Aioulf

Who was Aioulf?

Aioulf or Agiwulf was an obscure King of Galicia from 456. In 448, after eight years in captivity, the Roman ambassador Censorius was executed by one Agiulf at Seville. This Agiulf has sometimes been identified with Aioulf.

According to the local and contemporary chronicler Hydatius, after the sack of Braga and the execution of Rechiar, the previous Suevic king, by the Visigoths, the Gothic king, Theodoric II, led his army south into Lusitania while one of his commanders, Aioulf, deserted him and remained behind in Galicia hoping to make himself king of the Sueves there.

However, the later, Pannonian historian Jordanes records that Aioulf was a Warnic cliens of Theodoric appointed by the king to administer the Suevi and who, being provoked by the Suevi themselves, sought to make himself king but was defeated by Theodoric's army in the first engagement, captured, and executed. According to E. A. Thompson, Jordanes is less reliable than Hydatius for three reasons: he lived further way both in time and space from events in Galicia, his record for accuracy is less reputable, and his bias for the Goths led him to make the disloyal Aioulf a Warni and to involve the Suevi themselves in the act of betraying Theodoric. More significantly, however, Jordanes mentions the Suevic bishops being greeted by Theodoric "with the reverence due to episcopal rank", an anachronism considering the Suevi were pagans in 457.