after the settlement in
Savoy from 443 Burgundy is named after a
Germanic tribe of
Burgundians who may have originated on the island of
Bornholm, whose name in
Old Norse was
Burgundarholmr ("Island of the Burgundians"). The Burgundian name may have also been a general Germanic name for "highlanders", as such may have been the name of more than one unrelated tribe. From their first documented location on the
Middle Rhine, they migrated south into
Roman Gaul and settled in large numbers in the territory of
Sapaudia, in what is today western Switzerland and northeastern France, before expanding their domain further south to the
Rhône valley, establishing a
barbarian kingdom of the Burgundians. The first documented, though not historically verified, King of the Burgundians was
Gjúki (Gebicca), who lived in the late 4th century. In the course of the
Crossing of the Rhine in 406, the Burgundians settled as
foederati in the Roman province of
Germania Secunda along the
Middle Rhine. Their situation worsened when, about 430, their king
Gunther started several invasions into neighbouring
Gallia Belgica, which led to a crushing defeat by joined Roman and
Hunnic troops under
Flavius Aetius in 436, near
Worms (the focus of the mediæval
Nibelungenlied poem). From 443 onwards, the remaining Burgundian settled in the Sapaudia region, again as
foederati, in the Roman
Maxima Sequanorum province (modern day western Switzerland and northeastern France). Their efforts to enlarge their kingdom down the
Rhône river brought them into conflict with the
Visigothic Kingdom in the south. After the fall of the
Western Roman Empire in 476, king
Gundobad allied with the powerful
Frank king
Clovis I against the threat of
Theoderic the Great. He was then able to organize the Burgundian acquisitions based on the
Lex Burgundionum, an
Early Germanic law code. The decline of the Kingdom began when they came under attack from their former Frank allies. In 523, the sons of Clovis I campaigned in the Burgundian lands, instigated by their mother
Clotilde, whose father king
Chilperic II of Burgundy had been killed by Gundobad. In 532, the Burgundians were decisively defeated by the Franks at
Autun, whereafter king
Godomar was killed and Burgundian lands was annexed by the
Frankish Empire in 534. ==Merovingian Burgundy (534–751)==