Alamannia

Alamannia was the territory of the Alemanni, a Germanic confederation that broke through the Roman frontier in the 3rd century and settled on both sides of the upper Rhine. During the 4th and 5th centuries the Alemanni were ruled by independent tribal kings and repeatedly raided Roman provinces; their defeat by the Franks in 496 was followed by incorporation into the Frankish realm. In the 6th century Alamannia became a duchy of the Frankish Empire, and its dukes retained a strong regional identity even as Frankish kings appointed and deposed them. The territory centred on Lake Constance and included the High Rhine, the Black Forest, Alsace and the upper Danube basin, with an uncertain frontier toward Burgundy. Christianization advanced through monasteries such as St Gall and Reichenau, while the Alemannic dialect and law, the Lex Alamannorum, preserved a distinct Germanic tradition. In 911 the region was absorbed into the Duchy of Swabia, and Alamannia survived mainly as a cultural and linguistic name, the ancestor of the modern Alemannic German-speaking lands.