Author: LIU Xuefei (Associate professor of IEC, TJNU)

Abstract：

The Burgundians were a branch of the Germanic people. Since crossing the Rhine and garrisoning the Gaul of the Roman Empire in AD 406, the Burgundians had long been dependent on the Western Roman Empire and the military warlord Aetius as allies. After the year 454, the Burgundians broke free from the constraints of the alliance, and expanded in the Rhone River basin, established a Germanic kingdom on the territory of the Western Roman Empire with the Gallo-Roman patricians. In the kingdom, the Burgundian king and other Germanic nobles actively led the introduction of distinctive Germanic customs into the judiciary, such as the practices of“wergeld”and“fine”. Based on barbarian law, the Burgundians and local Romans intermingled with each other to form a new Western European nation, the Burgundians, within the Burgundian regime. The process of the creation of the new Burgundians was a fusion of Germanic barbarians and Gallo-Romans, in which the Germans played a dominant role. They adopted, fused, grafted and adapted classical civilization and Germanic traditional culture to form a new European nation and opened up European civilization.

Published on Economic and Social History Review, Issue 1 , 2025.