The Bavarians

The Boiarii are the German people which populated Bavaria. They were either related to the Marcomanni, or a people by themselves. As the Romans had left the region, they spread from the right bank of the Danube and they settled as far as the Lech river and the Alpine regions. Their chiefs all belonged to the Agilolfing family. Ratisbon was chosen like their capital at a early time. The first prominent duke of the Boiarii was Garibald I, in the middle of the 6th century, with his daughter, Theodelinda, becoming queen of the Lombards. This already was a time when Bavaria had to acknowledge the supremacy of the Franks. The son of Theolinda's brother, Garibald II was able to throw them off for a while, about 630. But the Franks, under Charles Martel, again subdued the duchy. The duke Tassilo II, on the other hand, had done much to spread Christinanity towards Eastern Europe. As he sought to regain any independence however, he was deposed by Charlemagne by 788 A.D., as Bavaria came to be ruled by Charles' officials. That sizure of Bavaria also allowed Charles to get over Styria, Carniole, Slovenia and Carinthia, which in turned was opening to the Avar ring. Bavaria, after the Treaty of Verdun, in 843, was elevated as Louis the German made his royal residence there. The son of a relative of one of his grandson, named Arnulf, claimed to be a independent sovereign by the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty in that part of the Empire. Henry I the Saxon, the new ruler of Germany, however partly successfully managed to conquer Bavaria, as Otto I completed the work. Since the fall of Eberhard I, the elder son of Duke Arnulf, by 939, Bavaria had Saxon rulers, the Franconians, who ruled as vassals of the king. They were members of the Welf family