Division of Germanic Kingdoms

I have a question:
We all know that the Frankish Kingdom/Empire was divided over and over again, usually after the death of the monarch; we see that the first time after the death of Clovin I. Why don't we see such situations in other Germanic states, for example in the Visigothic or Ostrogothic Kingdoms? It seemed that these kingdoms were never divided as much as Francia. How can we change that? The only example I can think of as the Gothic realm was divided again was after the death of Theoderic the Great. How can we institute the tradition of dividing the Kingdom after the death of the king in the Gothic society?

I need this for m ytimeline. I would be very thankful for your help :)
 

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I have a question:
We all know that the Frankish Kingdom/Empire was divided over and over again, usually after the death of the monarch; we see that the first time after the death of Clovin I. Why don't we see such situations in other Germanic states, for example in the Visigothic or Ostrogothic Kingdoms? It seemed that these kingdoms were never divided as much as Francia. How can we change that? The only example I can think of as the Gothic realm was divided again was after the death of Theoderic the Great. How can we institute the tradition of dividing the Kingdom after the death of the king in the Gothic society?

I need this for m ytimeline. I would be very thankful for your help :)

Did those others practice Salic law? Or perhaps they just had one surviving heir.
 
Did those others practice Salic law? Or perhaps they just had one surviving heir.

It seems like the Ostrogoths had actually always only one surviving heir but the Visigothic kings got elected by the Gothic nobelity or declared king on the battle field.
The sons of Theoderic I killed eachother to gain the throne, their father didn't left any notes what to do after his death.
 
I have a question:
We all know that the Frankish Kingdom/Empire was divided over and over again

Actually, it's more complicated. Depsite being divided between two or three kings, the unity of the Frankish Kingdom was granted.

You can see, by exemple, that Aquitaine (that was considered as a "foreign" land) was divided between the three sons of Clothaire while they had relativly distinct zones in Neustria and Austrasia.

As the kingdom was considered as the direct patrimony of the merovingians, it couldn't be totally separated, but divided among the sons while being considered as "one" : a bit like the son of the english king was Prince of Wales, or the heir of french crown lord of Dauphiné.

Why don't we see such situations in other Germanic states, for example in the Visigothic or Ostrogothic Kingdoms? It seemed that these kingdoms were never divided as much as Francia.

More importance of the roman customs and law : The Lex Romanus Visigothorum is after all a creation of the goths. Not only the population was far more romanized in Spain, southern Gaul and Italy than northern Gaul and parts of Germania, but the legitimity of gothic kings came a lot from the use of roman institutions (it's quite obvious with Theodoric).

Now, these kingdoms were quite divided, but this divisions wasn't "ensured" by the familial unity : particularisms (as in the N-E of Visigothic Kingdom), absence of real mix between roman and germanic population (critically in Italy, less true for late Visigothic Kingdom).

How can we change that?
The problem here, is that the absence of formal division between the ruling family is due to roman customs. Even if you could make it less present in Spain and southern Gaul, you'll have trouble to do it in Italy (and even with the first solution, you'll likely butterfly the installation of romano-germanic kingdoms as we know it).
 
There had been divided rule over the Goths in the past.

Theodoric wasn't the only Ostrogoth ruler when the Ostrogoths were still moving around the Balkans, and there were several Visigoth rulers in 378 at the time of Adrianople. I don't know how the divisions came about, but they must have done because there were early periods of unity, too.

Could division have become the rule later? Maybe, if the Huns had won at Catalaunian Fields. The defeated Visigoths would have needed to get the confirmation of Attila for the new king, and Attila might have divided the kingdom between the brothers. It would have suited his purposes and division was the rule of succession among the Huns themselves.
 
There had been divided rule over the Goths in the past.
When they weren't in minority almost litteraly surrounded by a roman population and its institutions and customs.

But, admittedly we're talking of OTL Gothic kingdoms in Spain and Italy, they had no great possibilities of using the germanic division of patrimony (well, except if they want to accrue the distinction between romans and germans earlier than OTL, but it would sucidial at short term).
 
When they weren't in minority almost litteraly surrounded by a roman population and its institutions and customs.

But, admittedly we're talking of OTL Gothic kingdoms in Spain and Italy, they had no great possibilities of using the germanic division of patrimony (well, except if they want to accrue the distinction between romans and germans earlier than OTL, but it would sucidial at short term).

Division between sons wasn't contrary to Roman tradition. They had divided the empire among the sons of a deceased emperor many times. The partition between Arcadius and Honorius turned out to be permanent.
 
Except we're talking of the state here. Not only the roman customs doesn't have a principe of equal divide of patrimony among the heirs (except in ab intestat situations that were very rare) in roman customs, but the state wasn't considered as private patrimony.

The imperial divisions were made because the empire was too big to react in all fronts.
The division actually happened only after Constantinus imposed a dynastic principe. Before the familial links were indeed assured by matrimonial alliance between Augusti and Cesari without favour due to age in the transmission of leadership. (This caused many wars after Constantinus, furthermore).

Finally the constanine dynasty didn't managed to hold the empire after a little more than 60 years. The pretention to exclusivity pretty well pissed off the other families (as well armies) that took back the power from them.

On the other hand, in Francia the germanic dvision of the state (here private patrimony), was accepted by a germanic military (and with a population whom romanization passed largely by christianisation and then less attached to roman customs) superficially romanized.

The division of the kingdom was based on the heirs having each one a part of the "Francia proper", the core of the kingdom while the constantine divisions were made according military urges (a germanic division of Italy would have given, grosso modo, a division with each heir receving a part of central Italy)

(In order to prevent a coming remark, Aquitaine was considered as a "foreign" country within the kingdom. The frankish sucessors divided it as they divided Francia, still having each one a part of the "core")

So yes, many factors prevented the OTL gothic kingdom to be divided such :
- Less integrated germanic military, making the germanic customs more accepted into roman elites. The hostility between romans and germans is particularly present in ostrogothic Italty.

- More romanized provinces : Spain, southern Gaul and Italy were romanized from a long date, while Northern Gaul and a fortiori Brittany were more recently and more associated with christianisation.
The idea that the state was a private patrimony never really imposed itself there.

It's quite interesting to see that the division of the kingdom among the son happened in Spain, not during the Visigothic era, but when the Christians were forced to have states in the northern highlands, less romanized.
 
In my TL the Visigothi and Ostrogothi are ruled by one king but were seperated before. Both "factions" want as much power as possible and want that the king stays close to them. The Osthrogothi are concentrated around Arelate and hold only a small part of Italy and the Visigothi have the OTL regions around Tolosa. Northern Hispania is Gothic land but not considered "coreland".

My idea is that the king who has several sons doesn't want that they kill eachother after his death (like otl) so he divides the kingdom: every son must get a part of the Visigothic and the Ostrogothic land and a part of hispania (to prevent a split of the kingdom on "ethnical" lines), one of them is choosen as king over the others.

Is that in any way realistic? The Goths rule the land for around 30 years now, it is around 435/440AD.
 
The Visigoth kingdom was in fact partitioned once. On the death of Athanagild, he was succeeded by his brother Leuva I, who promptly split the kingdom with Leuvigild. Leuva took Septimania, Leuvigild Spain. As luck would have it, Leuva had no sons so the kingdom was reunited when he died.
 
The Visigoth kingdom was in fact partitioned once. On the death of Athanagild, he was succeeded by his brother Leuva I, who promptly split the kingdom with Leuvigild. Leuva took Septimania, Leuvigild Spain. As luck would have it, Leuva had no sons so the kingdom was reunited when he died.

This is a different situation of the division of a patrimony among the sons. The kingdom wasn't inherited by both Leovigild and Leuva,but Leuva trusted his brother with half of Spain lore or less like a vice-kingdom.

You have a sensibly similar situation with Caribert entrusted of the kingdom of Aquitaine by his brother Dagobert.
 
In my TL the Visigothi and Ostrogothi are ruled by one king but were seperated before. Both "factions" want as much power as possible and want that the king stays close to them.
Which factions? Ostrogothi and Visigothi?
I'm not sure that you'll have that of a distinction between them even if they were separated before (of course, all depend how long they were separated, and how recently they united themselves).

But linguistically, religiously (admittedly they are arian IYTL), culturally they are more prone to stay united no?

Now, maybe you're talking about gothic families against others. It would be more efficient, but it would turn quickly to the ones making alliance (up to matrimonial or not) with roman families (especially the "lesser" germanic families) and the more "pro-germanic".

The Osthrogothi are concentrated around Arelate and hold only a small part of Italy and the Visigothi have the OTL regions around Tolosa. Northern Hispania is Gothic land but not considered "coreland".

What do you mean? Ostrogothic Kingdom is only made of Provence, or you talk only about the place they settled?

If it's the latter, I'm not really sure what you mean by core then : while you have places the goths settled apparently more than others, they were still surrounded there by a roman majority.
Like the Franks, the core is more likely to be the source of power : palaces, economically powerful region, etc.
For Italy it would be likely central peninsula, for Spain...well, that depends, probably if united with Italy the region of Narbo-Tolosa indeed.


My idea is that the king who has several sons doesn't want that they kill eachother after his death (like otl) so he divides the kingdom: every son must get a part of the Visigothic and the Ostrogothic land and a part of hispania (to prevent a split of the kingdom on "ethnical" lines), one of them is choosen as king over the others.
Which ethnical lines?
I mean, romans population don't began to distinguish themselves before the VII century and were really distinc only ca. mid-IX/early-X centuries.

If it's for the Goths, I don't think they would be that different from each other

For the division of the kingdom, it looks like a mix of roman use of making a testimony will but in this case (as it's still really early in time) it would mean that the division of the kingdom would be permanent and without the germanic principe of communautary unity.

I'm not sure it would be feasable in southern Romania, and have a that early mix between germanic and roman customs (when the rule is more having each communauty having his proper law).

Is that in any way realistic? The Goths rule the land for around 30 years now, it is around 435/440AD.

I think it's too early for having a divied then. It's defenitly too recent to have incidence on settlements and to the reinforcment of royal power.

That said, as noted by Bee, a good solution would be to grant sub-kingdoms (like the frankish unterköningtums, or the sub-kingdoms submitted to bretwalda king in England). But you'll need a bit of time before settling this.

That said, they could be used only for "recognized" lands, and not for more or less arbitrary divisions. In this case Spain, Provence, Dalmatia, etc. Furthermore, they are more likely to be used to control troublesome population (here, rather the place with the less german presence by exemple) for two reasons : 1) military and political. 2)It would prevent the sub-kings to rely too much on a germanic nobility whom the king with "imperium" would want to monopolise. If not the sub-king would have possibility to challenge him.

These sub-kingdoms, that said, even if most probably granted to family (brothers, cousins in first place) wouldn't be meant to be independent of the "original" kingdom but more like marches, while the division of a kingdom "frankish way" doesn't make a kingdom prevalant upon others.
 
I have a question:
How can we institute the tradition of dividing the Kingdom after the death of the king in the Gothic society? :)

To get back to the original question, there was, as noted at the opening of this thread, a tradition of the Visigothic nobility picking the king (which might not always be the obvious candidate). For instance, Theodoric I, although the son of Alaric, had been bypassed in favor of Ataulf then Wallia.

After Theodoric was killed in battle, Thorismund had dashed back to Visigothic territory to make sure that he, not one of his brothers, became the next king. That's the opportunity for change -- suppose the Gothic nobility had insisted they were going to elect all three sons who should rule jointly, or else divide the kingdom. The nobles may do that if they are worried that a civil war might otherwise result. Thereafter it becomes the general rule.
 
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