Rodulf (petty king)

Rudolf or Rodulf († 508 ) was a leader or king of the Heruli beginning of the 6th century.

The late antique historian Jordanes tells of a king named Rodulf, who ruled in the north over several nations, before he fled to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric to Italy. A Herulerkönig called Rodulf is also mentioned in other late antique and early medieval sources, as of Prokopios of Caesarea and Paul the Deacon. Presumably, all statements refer to the same person, although the report in Jordanes is historical only in the core; an origin from Scandinavia, however, is unhistorical.

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire fell 476 also settled along the middle Danube Germanic peoples, among whom were the Heruli, in unrest. Among the neighbors of the Heruli were among the early 6th century, the right of the Danube, the Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great and the left under the Danube River in Moravia and Pannonia, the Lombards and, further downstream, in Eastern Hungary, the Gepids. The Heruli even settled on the March. The kingdom of Rugians had been destroyed already 488 of Odoacer.

Under their leader Rodulf the Heruli eventually came into conflict with the Lombards, who destroyed the kingdom of the Heruli to 508 and then to the ( preliminary) dominant power on the middle Danube ascended.