Hunnic Empire

Abstract

The history and the nature of the Hunnic Empire have been a source of controversy and debate for centuries. Even the definition of the Hunnic nation as an empire or a state has been hotly contested and disputed. Likewise there has been no consensus or agreement among historians and archaeologists about when the empire was first founded, how extensive it was in terms of territory, how it was administered, and when it finally dissolved. What is certain is that the Huns expanded from Central Asia sometime in the middle of the 4th century into Europe and by the middle of the 5th century controlled vast swaths of Europe from France to the Ukraine. The Huns and the empire they created had an immense impact on the political development of the later “Germanic” kingdoms of early medieval Europe and also contributed to the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire in Western Europe.