in the long list of German tribes preserved to us in the
'Germania' of Tacitus. Little or nothing is heard of them
before the reign of Gordian III. In A. D. 240 Aurelian, then a
tribune of the sixth legion stationed on the Rhine, encountered a
body of marauding Franks near Mayence and drove them back into
their marshes. The word 'Francia' is also found at a still
earlier date, in the old Roman chart called the 'Charta
Peutingeria,' and occupies on the map the right bank of the
Rhine from opposite Coblentz to the sea. The origin of the
Franks has been the subject of frequent debate, to which
French patriotism has occasionally lent some asperity. ... At
the present day, however, historians of every nation,
including the French, are unanimous in considering the Franks
as a powerful confederacy of German tribes, who in the time of
Tacitus inhabited the north-western parts of Germany bordering
on the Rhine. And this theory is so well supported by many
scattered notices, slight in themselves, but powerful when
combined, that we can only wonder that it should ever have
been called in question. Nor was this aggregation of tribes
under the new name of Franks a singular instance; the same
took place in the case of the Alemanni and Saxons. ... The
etymology of the name adopted by the new confederacy is also
uncertain. The conjecture which has most probability in its
favour is that adopted long ago by Gibbon, and confirmed in
recent times by the authority of Grimm, which connects it with
the German word Frank (free). ... Tacitus speaks of nearly all
the tribes, whose various appellations were afterwards merged
in that of Frank, as living in the neighbourhood of the Rhine.
Of these the principal were the Sicambri (the chief people of
the old Iscævonian tribe), who, as there is reason to believe,
were identical with the Salian Franks. The confederation
further comprised the Bructeri, the Chamavi, Ansibarii,
Tubantes, Marsi, and Chasuarii, of whom the five last had
formerly belonged to the celebrated Cheruscan league, which,
under the hero Arminius, destroyed three Roman legions in the
Teutoburgian Forest. The strongest evidence of the identity of
these tribes with the Franks, is the fact that, long after
their settlement in Gaul, the distinctive names of the
original people were still occasionally used as synonymous
with that of the confederation. ... The Franks advanced upon
Gaul from two different directions, and under the different
names of Salians, and Ripuarians, the former of whom we have
reason to connect more particularly with the Sicambrian tribe.
The origin of the words Salian and Ripuarian, which are first
used respectively by Ammianus Marcellinus and Jornandes, is
very obscure, and has served to exercise the ingenuity of
ethnographers. There are, however, no sufficient grounds for a
decided opinion. At the same time it is by no means improbable
that the river Yssel, Isala or Sal (for it has borne all these
appellations), may have given its name to that portion of the
Franks who lived along its course. With still greater
probability may the name Ripuarii, or Riparii, be derived from
'Ripa,' a term used by the Romans to signify the Rhine. These
dwellers on 'the Bank' were those that remained in their
ancient settlements while their Salian kinsmen were advancing
into the heart of Gaul."
_W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapters 9 and 11._
_T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 3._
FRANKS: A. D. 253.
First appearance in the Roman world.
"When in the year 253 the different generals of Rome were once
more fighting each other for the imperial dignity, and the
Rhine-legions marched to Italy to fight out the cause of their
emperor Valerianus against ... Aemilianus of the Danube-army,
this seems to have been the signal for the Germans pushing
forward, especially towards the lower Rhine. These Germans
were the Franks, who appear here for the first time, perhaps
new opponents only in name; for, although the identification
of them, already to be met with in later antiquity, with
tribes formerly named on the lower Rhine--partly, the Chamavi
settled beside the Bructeri, partly the Sugambri formerly
mentioned subject to the Romans--is uncertain and at least
inadequate, there is here greater probability than in the case
of the Alamanni that the Germans hitherto dependent on Rome, on
the right bank of the Rhine, and the Germanic tribes
previously dislodged from the Rhine, took at that time--under
the collective name of the 'Free'--the offensive in concert
against the Romans."
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 4._
FRANKS: A. D. 277.
Repulse from Gaul, by Probus.
See GAUL: A. D. 277.
FRANKS: A. D. 279.
Escape from Pontus.
See SYRACUSE: A. D. 279.
FRANKS: A. D. 295-297.
In Britain.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297.
FRANKS: A. D. 306.
Defeat by Constantine.
Constantine the Great, A. D. 306, fought and defeated the
Salian Franks in a great battle and "carried off a large
number of captives to Treves, the chief residence of the
emperor, and a rival of Rome itself in the splendour of its
public buildings. It was in the circus of this city, and in
the presence of Constantine, that the notorious 'Ludi
Francici' were celebrated; at which several thousand Franks,
including their kings Regaisus and Ascaricus, were compelled
to fight with wild beasts, to the inexpressible delight of the
Christian spectators."
_W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2._
FRANKS: A. D. 355.
Settlement in Toxandria.
See GAUL: A. D. 355-361;
also, TOXANDRIA.
FRANKS: 5th-10th Centuries.
Barbarities of the conquest of Gaul.
State of society under the rule of the conquerors.
Evolution of Feudalism.
See GAUL: 5TH-8TH, and 5TH-10TH CENTURIES.
FRANKS: A. D. 406-409.
Defense of Roman Gaul.
See GAUL: A. D. 406-409.
FRANKS: A. D. 410-420.
The Franks join in the attack on Gaul.
After vainly opposing the entrance of Vandals, Burgundians and
Sueves into Gaul, A. D. 406, "the Franks, the valiant and
faithful allies of the Roman republic, were soon [about A. D.
410-420] tempted to imitate the invaders whom they had so
bravely resisted. Treves, the capital of Gaul, was pillaged by
their lawless bands; and the humble colony which they so long
maintained in the district of Toxandria, in Brabant,
insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and
Scheldt, till their independent power filled the whole extent
of the Second, or Lower, Germany. ... The ruin of the opulent
provinces of Gaul may be dated from the establishment of these
barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous and oppressive, and
who were capriciously impelled, by interest or passion, to
violate the public peace."
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 31._
{1399}
"They [the Franks] resisted the great invasion of the Vandals
in the time of Stilicho, but did not scruple to take part in
the subsequent ravages. Among the confusions of that
disastrous period, indeed, it is not improbable that they
seized the cities of Spires, Strasburg, Amiens, Arras,
Therouane and Tournai, and by their assaults on Trèves
compelled the removal of the præfectural government to Arles.
Chroniclers who flourished two centuries later refer to the
year 418 large and permanent conquests in Gaul by a visionary
king called Pharamund, from whom the French monarchy is
usually dated. But history seeks in vain for any authentic
marks of his performances."
_P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapter 11, section 5._
FRANKS: A. D. 448-456.
Origin of the Merovingian dynasty.
The royal dynasty of the kingdom of the Franks as founded by
Clovis is called the Merovingian. "It is thought that the
kings of the different Frankish people were all of the same
family, of which the primitive ancestor was Meroveus
(Meer-wig, warrior of the sea). After him those princes were
called Merovingians (Meer-wings); they were distinguished by
their long hair, which they never cut. A Meroveus, grandfather
of Clovis, reigned, it is said, over the Franks between 448
and 456; but only his name remains, in some antient
historians, and we know absolutely nothing more either of his
family, his power, or of the tribe which obeyed him: so that
we see no reason why his descendants had taken his name. ...
The Franks appear in history for the first time in the year
241. Some great captain only could, at this period, unite
twenty different people in a new confederation; this chief
was, apparently, the Meroveus, whose name appeared for such a
long time as a title of glory for his descendants, although
tradition has not preserved any trace of his victories."
_J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
chapter 3._
FRANKS: A. D. 451.
At the battle of Châlons.
See HUNS: A. D. 451.
FRANKS: A. D. 481-511.
The kingdom of Clovis.
"The Salian Franks had ... associated a Roman or a Romanized
Gaul, Aegidius, with their native chief in the leadership of
the tribe. But, in the year 481, the native leadership passed
into the hands of a chief who would not endure a Roman
colleague, or the narrow limits within which, in the general
turmoil of the world, his tribe was cramped. He is known to
history by the name of Clovis, or Chlodvig, which through many
transformations, became the later Ludwig and Louis. Clovis
soon made himself feared as the most ambitious, the most
unscrupulous, and the most energetic of the new Teutonic
founders of states. Ten years after the fall of the Western
empire [which was in 476], seven years before the rise of the
Gothic kingdom of Theoderic, Clovis challenged the Roman
patrician, Syagrius of Soissons, who had succeeded to
Aegidius, defeated him in a pitched field, at Nogent, near
Soissons (486), and finally crushed Latin rivalry in northern
Gaul. Ten years later (496), in another famous battle, Tolbiac
(Zülpich), near Cologne, he also crushed Teutonic rivalry, and
established his supremacy over the kindred Alamanni of the
Upper Rhine. Then he turned himself with bitter hostility
against the Gothic power in Gaul. The Franks hated the Goths,
as the ruder and fiercer of the same stock hate those who are
a degree above them in the arts of peace, and are supposed to
be below them in courage and the pursuits of war. There was
another cause of antipathy. The Goths were zealous Arians; and
Clovis, under the influence of his wife Clotildis, the niece
of the Burgundian Gundobad, and in consequence, it is said, of
a vow made in battle at Tolbiac, had received Catholic baptism
from St. Remigius of Rheims.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.
The Frank king threw his sword into the scale against the
Arian cause, and became the champion and hope of the Catholic
population all over Gaul. Clovis was victorious. He crippled
the Burgundian kingdom (500), which was finally destroyed by
his sons (534). In a battle near Poitiers, he broke the power
of the West Goths in Gaul; he drove them out of Aquitaine,
leaving them but a narrow slip of coast, to seek their last
settlement and resting-place in Spain; and, when he died, he
was recognized by all the world, by Theoderic, by the Eastern
emperor, who honoured him with the title of the consulship, as
the master of Gaul. Nor was his a temporary conquest. The
kingdom of the West Goths and the Burgundians had become the
kingdom of the Franks. The invaders had at length arrived who
were to remain. It was decided that the Franks, and not the
Goths, were to direct the future destinies of Gaul and
Germany, and that the Catholic faith, and not Arianism, was to
be the religion of these great realms."
_R. W. Church,
Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2._
_J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
translated by Bellingham,
chapters 4-5._
See, also, GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-509.
FRANKS: A. D. 481-768.
Supremacy in Germany, before Charlemagne.
See GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.
FRANKS: A. D. 496.
Conversion to Christianity.
See above: A. D. 481-511;
also, ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.
FRANKS: A. D. 496-504.
Overthrow of the Alemanni.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504;
also, SUEVI: A. D. 460-500.
FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.
The house of Clovis.
Ascendancy of the Austrasian Mayors of the Palace.
On the death of Clovis, his dominion, or, speaking more
strictly, the kingly office in his dominion, was divided among
his four sons, who were lads, then, ranging in age from twelve
to eighteen. The eldest reigned in Metz, the second at
Orleans, the third in Paris, and the youngest at Soissons.
These princes extended the conquests of their father, subduing
the Thuringians (A. D. 515-528), overthrowing the kingdom of
the Burgundians (A. D. 523-534), diminishing the possessions
of the Visigoths in Gaul (A. D. 531-532), acquiring Provence
from the Ostrogoths of Italy and securing from the Emperor
Justinian a clear Roman-imperial title to the whole of Gaul.
The last survivor of the four brother-kings, Clotaire I.,
reunited the whole Frank empire under his own sceptre, and on
his death, A. D. 561, it was again divided among his four
sons. Six years later, on the death of the elder, it was
redivided among the three survivors. Neustria fell to
Chilperic, whose capital was at Soissons, Austrasia to
Sigebert, who reigned at Metz, and Burgundia to Guntram, who
had his seat of government at Orleans. Each of the kings took
additionally a third of Aquitaine, and Provence was shared
between Sigebert and Guntram. "It was agreed on this occasion
that Paris, which was rising into great importance, should be
held in common by all, but visited by none of the three kings
without the consent of the others." The reign of these three
brothers and their sons, from 561 to 613, was one long
revolting tragedy of civil war, murder, lust, and treachery,
made horribly interesting by the rival careers of the evil
Fredegunda and the great unfortunate Brunhilda, queens of
Neustria and Austrasia, respectively.
{1400}
In 613 a second Clotaire surviving his royal kin, united the
Frank monarchy once more under a single crown. But power was
fast slipping from the hands of the feeble creature who wore
the crown, and passing to that one of his ministers who
succeeded in making himself the representative of
royalty--namely, the Mayor of the Palace. There was a little
stir of energy in his son, Dagobert, but from generation to
generation, after him, the Merovingian kings sank lower into
that character which gave them the name of the fainéant kings
("rois fainéans")--the slothful or lazy kings--while the
mayors of the palace ruled vigorously in their name and
tumbled them, at last, from the throne. "While the Merovingian
race in its decline is notorious in history as having produced
an unexampled number of imbecile monarchs, the family which
was destined to supplant them was no less wonderfully prolific
in warriors and statesmen of the highest class. It is not
often that great endowments are transmitted even from father
to sou, but the line from which Charlemagne sprang presents to
our admiring gaze an almost uninterrupted succession of five
remarkable men, within little more than a single century. Of
these the first three held the mayoralty of Austrasia [Pepin
of Landen, Pepin of Heristal, and Carl, or Charles Martel, the
Hammer]; and it was they who prevented the permanent
establishment of absolute power on the Roman model, and
secured to the German population of Austrasia an abiding
victory over that amalgam of degraded Romans and corrupted
Gauls which threatened to leaven the European world. To them,
under Providence, we owe it that the centre of Europe is at
this day German, and not Gallo-Latin." Pepin of Heristal,
Mayor in Austrasia, broke the power of a rival Neustrian
family in a decisive battle fought near the village of Testri,
A. D. 687, and gathered the reins of the three kingdoms
(Burgundy included) into his own hands. His still more
vigorous son, Charles Martel, won the same ascendancy for
himself afresh, after a struggle which was signalized by three
sanguinary battles, at Amblève (A. D. 716), at Vinci, near
Cambrai (717) and at Soissons (718). When firm in power at
home, he turned his arms against the Frisians and the
Bavarians, whom he subdued, and against the obstinate Saxons,
whose country he harried six times without bringing them to
submission. His great exploit in war, however, was the repulse
of the invading Arabs and Moors, on the memorable battle-field
of Tours (A. D.732), where the wave of Mahommedan invasion was
rolled back in western Europe, never to advance beyond the
Pyrenees again. Karl died in 741, leaving three sons, among
whom his power was, in the Frank fashion, divided. But one of
them resigned, in a few years, his sovereignty, to become a
monk; another was deposed, and the third, Pepin, surnamed "The
Little," or "The Short," became supreme. He contented himself, as
his father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather had
done, with the title of Mayor of the Palace, until 752, when,
with the approval of the Pope and by the act of a great
assembly of leudes and bishops at Soissons, he was lifted on
the shield and crowned and anointed king of the Franks, while
the last of the Merovingians was shorn of his long royal locks
and placed in a monastery. The friendliness of the Pope in this
matter was the result and the cementation of an alliance which
bore important fruits. As the champion of the church, Pepin
made war on the Lombards and conquered for the Papacy the
first of its temporal dominions in Italy. In his own realm, he
completed the expulsion of the Moors from Septimania, crushed
an obstinate revolt in Aquitaine, and gave a firm footing to
the two thrones which, when he died in 768, he left to his
sons, Carl and Carloman, and which became in a few years the
single throne of one vast empire, under Carl--Carl the Great--
Charlemagne.
_W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapters 3-6._
ALSO IN:
_P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapters 12-15._
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
chapters 6-13.
See, also,
AUSTRASIA AND NEUSTRIA, and MAYOR OF THE PALACE.
FRANKS: A. D. 528.
Conquest of Thuringia.
See THURINGIANS, THE.
FRANKS: A. D. 539-553.
Invasion of Italy.
Formal relinquishment of Gaul to them.
During the Gothic war in Italy,--when Belisarius was
reconquering the cradle of the Roman Empire for the Eastern
Empire which still called itself Roman, although its seat was
at Constantinople,--both sides solicited the help of the
Franks. Theudebert, who reigned at Metz, promised his aid to
both, and kept his word. "He advanced [A. D. 539, with 100,000
men] toward Pavia, where the Greeks and Goths were met, about
to encounter, and, with an unexpected impartiality, attacked
the astonished Goths, whom he drove to Ravenna, and then,
while the Greeks were yet rejoicing over his performance, fell
upon them with merciless fury, and dispersed them through
Tuscany." Theudebert now became fired with an ambition to
conquer all Italy; but his savage army destroyed everything in
its path so recklessly, and pursued so unbridled a course,
that famine and pestilence soon compelled a retreat and only
one-third of its original number recrossed the Alps.
Notwithstanding, this treachery, the emperor Justinian renewed
his offers of alliance with the Franks (A.D. 540), and
"pledged to them, as the price of their fidelity to his cause,
besides the usual subsidies, the relinquishment of every
lingering claim, real or pretended, which the empire might
assert to the sovereignty of the Gauls. The Franks accepted
the terms, and 'from that time,' say the Byzantine
authorities, 'the German chiefs presided at the games of the
circus, and struck money no longer, as usual, with the effigy
of the emperors, but with their own image and superscription.
Theudebert, who was the principal agent of these transactions,
if he ratified the provisions of the treaty, did not fulfill
them in person, but satisfied himself with sending a few
tributaries to the aid of his ally. But his first example
proved to be more powerful than his later, and large swarms of
Germans took advantage of the troubles in Italy to overrun the
country and plunder and slay at will. For twelve years, under
various leaders, but chiefly under two brothers of the
Alemans, Lutherr and Bukhelin, they continued to harass the
unhappy object of all barbaric resentments, till the sword of
Narses finally exterminated them [A. D. 553]."
_P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapter 12._
ALSO IN:
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 41._
{1401}
FRANKS: A. D. 547.
Subjugation of Bavarians and Alemanni.
See BAVARIA: A. D. 547.
FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.
Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans.
As a crowned dynasty, the Carlovingians or Carolingians or
Carlings begin their history with Pepin the Short. As an
established sovereign house, they find their founder in 'King
Pepin's father, the great palace mayor, Carl, or Charles
Martel, if not in his grandfather, Pepin Heristal. But the
imperial splendor of the house came to it from the second of
its kings, whom the French call 'Charlemagne,' but whom
English readers ought to know as Charles the Great. The French
form of the name has been always tending to represent
'Charlemagne' as a king of France, and modern historians
object to it for that reason. "France, as it was to be and as
we know it, had not come into existence in his [Charlemagne's]
days. What was to be the France of history was then but one
province of the Frank kingdom, and one with which Charles was
personally least connected. ... Charles, king of the Franks,
was, above all things, a German. ... It is entirely to mistake
his place and his work to consider him in the light of a
specially 'French' king, a predecessor of the kings who
reigned at Paris and brought glory upon France. ... Charles
did nothing to make modern France. The Frank power on which he
rose to the empire was in those days still mainly German; and
his characteristic work was to lay the foundations of modern
and civilized Germany, and, indirectly, of the new
commonwealth of nations, which was to arise in the West of
Europe."
_R. W. Church,
The Beginnings of the Middle Ages,
chapter 7._