Taifals

The Taifals or Tayfals (Latin: Taifali, Taifalae or Theifali; French: Taïfales) were a people group of Germanic or Sarmatian origin,[1] first documented north of the lower Danube in the mid third century AD.

In the late fourth century some Taifali were settled within the Roman Empire, notably in western Gaul in the modern province of Poitou.

[3] In the late third century they settled on the Danube on both sides of the Carpathians, dividing the territory with the Goths, who maintained political authority over all of it.

[9] In 328 Constantine the Great conquered Oltenia and the Taifals, probably taking this opportunity to resettle a large number in Phrygia, in the diocese of Nicholas of Myra.

"[18] Athanaric had refused to extend his defensive preparations to the Taifalian territory and the Huns forced the Taifals to abandon Oltenia and western Muntenia by 370.

[23] Sometime before their conversion to Christianity, Ammianus Marcellinus wrote: It is said that this nation of the Taifali was so profligate, and so immersed in the foulest obscenities of life, that they indulged in all kinds of unnatural lusts, exhausting the vigour both of youth and manhood in the most polluted defilements of debauchery.

[25] Subsequent to their defeat and falling out with Athanaric, the Taifals were officially resettled as coloni to farm lands in northern Italy (Modena, Parma, Reggio, Emilia) and Aquitaine by the victorious general Frigeridus.

According to the Notitia Dignitatum of the early fifth century, there was a unit called the Equites Taifali established by Honorius under the comes Britanniarum in Britannia.

[31] The village of Tealby (originally Tavelesbi, Tauelesbi or Teflesbi) in the former kingdom of Lindsey may preserve the name of some Taifali who remained in Britain after the Roman withdrawal in 410.

[33] The region of Poitou was even called Thifalia, Theiphalia or Theofalgicus pagus (all meaning "Taifal country") in the sixth century.

[38] The last mention of the Taifals as a distinct gens dates from year 565,[39] but their Oltenic remnants almost certainly took part in the Lombard migration and invasion of Italy in 568.

[43] They also left their mark in the municipal nomenclature of the region: asides from Tiffauges, mentioned above, Taphaleschat[44] in Corrèze, Touffailles and Touffaillou in Aquitaine, and Chauffailles (formerly Taïfailia) in Burgundy owe their names to Taifal settlement.

Perhaps the town of Tafalla in the Navarre owes its name to these people, but if so, it is unknown if the Taifals were established in Hispania (probably to subdue the Basques) by the Romans before 412 or by the Visigoths after that.

The dragon-and-pearl device of the shields of the Equites Honoriani Taifali iuniores unit based in Gaul. The dragon was blue, as was the "pearl". The boss was blue and the band around the boss was red. The field was white.
Taifals in Oltenia and the political landscape in the 4th-century Balkans
Buckle from the first hoard of Coşoveni , 5th century, possibly of Taifal origin, [ 10 ] from Coşoveni , Oltenia, Romania
A page of the Insignia viri illustris magistri Equitum from manuscript Canon. Misc. 378 of Notitia Dignitatum , since 1817 in the Bodleian Library [ 26 ]