 germanic kingship refers to the customs and practices surrounding kings among the pre-christianization germanic tribes of the migration period (circa ad 300-700) and the kingdoms of the early middle ages (circa ad 700-1000). the title of king (proto-germanic:*kuningaz) is in origin that of the leader elected as sacral and military leader from out of a noble family, usually considered of divine ancestry, in the pre-christianization period. the germanic monarchies were originally pre-christianized, but their contact, during the vÃ¶lkerwanderung or migration period, with the roman empire and the christian church greatly altered their structure and developed into the feudal monarchy of the high middle ages. the derisive term "barbarian monarchy" is sometimes used in the context of those germanic rulers who after ad 476 and during the 6th century ruled territories formerly part of the western roman empire, especially the barbarian kings of italy. in the same context, germanic law is also derisively termed leges barbarorum  "barbarian law" etc.also used by early 20th century russian medievalists who saw similarities between the germanic tribal monarchies and those of the nomadic peoples of the steppe. painter, a history of the middle ages 284â1500. ==terminology==  the english term king is derived from the anglo-saxon cyning, which in turn is derived from the common germanic *kuningaz. the common germanic term was borrowed into estonian and finnish at an early time, surviving in these languages as kuningas. the term is notably different from the word for "king" in other indo-european languages (*rÄks "ruler"; latin rÄx, sanskrit rÄjan and irish rÃ­g, but see gothic reiks and, e.g., modern german reich and modern dutch rijk). it is a derivation from the term *kunjom "kin" (old english cynn) by the -inga- suffix. the literal meaning is that of a "scion of the [noble] kin", or perhaps "son or descendant of one of noble birth" (oed). there were other terms for the germanic king in early germanic languages, derived from the word for "the people, the nation" rather than "kin". these are old norse fylkir (from *fulka) and gothic Ã¾iudans (from *Ã¾euda). comparable terms did not necessarily refer to a king but to any member of the nobility, e.g. old english dryhten (from *druhtiz "army, folk, people"), Ã¾Äoden (from [[theod|*Ã¾eu
Germanic_law