ALANS. - A nomadic people of Scythian race. At the time when they appear in history they were living between the Caspian Sea and Lake Aral. Around 350, under pressure from the Huns, they advanced westward, settling in the sub-Caucasian regions toward the Sea of Azov. A strong group joined the Vandals, following them through Gaul and the Iberian peninsula as far as Africa (409-16). They received the Gospel from these, but, like their missionaries, they were Arians. A part of this group, having settled in the region of Orléans, fought, in the battle on the Catalaunian fields (451), with the Romans against Attila, but disappeared under Visigothic rule. The A., who remained in the Caucasian regions, had many relations with the Byzantine empire, and from the 9th century onward were, slowly and with varying success, converted by the Greek church. The traveler William of Rubruck, in 1253, found them organized into an ecclesiastical province, with two suffragans.
For many centuries we find A., as mercenaries, in the Byzantine army. The Alan Aspar enthroned Marcian (450-57) and Leo I (457-74) and, with his party, directed policy, until he was killed (471). Under Andronicus II (1228-41) the A. offered to fight the Turks, asking in compensation cultivable land. Shortly afterward, absorbed by the many peoples who passed through the regions they inhabited, they disappeared.