Rugii
The Rugii were subsequently part of the alliance which defeated Attila's sons and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454, giving their kingdom independence.
Most Rugii still in the Danubian region eventually joined the Ostrogoth Theoderic the Great who killed Odoacer and replaced him with a Gothic-led regime in Italy.
The 6th century writer Procopius included them among the "Gothic peoples", grouping them with Goths, Gepids, Vandals, Sciri, and the non-Germanic Alans, who were mainly associated with Eastern Europe.
In the 6th century Jordanes listed "Rugi" among the tribes supposedly living in Scandinavia in his own time, near the Dani (Danes) and Suetidi (Swedes).
Their name probably means "island Rugii", and he described them as a people who had many centuries before him lived on the Baltic coast near the Vistula, at the time when he believed the Goths arrived by boat from Scandinavia.
In favour of a Scandinavian origin, despite doubts about the early cultivation of Rye, he cites the sixth century claim of Jordanes that Scandinavia was the "womb of nations".
[4] Others such as Pohl have argued that the similarity of names has been uncritically interpreted to indicate tribal kinship or identity, feeding a debate about the location of an "original homeland" without any reference to historical sources.
[4][11][5] Tacitus distinguished the Rugii, Gutones and Lemovii from other Germanic tribes, saying they carried round shields and short swords, and obeyed kings.
[14][15] The remains of the Rugii west of the Vidivarii, together with other Gothic, Veneti, and Gepid groups, are believed to be identical with the archaeological Dębczyn culture.
While modern authors are sceptical of some elements of the old narrative, the archaeology of the Wielbark culture has given new evidence to support this idea.
[19] The Rugii are listed as one of the northern peoples who were led by Attila over the Rhine, to invade Gaul, and eventually fight the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451.
After Attila's death in 453 the Rugii were among the Hunnic confederates who successfully rebelled against his sons, defeating them and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454.
[21] After Flaccitheus's death, the Rugii of Rugiland were led by king Feletheus, also called Feva, and his wife Gisa.
[8] Feletheus' Rugii were utterly defeated by Odoacer in 487; many came into captivity and were carried to Italy, and subsequently, Rugiland was settled by the Lombards.
[25] One hypothesis, based on the sudden appearance of large amounts of Roman solidi and migrations of other groups after the breakdown of the Hun empire in 453, suggest a partial re-migration of earlier emigrants to their former northern homelands.
[26][4] James Campbell has argued that, regarding Bede's "Rugini", "the sense of the Latin is that these are the peoples from whom the Anglo-Saxons living in Britain were derived".
[6][28] According to Pohl, the name was taken up in a historicizing manner from the 10th century onwards to refer to Slavic peoples on the lower Austrian Danube (Pohl refers to Raffelstettener customs ordinance shortly after 900), on the Baltic Sea (citing Otto of Freising, Chronica 7, 9), or also the Rus (citing the Continuatio Reginonis a.
