The Heruli are a Germanic people belonging to the ostic group, or group of so-called "eastern" Germans, from Scandinavia, such as the Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Gepids among others. Little known, the Heruli appear as a minor people but were often reported in the Gothic raids and in particular on the Black Sea, where they quickly discovered a vocation as pirates.
Antiquity
They are mentioned for the first time in Roman sources in the 3rd century when in 268 and 269, they took part in a barbarian coalition which brought together the Peucins and the Carpes, small Germanic tribes, but also the Gepids, and especially the Goths. The assembled army, said to have numbered more than 300,000 warriors (a figure certainly exaggerated by Roman and Greek chroniclers), attacks the forces of Emperor Claudius II the Gothic on the Danube.
In the 3rd century, another Germanic people, the Lombards, then established in Pannonia and who did not burst into the West until 568, were allies or vassals of the Heruli.
Subsequently, mention is made of them at the time of the Great Invasions, from the second half of the 4th century.
High Middle Ages
In the 5th century, the latter had a semblance of a kingdom along the Danube, although they were probably few in number:it was probably from there that the armed band of which Odoacer, one of them already established in Italy, took the head. The latter set fire to Pavia, plundered Rome and deposed the Emperor Romulus Augustulus, being proclaimed "King of Italy" (476). This episode is best known for having been interpreted by Historiography as the official fall of the Western Roman Empire.
However, not all the Heruli seem to have settled on the Danube between the 3rd century and the 5th century. A Herule detachment is indeed attested during the years 400/407 in barbarian armed bands, alongside Frisians and Saxons, who engage in piracy in the North Sea and on the Channel coasts. These undermined the coastal defenses of the Roman Empire (the coastal military march of Armorica or Litus armoricus) and established advanced observation posts or small settlements as far as the Atlantic coast. This is how they went as far as Spain, and in 456, about 500 Herule pirates were reported on the Cantabrian and Galician coasts, embarked on 8 ships. Some even settled on the Spanish coast and continued piracy.
After the year 476, other Heruli served in the army of Theodoric the Great, integrating with the Ostrogoths whom the emperor of the East, Zeno, charged with recovering Italy, then in the hands of the barbarian mercenaries of 'Odoacer.
Around 491, Theodoric, victorious over the Vandals, made contact with the Danubian Herulians to guard against pressure from the Alamans.
Odoacer was overthrown by Theodoric in 493 and his armed band was driven out of Italy, while the Gothic king founded the kingdom of Ravenna. The Heruli, who had returned to the Danube under the leadership of their king Rodulf, were severely beaten in 510 by the Lombards:many of them returned to Scandinavia.
In 550, the presence of about 3000 Herul mercenaries is still attested along the Danubian line of defense or Danubian limes, at Sirmium and Singidunum, but these had been established there around 510. Let us also not forget that Herulian contingents served Byzantium in its war against the Vandals of Africa in 533 and 534, as well as in Italy under the leadership of the old eunuch (and dwarf) general Narses, against the Ostrogoths, from 551. They disappeared as distinct people before the middle of the 7th century, those of the North merging with Frisians and Saxons, some even returning to their homeland of origin, in Scandinavia, which they had nevertheless left centuries earlier (which clearly demonstrates the attachment to the even distant origins and perhaps the survival of close links with the Nordic populations), others merging with Ostrogoths and Lombards.