Clovis and the Appointment of Ragnachar as…

Feletheus is the son of Flaccitheus, king of the Rugii and founder of the Kingdom of the Rugii; his brother is Ferderuchus.

Feletheus is married to the Goth Gisa, who is probably the cousin of the Amal Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great.

After the death of his father, probably in 475, Feletheus had succeeded his father as king of the Rugii.

Their territory at the time was based in Lower Austria.

In 476, Feletheus had supported Odoacer and his Scirian and Herulian in overthrow of the Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus.

Feletheus is a close confidant of Severinus of Noricum.

After the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno attempts to create conflict between the Rugii and Odoacer, Feletheus executes his brother Ferderuchus, who supported Odoacer.

Odoacer subsequently invades the Kingdom of the Rugii in 487, dealing them a crushing defeat in their own territory and taking Feletheus and his wife into captivity, later executing them in Ravenna.

The Lateran Council convened by Pope Felix III establishes conditions for readmitting to the Church those Christians who had been rebaptized by the Vandals.

The Execution of Syagrius and the Expansion of the Frankish Realm (486–487 CE)

After his defeat at the Battle of Soissons (486 CE), Syagrius flees southward, seeking refuge with the Visigothsunder King Alaric II. However, his former Roman allies prove unreliable when faced with the military power of Clovis I.

The Fate of Syagrius

• Clovis, now the undisputed ruler of northern Gaul, demands that the Visigoths hand over Syagrius.
• Alaric II, unwilling to provoke a war with the rising Frankish power, complies with Clovis' demand.
• Syagrius is delivered to Clovis, who, according to Gregory of Tours, has him stabbed to death in secret, eliminating the last Roman claimant to power in Gaul.

The Expansion of the Frankish Kingdom

With Syagrius dead and his domain absorbed, Clovis nearly doubles the size of the Frankish realm, incorporating the former Roman province of Belgica Secunda.

• Soissons becomes the Frankish capital, replacing Tournai as Clovis' primary residence.
• The Frankish frontier expands southward, reaching the Loire River, bringing Clovis into direct territorial contact with the Visigoths.
• The Frankish realm, originally centered in Toxandria (modern Belgium and the southern Netherlands), now dominates northern Gaul.

The Growing Tension Between Franks and Visigoths

By 487 CE, the new Frankish-Visigothic border along the Loire River sets the stage for future conflict:

• Clovis, now ambitious for further expansion, views the Visigoths as his next major rival in Gaul.
• The Visigoths, already expanding into Provence and Hispania, face the growing threat of Frankish encroachment from the north.

This marks a turning point in the struggle for Gaul, as Clovis positions the Franks as the dominant power in the former Western Roman territories, setting the stage for his eventual conquest of the Visigothic kingdom in 507 CE.

When word comes that Feletheus' son, Fredericus, had returned to his people, Odoacer sends his brother Onoulphus with an army back to Noricum against him.

Onoulphus finds it necessary to evacuate the remaining Romans from the ravaged territory and resettles them in Italy.

Zeno, in attempt to redirect the vexatious Ostrogothic raids on the empire’s western provinces, ends the menace of Theodoric the Amal to the prefecture of Illyricum by ordering or otherwise persuading him in 488 to venture with his Ostrogoths into Italy, overthrow Odoacer, and govern the peninsula in the Emperor's name as King of the Ostrogoths and patrician (noble ruler) of Italy.

Illus has continued to hold out against the Emperor, but is captured and beheaded in 488, as is Leontius I, the Chalcedonian Christian patrician who had been crowned emperor in 484 by Verina and welcomed at Antioch, though rejected at Chalcis and Edessa.

The area around present Belgrade, which had been ravaged by Attila the Hun in 442, had been taken by Theodoric the Great in 471.

As the Ostrogoths leave for Italy, the Gepids take over the city.

Nestorian Christianity is established during Balash's reign, as the sole form of Christianity allowed in the Sassanid Empire.

Kavadh had fled the Sassanian kingdom after the death of his father and taken refuge with his former captors, where he has married one of the daughters of the Hephthlaite king, who gives him an army to conquer his old kingdom and take the throne.

When Kavadh arrives in Ctesiphon at the head of a large Hephthalite contingent, a group of nobles and priests depose and blind Balash and install Kavadh as Great King.

The remaining Rugi follow Theodoric for revenge against Odacer.

The Gepids try to halt the Ostrogothic advance, but Theodoric defeats them at the Pannonian city of Sirmium and continues on to cross the Julian Alps.

Emperor Zeno closes the School of Edessa for their teaching of Nestorian doctrine, whereupon the scholars seek refuge in the Syrian Church.