Visigothic Kingdom

The Visigothic Kingdom was a Germanic successor state to Rome that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the fifth to the eighth century. It began around 418 AD when the Roman government settled the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwestern Gaul, initially as a federated state before the Visigoths achieved full sovereignty and expanded across most of the Iberian Peninsula. The kingdom developed influential legal codes, maintained classical traditions and produced notable scholars, but its dominance ended when Muslim forces from North Africa invaded in 711, conquering most of the peninsula and effectively ending Visigothic rule by 721.