The Heruls Fragments of a History

Some gentes--armed social units or peoples such as the Goths, the Franks, the Burgundians or the Vandals--became an intrinsic part of European history. Others like the Heruli, the Sciri, the Gepids and the Rugians played their somewhat vague role, but disappeared from our sources without having had the opportunity to form any stable regnum on formerly Roman provinces or to forge new medieval national identities. To be sure, historians did not hesitate to apply to the “neglected barbarians” the concept of Völkerwanderung, complete with historical maps showing entire peoples wandering across the page. In Late Antiquity there were Gothic, Vandalic and Alanic groups acting at various settings in time and space. The sources denominate these groups by the same name, for example, Silings and Hasdings are accepted as two Vandalic clusters. It is astonishing that the Herulian groups acting in the East as in the West are not accepted as such. Most scholars discussed the idea of a East- and Westherulian people, separated from the other in its history