To varying degrees, the Germans of Western Europe were true bar-
Barians. In place of Rome's highly sophisticated system of justice, they practiced trial by ordeal (see box, "Trial by Ordeal"). They had turned from their own brand of paganism to Christianity; but they possessed little concept of Christian mercy or kindness.
More advanced were the Visigoths in Spain, who chased out the Vandals in the mid-400s and established a kingdom that would rule until the arrival of the Moors in 711. The Visigoths adopted Latin and, like the Franks, developed their own dialect. This became the foundation for one of the most widely spoken languages today: Spanish.
Meanwhile in Italy, the Ostrogoths under Theodoric (c. 454-526) invaded, killed Odoacer, and briefly established the most advanced of the early barbarian kingdoms. Raised with a profound respect for Roman civilization, Theodoric tried to preserve what was best about Rome. To do this, he kept his own people separate from the Romans, and put Romans in charge of Italy's civil administration while his own forces oversaw the military. Not long after Theodoric's death, however, Byzantine armies would eliminate the Ostrogoth kingdom.
The Byzantines, as it turned out, were unable to hold on to Italy, which succumbed to the Lombards a few years later. Italy would never again be the center of power in Europe that it had once been; that center had shifted northward, to what is now France and Germany. There the Franks
World History
