AMAL  , the name of the noblest

family among the Ostrogoths, and that from which nearly all their kings were chosen . - AMALARIC (d . 531), king of the Visigoths, son of Alaric II., was a child when his father fell in battle against Clovis, king of the Franks (5o7) . He was carried for safety into Spain, which country and Provence were thenceforth ruled by his maternal grandfather, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, acting through his vicegerent, an Ostrogothic nobleman named Theudis . In 522 the young Amalaric was proclaimed king, and four years later, on Theodoric's death, he assumed full royal power in Spain and a part of Languedoc, relinquishing Provence to his cousin Athalaric . He married Clotilda, daughter of Clovis; but his disputes with her, he being an Arian and she a Catholic, brought on him the penalty of a Frankish invasion, in which he lost his life in 531 .