Gesalec

Gesalech ( * before 508, † 511 ) was King of the Visigoths from 507 to 511

He stepped to the rule after his father Alaric II was killed in 507 the lost battle of Vouillé against the Franks. Gesalech was born out of wedlock. But he was able to prevail as the successor to his father, because Amalaric, the only son of Alaric II, from his marriage to a daughter of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, was still a minor. Although Gesalech became the rule as his father's heir, but seems to have been an act of choice in his collection, which had more than formal significance. This can be interpreted as a resurgence of the Visigoth right to vote; in the collection of Gesalechs father Alaric in 484, there had been no real choice of a king, but only a " confirmation " of succession by the electorate.

Gesalech was a weak king. After the crushing defeat of his father, he fled to Barcelona in the Hispanic part of his kingdom, which was not threatened by the Franks. He could not stop them, to conquer the Gallic territory of the Visigoths largely the victorious Franks. So after the collapse of the capital Tolosa (Toulouse) was sealed named Tolosan kingdom of the Visigoths.

Theodoric the Great Gesalech recognized initially as a legitimate Visigoths. A Ostrogothic army occupied Septimania, a coastal area northeast of the Pyrenees, has been preserved by the Visigothic kingdom as the only remnant of the earlier Visigothic dominion in Gaul. Then the East Goths penetrated to Barcelona, where I already suggested opposition Gesalech at the Visigoths. Now Gesalech was overthrown and expelled by the Ostrogoths; he fled to North Africa to the realm Thrasamunds, king of the Vandals. Theodoric the Great took over the rule in the Visigothic kingdom; there he reigned as king in his own name, not as a guardian of Alaric unmündigem son Amalaric. The administration of the Western Goth led officers of Theodoric.

Thrasamund was an opponent of Theodoric; therefore he granted Gesalech not only asylum, but furnished him with money and enabled him to attempt to regain the lost power. Gesalech went to southern Gaul, where he gathered followers and then dared to attack the Ostrogoths in Hispania. The company failed; Gesalechs troops were defeated Barcelona in front of Theodoric's generals Ibba, whereupon he fled to Gaul. He wanted to get into the kingdom of the Burgundians to find asylum there, but he was killed on the run on the Durance.

Comments

  • King ( Visigoths )
  • Born in the 5th century
  • Died 511
  • Man
  • Westgote
  • Ruler ( 6th century )
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