Visigoths in the context of "Pope Gregory I"

Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while "Sparta" referred to its capital, a group of villages in the valley of the Evrotas River in Laconia, in southeastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become one of the major military powers in Greece, a status it retained until 371 BC.

Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. Thebes' victory over Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Spartan hegemony and freed Messenia from Spartan rule; the loss of the slave labor this region provided sent the city into terminal decline as a military power, though it retained its independence until its forcible integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city recovered some autonomy after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC and became a tourist destination during the Roman era, restoring some measure of prosperity. However, Sparta was sacked in 396 AD by the Visigothic king Alaric, and underwent a long period of decline into the medieval period, when much of its population relocated to Mystras. Modern Sparta is a provincial town and the seat of the Laconia regional administration.

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river and has many mineral springs, such as the Sofia Central Mineral Baths. It has a humid continental climate.

Known as Serdica in antiquity, Sofia has been an area of human habitation since at least 7000 BC. The recorded history of the city begins with the attestation of the conquest of Serdica by the Roman Republic in 29 BC from the Celtic tribe Serdi. During the decline of the Roman Empire, the city was raided by Huns, Visigoths, Avars, and Slavs. In 809, Serdica was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire by Khan Krum and became known as Sredets. In 1018, the Byzantines ended Bulgarian rule until 1194, when it was reincorporated by the Second Bulgarian Empire. Sredets became a major administrative, economic, cultural and literary hub until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1382. From 1530 to 1836, Sofia was the regional capital of Rumelia Eyalet, the Ottoman Empire's largest and most important province. Bulgarian rule was restored in 1878. Sofia was selected as the capital of the Third Bulgarian State in the next year, ushering a period of intense demographic and economic growth.

Alaric I (/ˈælərɪk/; Gothic: 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃, Alarīks lit.'ruler of all'; Latin: Alaricus; c. 370 – 411 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople.

Alaric began his career under the Gothic soldier Gainas and later joined the Roman army. Once an ally of Rome under the Roman emperor Theodosius, Alaric helped defeat the Franks and other allies of a would-be Roman usurper. Despite losing many thousands of his men, he received little recognition from Rome and left the Roman army disappointed. After the death of Theodosius and the disintegration of the Roman armies in 395, he is described as king of the Visigoths. As the leader of the only effective field force remaining in the Balkans, he sought Roman legitimacy, never quite achieving a position acceptable to himself or to the Roman authorities.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union (EU) member state. Spanning the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands, in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean; the Balearic Islands, in the Western Mediterranean Sea; and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in mainland Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, Málaga, Murcia, and Palma de Mallorca.

In early antiquity, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by Celts, Iberians, and other pre-Roman peoples. The Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula created the province of Hispania, which became deeply Romanised and later Christianised. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the peninsula was conquered by tribes from Central Europe, among them the Visigoths, who established the Visigothic Kingdom centred on Toledo. In the early 8th century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, with Al-Andalus centred on Córdoba. The northern Christian kingdoms of Iberia launched the so-called Reconquista, gradually repelling and ultimately expelling Islamic rule from the peninsula, culminating with the fall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. The dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479 under the Catholic Monarchs is often seen as the de facto unification of Spain as a nation state.

The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first mentioned by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is now Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. From here they conducted raids into Roman territory, and large numbers of them joined the Roman military. These early Goths lived in the regions where archaeologists find the Chernyakhov culture, which flourished throughout this region during the 3rd and 4th centuries.

In the late 4th century, the lands of the Goths in present-day Ukraine were overwhelmed by a significant westward movement of Alans and Huns from the east. Large numbers of Goths subsequently began to concentrate near the Roman border at the Lower Danube, seeking refuge within the Roman Empire. Their entry into the Empire resulted in violence, and Goth-led forces inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Roman forces regained a level of control but many Goths and other eastern peoples were quickly settled in and near the empire. One of these groups, initially led by their king Alaric I, sacked the city of Rome in 410, they were the precursors of the Visigoths. The successors of the Visigoths eventually established a Visigothic Kingdom in Spain at Toledo. Meanwhile, Goths under Hunnic rule gained their independence in the 5th century, most importantly the Ostrogoths. Under their king Theodoric the Great, these Goths established the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy at Ravenna.

The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, causing the westwards movement of Goths and Alans. By 430, they had established a vast, but short-lived, empire on the Danubian frontier of the Roman empire in Europe. Either under Hunnic hegemony, or fleeing from it, several central and eastern European peoples established kingdoms in the region, including not only Goths and Alans, but also Vandals, Gepids, Heruli, Suebians and Rugians.

The Huns, especially under their King Attila, made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, they invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, and in 452, they invaded Italy. After the death of Attila in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major threat to Rome and lost much of their empire following the Battle of Nedao (c. 454). Descendants of the Huns, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighboring populations to the south, east, and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from about the 4th to 6th centuries. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.

French people (French: Les Français, lit. 'The French') are a nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France.

The French people, especially the native speakers of langues d'oïl from northern and central France, are primarily descended from Romans (or Gallo-Romans, western European Celtic and Italic peoples), Gauls (including the Belgae), as well as Germanic peoples such as the Franks, the Visigoths, the Suebi and the Burgundians who settled in Gaul from east of the Rhine after the fall of the Roman Empire, as well as various later waves of lower-level irregular migration that have continued to the present day. The Norsemen also settled in Normandy in the 10th century and contributed significantly to the ancestry of the Normans. Furthermore, regional ethnic minorities also exist within France that have distinct lineages, languages and cultures such as Bretons in Brittany, Occitans in Occitania, Basques in the French Basque Country, Catalans in northern Catalonia, Germans in Alsace, Corsicans in Corsica and Flemings in French Flanders.

The Alans (Latin: Alani) were an ancient and medieval Iranic nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus; some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the Alans with the Central Asian Yancai of Chinese sources and with the Aorsi of Roman sources. Having migrated westwards and becoming dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Alans are mentioned by Roman sources in the 1st century CE. At that time they had settled the region north of the Black Sea and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the South Caucasus provinces of the Roman Empire. From 215 to 250 CE the Goths broke their power on the Pontic Steppe, thereby assimilating a sizeable portion of the associated Alans.

Upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375 CE, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406 along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans and Valence. Around 409 they joined the Vandals and Suebi in crossing the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Hispania Carthaginensis. The Iberian Alans, soundly defeated by the Visigoths in 418, subsequently surrendered their authority to the Hasdingi Vandals. In 428 CE, the Vandals and Alans crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa, where they founded a kingdom which lasted until its conquest by forces of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in 534.

Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces created in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) in 27 BC. Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic divisions of Hispania under the Visigoths. Its territory approximately corresponds to modern Andalusia.