The
Gepids (
Latin Gepidae,
Old English Gifðas (
Beowulf,
Widsith) - possibly from *
Gibiðos, "givers"
[1] or
gepanta, see below) were an
East Germanic Gothic tribe most famous in history for defeating the
Huns after the death of
Attila. The state of the Gepids was commonly known as
Gepidia[2] or
Kingdom of the Gepids, whose territory is composed of modern
Romania.
The Gepids were first mentioned around A.D. 260, when they participated with the Goths in an invasion in Dacia, where they were settled in Jordanes' time, the mid 6th century. Their early origins are reported in Jordanes' Origins and Deeds of the Goths, where he claims that their name derives from their later and slower migration from Scandinavia
The first settlement of the Gepids were at the mouth of the Vistula River, which runs south to north from the Polish Carpathian mountains.
Their first named king, Fastida, stirred up his quiet people to enlarge their boundaries by war and overwhelmed the Burgundians, almost annihilating them in the 4th century, then fruitlessly demanded of the Goths a portion of their territory, a demand which the Goths successfully repulsed in battle. Like the Goths, the Gepids were converted to Arian Christianity.
