The birth of Europe as people know it today was hardly an easy and effortless process. The Old World was reshaped by centuries of continuous wars, raids, and the falls and rises of empires. The most turbulent of these events happened at the beginning of the Middle Ages, from the third to seventh centuries in the common era. This was the time when the old slave society gave way to the feudal system that marked the latter Middle Ages, and it was also a period of battles between the Roman Empire and various barbarian groups.

The Roman emperors waged wars, made and broke alliances, and bribed and negotiated with chieftains of various “barbarian” tribes to preserve the territorial integrity of their empires, but the razor-edge division between the civilized world of the Romans and that of the “savages” that threatened their borders was dulling with every decade. In fact, the constant need for army recruits swelled the Roman legions with barbarian foederati, a phenomenon that forced both the Romans and Byzantines to use a very subtle way of pitting the barbarian tribes against each other via diplomatic schemes and bountiful rewards. A new religion was also taking root, and Christianity became a reason for both unification and division as different people adopted different variations of its teachings.

It goes without saying that the Goths played an integral part in the history of Europe during this time, and they remain among the most notorious and controversial groups in history. By the fourth century, the Goths were among the prominent barbarian groups to became a threat to the Roman Empire, but they also had contacts with the Romans well before then, and they even traded for a while.

The two branches of the Goths that are best known, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, stared down the Roman Empire as it neared its collapse and supplanted it with a kingdom in Italy in the fifth and sixth centuries respectively. The Visigoth leader, Alaric, and the Ostrogoth leader, Theodoric, are still well-known names due to their deeds and reigns in Europe.

In addition to the various conflicts with Rome, the ancient author Jordanes has helped keep the Goths relevant with his seminal work The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, which traces the group’s history all the way back to about AD 1500 and covers their migrations and wars on the European continent. While some still discount Jordanes’ work as outright fiction, most historians still believe it’s a valuable historical work, and they continue to rely on it in attempts to study and trace the history of the Goths and their various branches over time.

The Ostrogoths: The History and Legacy of the Group That Established a Kingdom in Italy After the Collapse of Ancient Rome looks at the history of the Ostrogoths, from their origins to their rise in the sixth century. You will learn about the Ostrogoths like never before.