceric's army had Moorish auxiliaries by 430 CE, a year after they had crossed. The Romans themselves could do nothing and the emperor at this time, Valentinian III, agreed to cede to the Vandals the territory that they... already occupied on the promise that they wouldn't invade more territory by this he meant the rich provinces to the east and major cities like hippo regius and carthage but it wouldn't take geyseric long to violate that agreement and the vandal army
advancing further eastwards and they made pretty good progress only being temporarily stopped at the siege of hippo regius in the month of may 430 ce the vandal army met a roman force under boniface who had now turned against them at a
place called Calama near Hipporegius. The Vandals had probably the larger force, we're told by contemporary counts, but the numbers must have been fairly close as otherwise Boniface would not have risked battle in the open plains. Whatever the case, the Roman army was beaten and Boniface himself forced to take refuge in hippo and geyseric would immediately lay siege to the city
Hipparegius would eventually be taken after a lengthy seizure for around 14 months, from May 430 to July 431, before the city finally fell. Conditions inside the city and in the Vandal camp were terrible. And in fact, the Vandals had to raise the siege as they ran out of supplies before they could return to capture the city. During this time, they again beat a Roman army under Boniface and the East Roman general Aspar before returning to lay siege to the city.
a second time. Bishop Capriolus of Carthage would later describe the situation in North Africa during the siege when he travelled to the Synod of Ephesus in July 431 CE.
impeded by the excessive multitude of enemies and the huge devastation of the provinces everywhere, which presents to eyewitnesses one place where all its inhabitants have been killed, another where they have been driven into flight, and a wretched... of destruction spread out far and wide in every direction luckily for the romans the vandals had exhausted themselves in taking hippo and carthage the the big prize in north africa didn't come under attack for another eight years a few
Years later, in February 435, although some sources say 436, another treaty was concluded with Rome. Procopius tells us that the treaty was very much down to Gyseric's initiative. Quote, Seric displayed a foresight worth recounting, whereby he made his good fortune thoroughly secure, for fearing lest if once again an army should come against him from both Rome and Byzantium, the vandals might not be able to use the same strength and enjoy the same...
fortune he was not lifted up by the good fortune he'd enjoyed but rather became moderate because of what he feared so he made a treaty with the emperor valentinian providing that each year he should pay the emperor tribute from libya and he delivered one of his sons huneric
as a hostage to make this agreement binding so geyseric both showed himself a brave man in battle and guarded the victory as securely as possible unquote now it could be procopius got this date wrong as there was a treaty made in 442 but Whatever the case, the Vandals were now officially allies of the Roman Empire and had been given North Africa on the condition that they did not attack Carthage, the capital of Roman Africa.
But this treaty had not much of an effect in the longer term in restraining Geiseric. In fact, it only really encouraged the Vandals, and they made a sizable raid on Sicily in 438 CE, pillaging the entire island. And then further capitalising on Roman weakness and summoning up his own strength, Gaiusaric managed to take Carthage in October 439, making it his new capital. Carthage was the capital of Roman Africa, and so this was a major blow to the empire.
Quadwalt Dias, the... bishop of carthage at the time writes of the fury of the vandals as they entered the city quote horrible death has soiled all the streets pregnant women slaughtered babies taken from the arms of their nurse and thrown to die on the street the cries of those that have
lost in this assault a husband or a father unquote but to make matters worse a roman fleet had also been in the harbor at the time of the fall of the city and the vandals found themselves with more than they ever hoped for not just a city and its treasures wealth but a ready-made fleet to facilitate further invasions meanwhile the bishop quadwalt deus and other catholic clergy were forced to strip and led into leaky ships and boats naked and told to row towards italy where these
desperate men would eventually make it although no doubt the vandals probably hoped they wouldn't and so having captured the city carthage now became the capital of the vandals instead and would be the launch pad for further conquests and raids over the next few decades
all across the Mediterranean. Procopius writes of their travels, quote, every year at the beginning of spring, Geiseric made invasions into Sicily and Italy, enslaving some of the cities, raising others to the ground and plundering everything.
When the land had become destitute of men and of money, he invaded the domain of the emperor of the east. And so he plundered Illyricum, most of the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece and all of these islands which lie near it. And then he went off again to Sicily.
and italy and kept plundering and pillaging all places in turn the romans or rather the east roman empire did make some attempts to destroy the vandals and one of these was in 441 ce when one of the largest fleets containing it was said 700 ships the cost of which would nearly bankrupt the empire was assembled the fleet was to transport a large army to carthage and to retake the city as well as to take on the vandal army however it was badly led and the mission aborted the
Pete had to eventually turn back anyway as the troops withdrawn from the various garrisons to make up this army only triggered war with Persia while the Huns took advantage in the north. And that was a shame from the Roman point of view, as we know shortly after this in 442 CE, that there was some sort of civil war amongst the Vandals, with some at least of the Vandal nobles not particularly happy with Guy Serip keeping so much...
the wealth that they were plundering for himself and giving himself more power as time went on prosper of aquitaine another chronicler of the time mentions that this civil war resulted in more dead vandals than any other conflict the vandals had so far been in
And so if an attack had taken place at this time, the much weakened Vandals would have been hard-pressed to protect their territory. But be that as it may, things stabilized after that, and Geiseric, in fact, seems to have got even more confident in... the years after this in 445 for example a vandal fleet sailed all the way to the atlantic coast of what is now portugal there they raided the city of turonium or modern day turonio in galicia now that was quite a feat for the
distance was around 1500 miles from Carthage and this showed their level of expertise in both sailing and shipbuilding by this time. It also has to be said that Geyseric was quite open to forming alliances with other barbarian rulers. as well and if that would help extend his own power and that included the huns the huns under their king attila were by the 440s threatening both the eastern and western roman empires now the vandals weren't actively involved
militarily with the Huns. But if we are to believe Jordans, the Goth historian, there was some sort of agreement between Gyseric and Attila. And according to him, it was one of the underlying reasons the Visigoths stood alongside the Romans when Attila invaded Gaul.
in 451. Quote, when Gyseric, king of the Vandals, learned that Attila's mind was bent on the devastation of the world, he incited him by many gifts to make war on the Visigoths, for he was afraid that Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, would avenge the injury done to his... daughter.
She had been joined in wedlock with Huneric Geiseric's son and at first was happy in this union, but afterwards he was cruel even to his own children, and because of the mere suspicion that she was attempting to poison him, he cut off her nose and mutilated her ears.
He sent her back to her father in Gaul, thus despoiled of her natural charms. So the wretched girl presented a pitiable aspect ever after, and the cruelty which would stir even strangers still more surely incited her father to vengeance. Unquote. alliance forming even though he was nominally an ally of the roman empire showed the foresightedness of geyseric in protecting his new kingdom by not allowing any other local power the time or chance to raise forces against him
but it was a sack of Rome for which Geyseric and the Vandals are perhaps most famous for. In 455 CE, 16 years after the capture of Carthage, Geiseric assembled his force, stopping at Sardinia to add that to his empire, before sailing on to Italy and Rome. The sack of Rome lasted two weeks and was a comprehensive despoliation of the city, much more devastating than the looting done by Alaric the Goth 45 years earlier in 410 CE. And this was afterwards accompanied by various...
raids all across the Mediterranean making the vandals a nuisance from Spain to Greece. The vandal possessions would in the meantime expand to not just North Africa but Sicily, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia and Corsica. Now five years after the sack of rome the then western roman emperor majorian gathered a large army and fleet of 300 ships at cartagena in spain in the spring of 460 and the mission was to destroy the vandal kingdom once and for all and recapture north
africa for the empire however the roman fleet was destroyed in suspicious circumstances so another chance was lost to the romans and in 467 ce yet another opportunity for the romans went begging the eastern roman emperor annoyed at the ever
increasing vandal piracy in the mediterranean gathered a large force to destroy the menace procopius describes the preparations quote the emperor leo wishing to punish the vandals because of these things was gathering an army against them and they say that this army numbered
hundred thousand men and he collected a fleet from the whole of the Mediterranean showing great generosity to both soldiers and sailors for he feared lest from a parsimonious policy some obstacle might arise to hinder him in his desire to carry out his
punishment of the barbarians now this fleet reached a place called mercurium around 60 kilometers from carthage but the fleet was destroyed by vandal fire ships at the battle of cape pond ending any chance of attacking the vandals on land or sea in the near future So all in all, the Romans had a huge amount of misfortune against the Vandals, being...
Defeated for one reason or another, time and time again, while the Vandals achieved success in pretty much every venture and battle. And this 20-year period from 455 to 476 CE during the Rule of Geyseric... could be considered the peak of Vandal power, and Procopius, the early Byzantine historian, writes of the confidence that Geiseric showed during this time.
when a sailor once asked him when the vandal fleet was being made ready who they were planning to sail against geyseric is famously to have said quote plainly against those with whom god is angry unquote suggesting it was potluck who got the bad news and that the almighty was On civil matters during Gyseric's time and after, the Vandal kings importantly made no attempt to integrate Romans and Vandals into a single nation. The Vandals were very much the masters and the Romans were the subjects.
And they were kept apart not only by religion, but also by law as well. Having said that, the vandals adopted Roman-style clothing, wearing light linen tunics adapted for the African climate. And mosaics from North Africa show vandals...
looking very similar to romans of that time but they reserved certain aspects of dress and appearance for themselves only victor of vita tells us that the vandals kept their hair long in contrast to the short hair of the romans and this seems to have been in common with
germanic peoples as well as several monuments show long-haired german warriors alongside short-haired romans and long hair was a matter of pride for the vandals if a roman for example grew long hair and was seen in a catholic church his hair would be
pulled out as a punishment to maintain the divide between the races and in the matter of wealth a considerable change also occurred as vandals took over the huge farming estates that had formerly belonged to Romans. Procopius gives us a detailed account of
geyseric went about land redistribution quote among the libyans all who happened to be men of note and conspicuous for their wealth he meaning geyseric handed over as slaves together with their estates and all their money to his sons and he robbed the rest
of the libyans of their estates which were both very numerous and excellent and distributed them among the nation of the vandals as a result of this these lands have been called vandal estates up to the present time and it felt a lot of those who had formerly possess these lands to be in extreme poverty and to be at the same time free men.
Geiseric commanded that all the lands which he had given over to his sons and the other vandals should not be subject to any kind of taxation but as much of the lands did not seem as good to him he allowed to remain in the hands of their former owners but assessed so long Just one other interesting point to note on the matter of...
defense, Procopius also mentions Geyseric dismantling the walls, protecting the towns and cities in North Africa, apart from Carthage, the capital. And this was so that if a city was captured by the Romans or Moors, it would be difficult to defend.
Now this worked to Geiseric's advantage in this period of Vandal strength but would be a severe disadvantage when Belisarius led a Byzantine army against them 60 odd years later. By this time the Vandal strength had weakened and without walls no city apart from Carthage could be defended easily.
The era of strong Vandal power over the Mediterranean wasn't to last much longer than Geiseric himself. He died on the 25th of January, 477 CE, only a few months after the Roman Empire in the West officially came to a close. After him, there were other... vandal kings who presided over what could best be described as a gentle decline with the vandals losing their ambition for adventure and plunder across the mediterranean and becoming more insular and wallowing in the luxury of their
african existence procopius describes the state they'd fallen into quote for all the nations which we know that of the vandals is the most luxurious and that of the moors the most hardy for the vandals since the time when they gained possession of libya used to indulge in
all of them every day and enjoyed a table abounding in all things the sweetest and best that earth and sea produce and they wore gold very generally and clothed themselves in the medic garments which they now call silk and passed their time thus in hippodromes and in other pleasurable pursuits and above all else in hunting and they had dancers and mimes and all other things to hear and see which are of a musical nature or otherwise merit attention among men and the most of
them dwelt in parks which were well supplied with water and trees and they had a great number of banquets and all manner of sexual pleasures which were in great vogue amongst them and the late 5th century roman rhetorician malchus also writes a damning
of the state of the vandals of the post-Geyseric generation, losing their energy and pursuing softer pleasures. Quote, after the death of Geyseric, they had fallen completely into softness and had maintained neither the same strength for action nor had the same...
military establishment which he had kept ready for use so that he meaning geyseric always moved more quickly than his opponents calculated unquote the vandal kingdom would come to an end during the reign of the byzantine emperor justinian when belisarius was sent with a fleet and
army to retake north africa belisarius destroyed the vandal army at the battle of ad decimum followed by the battle of tricamerum in 533 ce with the vandal king gelima shortly gearing himself up later on and being taken to constantinople as a prisoner so i hope this was a useful introduction to the rise of the vandals by allowing the barbarian tribes to cross the rhine and danube during the late fourth and early fifth century the romans set themselves up for a huge host of problems and various
setting up independent kingdoms across the entire western roman empire with only italy largely remaining in roman hands and in the second part of this video i'll be talking about perhaps the most interesting and fascinating side of the history of the vandal kingdom and that was
the religious situation and the effort of the vandals to force aryan christianity particularly on the catholics and catholic clergy we know the religious situation was pretty complicated at that time the bulk of the population at this time were now catholics
these Catholics had been persecuting other Christian denominations with whom they had deep theological differences. These were sects like the Aryans or the Donatists, for example, who were particularly strong in North Africa. But there were other non-Christian...
Christian communities as well. Jews, obviously, but Manichaeans as well, who followed the teachings of many Persian prophets, as well as Greco-Roman pagans, all of whom had no interest in Christianity and may well have welcomed the Vandals for that. meant the end of persecution by the Catholic authorities.