Timeline: Establishment of kingdoms and kingship in central and Western Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire is a diverse and fascinating topic. To begin, it is important to establish a relative timeframe for the “fall” of the Western Roman Empire. For this question, we will establish the “fall” of the Roman Empire as 410. The 5th century marked a period of rising powers across Europe, nowhere is this more evident than in the invasion of Rome proper by Alaric of the Visigoth, a new “king” from a new kingdom.

Theodoric the Great and Clovis I: Both Theodoric and Clovis were prominent rulers in the new age of petty kings and kingdoms. Territorially, these two comprise the most powerful leaders in the former Roman West, and are worthy of a deeper examination.

Theodoric the Great (475-526): Theodoric ruled over the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, which under his rule extended throughout Italy to Southern France in the West and modern Serbia in the East. Theodoric was also a regent in the Kingdom of the Visigoths of Spain, which he formally brought under his direct control in 511. However, Theodoric did not establish his power independently or in a vacuum. Despite his title as King of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric’s life and power was carefully entwined with the Roman empire, which now lay formally in the East. He was the born the son of a powerful Germanic Alamali nobleman in Pannonia. His high status led him to be captured and held “hostage” in Constantinople in his early years, During this time, he was treated to a Roman education and a life that put him squarely in the halls of the Roman elites, including Emperor Leo I. He returned to the West in 469, ruling as a right hand man to his father (now king). He controlled several lands and smaller armies, often fending off other tribal groups who often were also enemies of the Eastern Roman Empire. His frequent aide to the Eastern Romans (often indirect), led him to be proclaimed as a leader of the Eastern Roman Forces. Relations between the emperor and Theodoric later soured, as Roman Emperor Zeno (474-475 and 476-491) refused more land allowances to Theodoric following a period of drought. Theodoric continued to have a rocky relationship with Zeno for much of the rest of his rule, threatening Constantinople directly at one point, but adopting the imperial purple and being named viceroy in Constantinople a few years later. Theodoric expanded his kingdom through formal conflict as well as marriage alliances (including marrying a family member of Clovis I, our next subject of investigation). However, what remains clear is that throughout his life, Theodoric and his power did not exist in a vacuum. Instead, his life and rule was inextricably tied to the Eastern Roman Empire. While parts of his power were established independently, Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, was also a Roman educated Roman viceroy.

Clovis I (466-511): Next we turn to Clovis I, the first king of the Franks. Like Theodoric, Clovis’ life was inextricably tied to Rome. His father, Childeric I (437-481), was a well connected Roman military commander and Frankish king operating primarily out of the Loire valley. It is important to note that at this time in the Roman West, one could be both a king and associated with the Roman military command. Particularly in the Western Roman Empire, lands were held using soft power techniques. Roman rulers would ally themselves with tribes along the borders in order to preserve the Roman state. Particularly towards the end of the Roman West, alliances with local rulers, like Childeric I would become important ties to defend whatever “Roman” territory in the West remained. Clovis I, like Theodoric, was connected to the Roman Empire, through his father. After assuming leadership over the band of warriors his father once commanded (less than one thousand in total), Clovis set out to conquer most of modern France and into Germany. Imperial power in Gaul had all but entirely collapsed by 481 (when Clovis assumed the “throne”), and Clovis was able to successfully expand his influence. He eventually took notable cities such as Paris and Verdun, and was able to significantly expand his kingdom from the petty territory it had been when he had inherited it. He frequently marched against Roman cities and armies, despite whatever alliance his father may have had towards it. Clovis also converted to Roman Catholicism at the behest of his wife, a notable turning point for both the Franks and Roman Catholics. It is clear that at some point in the early 6th century, Clovis recognized the power of the church and converted accordingly. He is noted as the first “barbarian king” to do so. As the central power of the Roman West collapsed, religious authority began to hold more sway, and a conversion to Roman Catholicism was likely a strategic choice for Clovis. Unlike Theodoric, Clovis did garner power as well as legitimacy through religion. At the end of his reign (around 511), Clovis had taken the once small kingdom ruled by his Roman military commander father and expanded it to encompass most of France and parts of modern Germany. Upon his death, his lands were divided among his sons, a pattern that would define the Merovingians until the eventual collapse of the kingdom.

With both of these rulers it is important to note the complexity of establishing a kingdom and a “king” after and during the fall of the Roman West. Neither Theodoric nor Clovis were inconsequential within their local circles before their rise to prominence, they both had connections to the Roman West (and East in Theodoric’s case) and a complicated relationship with the Roman state in whichever form that they encountered it. Neither the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths nor the Kingdom of the Franks were established outside of the influence of the former Roman emperor, and their kings and the power that they held did not arise from nowhere.

England and Scotland: It is important to take a brief examination at the kingdoms that began to arise in the modern United Kingdom. Unlike their counterparts in the continent, many petty kingdoms and kings that gained prominence in parts of the United Kingdom did so outside of the influence of the Roman Empire. It was also in the West that these relationships with kingdoms and power became less clear, especially as source material becomes even more difficult to find. In Britain and Wales, the general pattern of conquest and alliance seemed to prevail. Much in the way humans had organized themselves in the thousands of years prior to Rome, a powerful warlord arose and conquered those around him, a class hierarchy was established with a few elites clustering at the top, and lands were expanded through conquest or blood ties. The Kingdom of the Picts in Northern Scotland, grew gradually from the 3rd to 10th centuries (roughly corresponding with the period of Roman collapse although likely unrelated). The Picts were the descendants of Iron Age tribes, who, unlike many of the other tribes and petty kingdoms in Europe, practiced matrilineal inheritance. What little is known about them seems to indicate that the small kingdoms that made up the land of the Picts gradually coalesced, and kingship became more established as the population and power grew. Again, they also seem to follow similar patterns of power accumulation.

Summary/TLDR: The reality of power and leadership during and after the fall of the Roman West is that it is far more complicated than could be described in even a library worth of material. What is clear however, is that the influence of Rome remained in the West, even after its supposed fall. Rulers such as Theodoric and Clovis, although they established independent kingdoms, still had ties to the Roman Empire. Clovis notably differs from Theodoric in that he also divined some level of credibility as a ruler from the institutional authority of the budding Roman Catholic church. In the lands of Europe that were outside of Roman influence, namely in the United Kingdom, kingdoms and kings arose in a fairly generic power structure, with one warlord establishing his dominance by conquering other tribes and maintaining power by expanding his territories through either conquest or blood ties.

Citation

Wickham, C. (2010). The inheritance of Rome: A history of Europe from 400 to 1000. London: Penguin Books.

Halsall, Guy (2007). Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Heydemann, Gerda (2016). "The Ostrogothic Kingdom: Ideologies and Transitions". In Jonathan J. Arnold; M. Shane Bjornlie; Kristina Sessa (eds.). A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

“Emergence of the Pictish Kings.” The Picts Re-Imagined, by Julianna Grigg, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds, 2018, pp. 37–57. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvfxvd0p.8. Accessed 2 June 2021.

Halfond, Greg. “All the King's Men: Episcopal Political Loyalties in the Merovingian Kingdoms.” Medieval Prosopography, vol. 27, 2012, pp. 76–96. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44946480. Accessed 2 June 2021.