GEPIDS. - A people of Gothic stock who, around the middle of the 3rd century A.D., descended from the Baltic regions toward the Carpathians. The earliest mention is found in the life of Probus in the Historia Augusta. Admitted with other barbarians within the borders of the Empire, they behaved as brigands, and were fought and driven out by Probus (Probus, 18). Attila dragged them along with him in his ruinous raids. Once Attila was defeated and his kingdom dissolved, the Gepidae managed to maintain themselves in Dacia, already occupied by the Huns, and extended their borders even south of the Danube, occupying among other things the cities of Moesia, Sirmium and Singidunum. Enemies of the Ostrogoths, they attempted to block their way toward the West and toward Italy but were defeated (489).
They subsequently had longer struggles with the Lombards, who had settled in Pannonia. There is a record of a first war between Audoin, king of the Lombards, and Turisind, king of the Gepidae, who lost in battle his valiant son Turismod. After some years of peace, during which the Gepidae were among the mercenaries of Narses against Totila (552), they resumed the struggles with the Lombards, but their king Cunimund was completely defeated and killed by the Lombard Alboin. The Gepidae then lost their independence, and Rosamund, daughter of the last king, forcibly married to the victor, avenged her father and her people after the notorious atrocious insult of Alboin. There is no record that Christian preaching ever reached them.