Visigoths for Kids

Visigoths

The Visigoths, like other German peoples, were originally Indo-European. Their language, Gothic, was closely related to German. We first hear of them when they are living in Poland around 100 BC. Soon after that, some of them, along with their relatives the Ostrogoths, seem to have decided to migrate to the south, very gradually and slowly. Probably bad weather at home made it impossible to feed everyone, and so some people left looking for food.

Danube River
Danube River

The Visigoths slowly moved south through Slovakia, but stopped when they came up against the Roman Empire, because they could not beat the Roman army. The Visigoths settled along the north side of the Danube river, took up farming and trading with the Romans, and lived there more or less peacefully for several hundred years, until in the 300s AD they began to be pushed southward by new invaders, the Huns.

More on the Visigoths
Ostrogoths
Huns
Main Germans page

To find out more about the Visigoths, check out these books from Amazon or from your local library:


Cite this page: Carr, Karen (PhD).

Kidipede - History for Kids. 2012.
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/germans/history/visigoths.htm