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AMAL
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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.