0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Times New Roman"" lang="EN-US">In 442, the area was ravaged by Attila the Hun. In
471, it was taken by Theodoric the Great, who continued
into Greece. As the Ostrogoths left for Italy,
the Gepids took over the city. In 539 it was retaken by the
Byzantines. In 577, some 100,000 Slavs poured into Thrace and Illyricum,
pillaging cities and settling down. The Avars under Bayan
I conquered the whole region by 582. According to Byzantine
chronicle
De Administrando
Imperio, the White Serbs had stopped in Belgrade on their way
back home stopped in Belgrade, asking the
strategos for lands; they received provinces in the west,
towards the Adriatic, which they would rule as subjects
to Heraclius (610–641). When the Avars were finally
destroyed in the 9th century by the Franks, it fell back to Byzantine
rule, while Taurunum became part of the Frankish realm (renamed
Malevilla). At the same time
(around 878), the first record of the name
Beligrad appeared, during the rule of Bulgarian
Knyaz Boris I. For about four centuries, the city remained a battleground
between the Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, Serbia and the
Bulgarian Empire. Basil II(976–1025) installed a garrison in
Belgrade. The city hosted the armies of the First and
the Second Crusade; while passing through during the Third
Crusade, Frederick Barbarossa and his 190,000 crusaders saw
Belgrade in ruins.
