Now that Transamund again felt himself in some measure secure in his

duchy it was in vain that the pope and Patricius admonished him to fulfil

his promise, and wrest from the king the four towns which had been lost

through his means. The endeavour was next made to gain possession of

them by friendly means, through the mediation of the Lombardian bishop,

to whom on the 15th of October, 740, Gregory III despatched a pressing

letter. All was in vain. Already there were new portents of evil,

already Liutprand was arming himself for a new campaign against Rome,

when, before the storm broke, came the death of Gregory III on the 29th

of November, 741, five weeks after Charles Martel, five months after

the emperor Leo III, the Isaurian, his implacable foe; Zacharias, his

successor, consecrated on December 3rd, being left behind to quench the

fire want of foresight had allowed to break out.

[Sidenote: [741-743 A.D.]]

Zacharias, a Greek, and, as his chronicler[z] tells us, an unusually

mild and virtuous ruler, was wise enough to see that, with a man of

Liutprand’s character, the sensible and most advantageous course was to

get upon good terms.

The new pope, not long after his consecration, sent a legation to Pavia,

whose special mission was to negotiate the restitution of the four

towns which two years previously had been wrung from the Roman duchy.

Liutprand put no great difficulties in the way, and promised the desired

concession. In exchange he demanded that the pope should place the Roman

troops at his disposal for the campaign he was planning to subdue the

faithless Transamund. By this combination Transamund was bereft of all

hope that he might be able to maintain his position. He saw himself

that there was nothing more to be done, and, renouncing all thought

of resistance marched to meet Liutprand to whom he yielded himself

captive. It is probable that he intended by this voluntary submission

to appeal once more to the king’s gentle disposition. But Liutprand

dared make no second attempt to rely upon the faith of his vanquished

enemy, and Transamund found himself consigned to a cloister. Liutprand’s

nephew took, probably some few years later, the place thus left vacant.

Gottschalk’s exit from Benevento, which according to Paulus followed

close upon Transamund’s, has been already related. All this occurred

between February and September, 742. Thus the unity of the kingdom

of Lombardy was at length restored, and an end put to the arrogant

insubordination of the crown vassals.

PEACE WITH ROME

[Sidenote: [743-744 A.D.]]

[Illustration: A FRIAR, EIGHTH CENTURY]

No haste was evinced in Pavia to carry out the promised restitution of

the four towns, this tardiness causing the pope great concern. In order

to put an end to this uncertainty, and find out whether there really was

any chance of the matter being amicably arranged, Zacharias, “like a true

shepherd of the flock entrusted to him by God,” set out from the Holy

City at the head of his spiritual cortège and marched “full of confidence

and brave in heart” to the charmingly situated Interamna (Terni), at that

time the headquarters of the Lombards, in order to try what his personal

influence would do towards effecting the desired arrangement. Liutprand

showed him all honour. “Moved by the pious speech, and full of admiration

for the firm courage and admonitions of the holy man,” Liutprand conceded

everything he asked, “thanks to the influence of the Holy Spirit,”

and gave the four disputed towns, which he had taken on account of the

Transamund quarrel, together with their inhabitants, as a present to the

church of Holy Peter.

It is noticeable that, as Gregorovius[aa] points out, this restitution

did not at all affect the Byzantine emperor, but only the successor of

Peter. And in order that the pope might enjoy complete ease of mind, he

was further guaranteed a twenty years’ peace. To gratify him Liutprand

even set free all the Greek and Roman prisoners of war he had taken in

Tuscany and in the territory north of the river Po, amongst whom were men

of high rank, such as the consuls Sergius, Leo, Victor, and Agnellus.

Thus a final reconciliation was effected, the conditions of which were

all Rome could possibly desire.

On the same day the Sunday, after the solemn celebration of the mass, the

pope invited his royal friend to his table in order that he, the pope,

might impart the apostolic blessing. Liutprand ate on this occasion with

such a hearty appetite as to call forth the jovial remark from him that

he had never before eaten so well at a midday meal. The next day, Monday,

they bade each other farewell.

Liutprand now turned his attention in another direction. The quarrels

about the throne, in which the successor to Leo III, Emperor Constantine

V (Copronymus), was embroiled with his brother-in-law Artavasdes, incited

him to a renewed attack upon the East Roman possession in Italy. The

Ravenna district felt the weight of his displeasure, and he found all

preparations made for laying siege a second time to the principal town,

when Patricius, the exarch Eutychius, and the archbishop John of Ravenna

with the people of that city, sought the mediation of the pope, first by

letter and then through envoys.

On the 28th of June, 743, the pope reached the river Po. Here he was met

by the high vassals of the Lombard crown and conducted to their capital.

The pope disburdened his mind of his desire that the king would not

further oppress the province of Ravenna by devastation and yet further

that he would restore the towns taken from the Ravenna including the

fortress of Cesena. The naïveté of such demands is certainly astonishing,

but still more amazing are the unknown circumstances which induced

Liutprand to concede so much. At first, it is true, he met them with

a stout refusal. But what remained for him, if he would avoid the

open conflict he dreaded with the church and its consequences, except

submission, unless he sacrificed the security and peace of his realm, the

result of years of activity in extending his foreign dominion? In spite

of his promise given to the pope, Liutprand appears to have continued

harassing the exarchate.

In January, 744, after a reign of thirty-one years and seven months,

Liutprand concluded his eventful life. He was buried in the church of St.

Adrian, where his father too had found his last resting-place. In the

year 1173 his bones were removed to the church of St. Peter’s monastery,

so often referred to as “Ecclesia di Ciel d’Oro,” a monastery which owed

its existence to him.[y]

HODGKIN’S ESTIMATE OF LIUTPRAND

[Sidenote: [712-744 A.D.]]

In some respects the statesmanship of Liutprand seems to me to have been

too highly praised. The one aim which he seems to have consistently and

successfully pursued was the consolidation of the Lombard monarchy and

the reduction of the great dukes into a condition of real subjection to

his crown. He availed himself (and what Lombard king would not have done

so?) of any opportunity which offered itself for cutting yet shorter the

reduced and fragmentary territories which still called themselves parts

of “the Roman Republic.” But both from policy and from his own devout

temperament he was disinclined to do anything which might cause a rupture

with the see of Rome, and the popes perceiving this, often induced him

to abandon hardly earned conquests by appealing to “his devotion to St.

Peter.”

I cannot better close this chapter than by quoting the character of

Liutprand given us by the loving yet faithful hand of Paulus Diaconus[p]

in the concluding words of that history, which has been our chief guide

through two dark and troubled centuries:

“He was a man of great wisdom, prudent in counsel and a lover of peace,

mighty in war, clement towards offenders, chaste, modest, one who prayed

through the night-watches, generous in his almsgiving, ignorant it is

true of literature, but a man who might be compared to the philosophers,

a fosterer of his people, an augmenter of their laws.”[b]

For the present we must leave the fortunes of the Lombards to trace the

origins and the rise of the Frankish people who now loom large across the

horizons of Italy and to whom the papacy appeals for help against the

powers that threaten its enormous and greedy ambition.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[114] [We may say here with Hodgkin[b] in using the word Lombards before

its strict time, “it seems not worth while to encumber the text by the

constant repetition of a long and somewhat uncouth race-name, but the

reader is asked to remember that in strictness the form Langobardi should

be preserved.” It is the 12th century before the words “Lombard” and

“Lombardy” come into general use and then largely with a geographical

reference to Northern Italy, rather than an historical reference to the

Langobard conquerors of far more than Lombardy. The origin of the name

“Langobard” has been discussed under the “Eastern Empire,” Chapter IV.]

[115] [Hodgkin,[b] however, says,“The war between King Tato and King

Rodulph is narrated by Procopius as well as by Paulus and can be assigned

without much risk of error to a definite date, 511 or 512.”]

[116] [The distaff story is told by Paulus[p] Diaconus, who wrote

two centuries later and quoted a work a century earlier. Isidore of

Seville,[v] however, who wrote only half a century after Narses’ recall,

accuses him of calling in the Lombards. The story is none the less

somewhat dubious.]

[117] [Hodgkin[b] says of the Lombards: “They are the anarchists of the

Völkerwanderung, whose delight is only in destruction, and who seem

incapable of culture. Yet this is the race from which, in the fullness of

time, under the transmuting power of the old Italian civilisation, were

to spring Anselm and Lanfranc, Hildebrand and Dante Alighieri.”]

[118] [This custom of making a drinking cup of an enemy’s skull

originally came from Asiatic Scythia, and was widely diffused in northern

Europe: nowhere was it more religiously observed than in Scandinavia,

the cradle of the Lombards. Their historian avers that he had seen the

cup with his own eyes: _Hoc ne cui videretur impossibile,--veritatem in

Christo loquor--ego hoc poculum vidi in quodam die festo_, etc. _Paulus

Diaconus_,[p] lib. ii. cap. 28.

A modern Italian historian (Botta), totally unacquainted with the manners

of the north, expresses great surprise at this act of Alboin: _La

naturale ferocia pel vino e per la vittoria a oltraggio fatta insolente,

lo menava a tal atto di cui non è memoria nelle storie delle piu barbare

nazioni_, etc. The thing was common enough, as abundantly appears from

the Scandinavian records.]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III

THE FRANKS TO THE TIME OF CHARLES MARTEL

[55 B.C.-732 A.D.]

It is well known that the name of “Frank” is not to be found in the long

list of German tribes preserved to us in the _Germania_ of Tacitus.[b]

Little or nothing is heard of them before the reign of Gordian III. In

240 A.D. Aurelian,[119] then a tribune of the sixth legion stationed on

the Rhine, encountered a body of marauding Franks near Mogontiacum, 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 Coblenz 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 time when they first appear in history, the

Romans had neither the taste nor the means for historical research, and

we are therefore obliged to depend in a great measure upon conjecture

and combination. It has been disputed whether the word “Frank” was the

original designation of a tribe, which by a change of habitation emerged

at the period above mentioned into the light of history, or that of a new

league, formed for some common object of aggression or defence by nations

hitherto familiar to us under other names.

We can in this place do little more than refer to a controversy, the

value and interest of which has been rendered obsolete by the progress of

historical investigation. The darkness and void of history have as usual

been filled with spectral theories, which vanish at the challenge of

criticism and before the gradually increasing light of knowledge.

[Sidenote: [55 B.C.-12 A.D.]]

We need hardly say that the origin of the Franks has been traced to

fugitive colonists from Troy; for what nation under heaven has not sought

to connect itself, in some way or other, with the glorified heroes of the

immortal song? Nor is it surprising that French writers, desirous of

transferring from the Germans to themselves the honours of the Frankish

name, should have made of them a tribe of Gauls, whom some unknown cause

had induced to settle in Germany, and who afterwards sought to recover

their ancient country from the Roman conquerors. At the present day,

however, historians of every nation, including the French, are fairly

agreed in considering the Franks as a powerful confederacy of German

tribes, who in the time of Tacitus inhabited the northwestern 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 Alamanni and

Saxons.

The actuating causes of these new unions are unknown. They may be sought

for either in external circumstances, such as the pressure of powerful

enemies from without, or in an extension of their own desires and plans,

requiring the command of greater means, and inducing a wider co-operation

of those whose similarity of language and character rendered it most easy

for them to unite. But perhaps we need look no further for an efficient

cause than the spirit of amalgamation which naturally arises among

tribes of kindred race and language, when their growing numbers, and an

increased facility of moving from place to place, bring them into more

frequent contact. The same phenomenon may be observed at certain periods

in the history of almost every nation, and the spirit which gives rise

to it has generally been found strong enough to overcome the force of

particular interests and petty nationalities.

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,[d] and confirmed in recent times

by the authority of Grimm,[e] which connects it with the German word

_frank_ (free). The derivation preferred by Adelung[f] from _frak_

(in modern German _frech_, bold), with the inserted nasal, differs

from that of Grimm only in appearance. No small countenance is given

to this derivation by the constant recurrence in after times of the

epithet _truces, feroces_, which the Franks were so fond of applying

to themselves, and which they certainly did everything to deserve.

Tacitus[b] 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 Sugambri (the chief people

of the old Istævonian 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 Chasuari, of whom

the five last had formerly belonged to the celebrated Cheruscan league,

which, under the hero Arminius, destroyed three Roman legions in the

Teutoburg 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 Sugambri [or Sicambri] are known

in Roman history for their active and enterprising spirit, and the

determined opposition which they offered to the greatest generals of

Rome. It was on their account that Cæsar bridged the Rhine in the

neighbourhood of Bonn, and spent eighteen days, as he informs us with

significant minuteness, on the German side of that river. Drusus made a

similar attempt against them with little better success. Tiberius was

the first who obtained any decided advantage over them; and even he,

by his own confession, was obliged to have recourse to treachery. An

immense number of them were then transported by the command of Augustus

to the left bank of the Rhine, “that,” as the panegyrist[g] expresses

it, “they might be compelled to lay aside not only their arms but their

ferocity.” That they were not, however, even then so utterly destroyed

or expatriated as the flatterers of the emperor would have us believe,

is evident from the fact that they appear again under the same name, in

less than three centuries afterwards, as the most powerful tribe in the

Frankish confederacy.

[Sidenote: [12-240 A.D.]]

The league thus formed was subject to two strong motives, either of

which might alone have been sufficient to impel a brave and active

people into a career of migration and conquest. The first of these

was necessity,--the actual want of the necessaries of life for their

increasing population,--and the second desire, excited to the utmost by

the spectacle of the wealth and civilisation of the Gallic provinces.

[Illustration: EARLY FRANKISH WARRIORS]

As long as the Romans held firm possession of Gaul, the Germans could do

little to gratify their longings; they could only obtain a settlement in

that country by the consent of the emperor and on certain conditions.

Examples of such merely tolerated colonisation were the Tribocci, the

Vangiones, and the Ubii at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne). But when the

Roman Empire began to feel the numbness of approaching dissolution, and,

as is usually the case, first in its extremities, the Franks were amongst

the most active and successful assailants of their enfeebled foe: and if

they were attracted towards the West by the abundance they beheld of all

that could relieve their necessities and gratify their lust of spoil,

they were also impelled in the same direction by the Saxons, the rival

league, a people as brave and perhaps more barbarous than themselves. A

glance at the map of Germany of that period will do much to explain to us

the migration of the Franks, and that long and bloody feud between them

and the Saxons, which began with the Chatti and Cherusci, and needed all

the power and energy of a Charlemagne to bring to a successful close.

The Saxons formed behind the Franks, and could only reach the provinces

of Gaul by sea. It was natural therefore that they should look with the

intensest hatred upon a people who barred their progress to a more genial

climate and excluded them from their share in the spoils of the Roman

world.

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 Sugambrian tribe.

The origin of the words Salian and Ripuarian, which are first used

respectively by Ammianus Marcellinus[h] and Jordanes,[i] 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.

FIRST CONFLICTS WITH ROME

[Sidenote: [240-321 A.D.]]

It would extend the introductory portion of this chapter beyond its

proper limits to refer, however briefly, to all the successive efforts

of the Franks to gain a permanent footing upon Roman ground. Though

often defeated, they perpetually renewed the contest; and when Roman

historians and panegyrists inform us that the whole nation was several

times “utterly destroyed,” the numbers and geographical position in which

we find them a short time after every such annihilation prove to us the

vanity of such accounts. Aurelian, as we have seen, defeated them at

Mainz, in 242 A.D., and drove them into the swamps of Holland. They were

routed again about twelve years afterwards by Gallienus; but they quickly

recovered from this blow, for in 276 A.D. we find them in possession

of sixty Gallic cities, of which Probus is said to have deprived them,

and to have destroyed four hundred thousand of them and their allies on

Roman ground. In 280 A.D., they gave their aid to the usurper Proculus,

who claimed to be of Frankish blood, but was nevertheless betrayed by

them; and in 288 A.D., Carausius the Menapian was sent to clear the seas

of their roving barks. But the latter found it more agreeable to shut

his eyes to their piracies, in return for a share of the booty, and they

afterwards aided in protecting him from the chastisement due to his

treachery, and in investing him with the imperial purple in Britain.

In the reign of Maximian, we find a Frankish army, probably of

Ripuarians, at Trèves, where they were defeated by that emperor; and both

he and Diocletian adopted the title of “Francicus,” which many succeeding

emperors were proud to bear. The first appearance of the Salian Franks

with whom we are chiefly concerned is in the occupation of the Batavian

Islands, in the lower Rhine. They were attacked in that territory in 292

A.D., by Constantius Chlorus, who, as is said, not only drove them out of

Batavia, but marched, triumphant and unopposed, through their own country

as far as the Danube. The latter part of this story has little foundation

either in history or probability.

[Sidenote: [321-355 A.D.]]

The most determined and successful resistance to their progress was made

by Constantine the Great, in the first part of the fourth century. We

must, however, receive the extravagant accounts of the imperial annalists

with considerable caution. It is evident, even from their own language,

that the great emperor effected more by stratagem than by force. He found

the Salians once more in Batavia, and, after defeating them in a great

battle, carried off a large number of captives to Augusta Trevirorum

(Trèves), the 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” was 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. “Those of the Frankish prisoners,” says

Eumenius,[g] “whose perfidy unfitted them for military service, and

their ferocity for servitude, were given to the wild beasts as a show,

and wearied the raging monsters by their multitude.” “This magnificent

spectacle,” Nazarius[g] praises, some twenty years after it had taken

place, in the most enthusiastic terms, comparing Constantine to a

youthful Hercules who had strangled two serpents in the cradle of his

empire. Eumenius calls it a “daily and eternal victory,” and says that

Constantine had erected terror as a bulwark against his barbarian

enemies. This terror did not, however, prevent the Franks from taking up

arms to revenge their butchered countrymen, nor the Alamanni from joining

in the insurrection. The skill and fortune of Constantine generally

prevailed; he destroyed great numbers of the Franks and the _innumeræ

gentes_ who fought on their side, and really appears for a time to have

checked their progress.

It is impossible to read the brief yet confused account of these

incessant encounters between the Romans and barbarians, without coming

to the conclusion that only half the truth is told; that while every

advantage gained by the former is greatly exaggerated, the successes of

the latter are passed over in silence. The most glorious victory of a

Roman general procures him only a few months’ repose, and the destruction

of “hundreds of thousands” of Franks and Alamanni seems but to increase

their numbers. We may fairly say of the Franks, what Julian[j] and

Eutropius[k] have said respecting the Goths, that they were not so

utterly annihilated as the Panegyrists[g] pretend, and that many of the

victories gained over them cost “more money than blood.”

The death of Constantine was the signal for a fresh advance on the part

of the Franks. Libanius,[l] the Greek rhetorician, when extolling the

deeds of Constans, the youngest son of Constantine the Great, says that

the emperor stemmed the impetuous torrent of barbarians “by a love of war

even greater than their own.” He also says that they received overseers;

but this was no doubt on Roman ground, which would account for their

submission, as we know that the Franks were more solicitous about real

than nominal possession. During the frequent struggles for the purple

which took place at this period, the aid of the Franks was sought for

by the different pretenders, and rewarded, in case of success, by large

grants of land within the limits of the empire. The barbarians consented,

in fact, to receive as a gift what had really been won by their own

valour, and could not have been withheld. Even previous to the reign

of Constantine, some Frankish generals had risen to high posts in the

service of Roman emperors. Magnentius, himself a German, endeavoured to

support his usurpation by Frankish and Saxon missionaries; and Silvanus,

who was driven into rebellion by the ingratitude of Constantius, whom he

had faithfully served, was a Frank.

The state of confusion into which the empire was thrown by the turbulence

and insolence of the Roman armies, and the selfish ambition of their

leaders, was highly favourable to the progress of the Franks in Gaul.

Their next great and general movement took place in 355 A.D., when,

along the whole Roman frontier from Strasburg to the sea, they began to

cross the Rhine, and to throw themselves in vast numbers upon the Gallic

provinces, with the full determination of forming permanent settlements.

But again the relenting fates of Rome raised up a hero in the person of

the emperor Julian, worthy to have lived in the most glorious period of

her history. After one or two unsuccessful efforts, Julian succeeded in

retaking Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) and other places which the Germans,

true to their traditionary hatred of walled towns, had laid bare of all

defences.

FRANKS IN THE ROMAN ARMY

[Sidenote: [355-388 A.D.]]

In the last general advance of the Franks in 355 A.D., the Salians had

not only once more recovered Batavia, but had spread into Toxandria, in

which they firmly fixed themselves. It is important to mark the date

of this event, because it was at this time that the Salians made their

first permanent settlement on the left bank of the Rhine, and by the

acquisition of Toxandria laid the foundation of the kingdom of Clovis.

Julian indeed attacked them there in 358 A.D., but he had probably

good reasons for not reducing them to despair, as we find that they

were permitted to retain their newly acquired lands, on condition of

acknowledging themselves subjects of the empire. He was better pleased to

have them as soldiers than as enemies, and they, having felt the weight

of his arm, were by no means averse to serve in his ranks, and to enrich

themselves by the plunder of the East. Once in undisputed possession of

Toxandria, they gradually spread themselves further and further, until,

at the beginning of the fifth century, we find them occupying the left

bank of the Rhine. The Ripuarians, meanwhile, were extending themselves

from Andernach downwards along the middle Rhine, and gained possession

of Cologne about the time of the conquest of Tornacum by their Salian

brethren.

We shall be the less surprised that some of the fairest portions

of the Roman Empire should thus fall an almost unresisting prey to

barbarian invaders, when we remember that the defence of the empire

itself was sometimes committed to the hands of Frankish soldiers. Those

of the Franks who were already settled in Gaul were often engaged in

endeavouring to drive back the ever increasing multitude of fresh

barbarians, who hurried across the Rhine to share in the bettered

fortunes of their kinsmen, or even to plunder them of their newly

acquired riches. Thus Mallobaudes, who is called king of the Franks,

and held the office of _domesticorum comes_ under Gratian, commanded in

the imperial army which defeated the Alamanni at Argentaria. And again,

in the short reign of Maximus, who assumed the purple in Gaul, Spain,

and Britain, near the end of the fourth century, we are told that three

Frankish kings, Genobaudes, Marcomeres, and Sunno, crossed the lower

Rhine, and plundered the country along the river as far as Cologne;

although the whole of northern Gaul was already in possession of their

countrymen.

The generals Nonnius and Quintinus, whom Maximus had left behind him at

Augusta Trevirorum, the seat of the imperial government in Gaul, hastened

to Colonia Agrippina, from which the marauding Franks had already retired

with their booty. Quintinus crossed the Rhine in pursuit at Neus, and,

unmindful of the fate of Varus in the Teutoburg forest, followed the

retreating enemy into the morasses. The Franks, once more upon friendly

and familiar ground, turned upon their pursuers, and are said to have

destroyed nearly the whole Roman army with poisoned arrows. The war

continued, and was only brought to a successful conclusion for the

Romans by the courage and conduct of Arbogastes, a Frank in the service

of Theodosius. Unable to make peace with his barbarous countrymen, and

sometimes defeated by them, this general crossed the Rhine when the

woods were leafless, ravaged the country of the Chamavi, Bructeri, and

Chatti, and having slain two of their chiefs named Priam and Genobaudes,

compelled Marcomeres and Sunno to give hostages. The submission of the

Franks must have been of short continuance, for we read that in 398 A.D.

these same kings, Marcomeres and Sunno, were again found ravaging the

left bank of the Rhine by Stilicho. This famous warrior defeated them in

a great battle, and sent the former, or perhaps both of them, in chains

to Italy, where Marcomeres died in prison.

[Sidenote: [388-425 A.D.]]

The first few years of the fifth century are occupied in the struggle

between Alaric the Goth and Stilicho, which ended in the sacking of Rome

by the former in the year 410 A.D., the same in which he died.

While the Goths were inflicting deadly wounds on the very heart of the

empire, the distant provinces of Germany and Gaul presented a scene of

indescribable confusion. Innumerable hosts of Astingians, Vandals, Alani,

Suevi, and Burgundiones threw themselves like robbers upon the prostrate

body of imperial Rome, and scrambled for the gems which fell from her

costly diadem. In such a storm the Franks could no longer sustain the

part of champions of the empire, but doubtless had enough to do to defend

themselves and hold their own. We can only guess at the fortune which

befell the nations in that dark period, from the state in which we find

them when the glimmering light of history once more dawns upon the chaos.

EARLY KINGS AND THE SALIC LAWS

Of the internal state of the Frankish league in these times, we learn

from ancient authorities absolutely nothing on which we can safely

depend. The blank is filled up by popular fable. It is in this period,

about 417 A.D., that the reign of Pharamond is placed, of whom we may

more than doubt whether he ever existed at all. To this hero were

afterwards ascribed not only the permanent conquests made at this

juncture by the various tribes of Franks, but the establishment of the

monarchy and the collection and publication of the well-known Salic laws.

The sole foundation for this harmonious fabric is a passage interpolated

into an ancient chronicle (Prosper[m]) of the fifth century; and, with

this single exception, Pharamond’s name is never mentioned before the

seventh century. The whole story is perfected and rounded off by the

author of the _Gesta Francorum_,[n] according to whom Pharamond was

the son of Marcomeres, the prince who ended his days in the Italian

prison. The fact that nothing is known of him by Gregory of Tours[o]

or Fredegarius[p] is sufficient to prevent our regarding him as an

historical personage. To this may be added that he is not mentioned in

the prologue of the Salic law, with which his name has been so intimately

associated by later writers.

[Sidenote: [425-429 A.D.]]

Though well authenticated names of persons and places fail us at this

time, it is not difficult to conjecture what must have been the main

facts of the case. Great changes took place among the Franks in the first

half of the fifth century, which did much to prepare them for their

subsequent career. The greater portion of them had been mere marauders,

like their German brethren of other nations: they now began to assume the

character of settlers; and as the idea of founding an extensive empire

was still far from their thoughts, they occupied in preference the lands

which lay nearest to their ancient homes. There are many incidental

reasons which make this change in their mode of life a natural and

inevitable one. The country whose surface had once afforded a rich and

easily collected booty, and well repaid the hasty foray of weeks, and

even days, had been stripped of its movable wealth by repeated incursions

of barbarians still fiercer than themselves. All that was above the

surface the Alan and the Vandal had swept away, the treasures which

remained had to be sought for with the plough. The Franks were compelled

to turn their attention to that agriculture which their indolent and

warlike fathers had hated; which required fixed settlements, and all the

laws of property and person indissolubly connected therewith. Again,

though there is no sufficient reason to connect the Salic laws with the

mythical name of Pharamond, or to suppose that they were altogether the

work of this age (since we know from Tacitus[b] that the Germans had

similar laws in their ancient forests), it is very probable that this

celebrated code now received the form in which it has come down to us.

[Illustration: A FRANKISH OFFICER]

This view of the case is strongly supported by internal evidence in the

laws themselves, which, according to the _Prologue_, were written while

the Franks were still heathens, and are peculiarly suited to the simple

wants of a barbarous people. Even the fiction of the foundation of the

Frankish monarchy by Pharamond may indicate some real and important

change in the structure of the state.

That there was at that time but a single king “in Francia” is of course

untrue; but nevertheless it seems highly probable, when taken in

connection with the subsequent history, that the princes who reigned

over the different Frankish tribes established in Gaul belonged, at this

period, to one family. And this is the truth which appears to lie at the

foundation of the story of this mythical personage.

[Sidenote: [429-451 A.D.]]

The next important and well-established historical fact which we meet

with in this dreary waste of doubt and conjecture, is the conquest of

Cameracum (Cambray) by Clodion, in 429 A.D. This acquisition forms the

third stage in the progress of the Salian Franks towards the complete

possession of Gaul.

The foremost among the kindred chiefs of the different Frankish tribes

at this period was Clodion, whom some modern historians, and among them

Gibbon,[d] have represented, on the slenderest foundation, as the father

of Merovæus, and first of the race of long-haired kings. Gregory of

Tours[o] gives no countenance to the statement thus boldly made; he does

not know that Merovæus was the son of Clodion, nor has he anything to

say about Merovæus himself. That the power of Clodion was considerable

is evinced by the magnitude of his undertakings. The growing numbers of

the Franks in Gaul, continually increased by fresh swarms of settlers

from their ancient seats, made an extension of their territory not merely

desirable, but even necessary to their existence. Clodion therefore

boldly undertook the conquest of the Belgica Secunda, a part of which

was still in possession of the Romans. Having sent forward spies to

Cameracum, and learned from them that it was insufficiently defended, he

advanced upon that city, and succeeded in taking it. After spending a few

days within the walls of his new acquisition, he marched as far as the

river Samara (Somme). His progress was checked by Aëtius and Majorian,

who surprised him in the neighbourhood of Arras, at a place called Helena

(Lens), while celebrating a marriage, and forced him to retire. Yet at

the end of the war, the Franks remained in full possession of the country

which Clodion had overrun; and the Samara became the boundary of the

Salian land upon the southwest, as it continued to be until the time of

Clovis.

Clodion died in 447 A.D., and was thus saved from the equally pernicious

alliance or enmity of the ruthless conqueror Attila. This “Scourge of

God,” as he delighted to be called, appeared in Gaul about the year

450 A.D. at the head of an innumerable host of mounted Huns; a race

so singular in their aspect and habits as to seem scarcely human, and

compared with whom the wildest Franks and Goths must have appeared

rational and civilised beings.

The time of Attila’s descent upon the Rhine was well chosen for the

prosecution of his scheme of universal dominion. Between the fragment of

the Roman Empire, governed by Aëtius, and the Franks under the successors

of Clodion, there was either open war or a hollow truce. The succession

to the chief power in the Salian tribe was the subject of a violent

dispute between two Frankish princes, the elder of whom is supposed by

some to have been called Merovæus.

We have seen that there is some reason to doubt the existence of a

prince of this name; and there is no evidence that either of the rival

candidates was a son of Clodion. Whatever their parentage or name may

have been, the one took part with Attila, and the other with the Roman

Aëtius, on condition, no doubt, of having their respective claims allowed

and supported by their allies. In the bloody and decisive battle of the

Catalaunian Fields round Châlons, Franks, under the name of Leti and

Ripuarii, served under the so-called Merovæus in the army of Aëtius,

together with Theodoric and his Visigoths. Among the forces of Attila

another body of Franks was arrayed, either by compulsion, or instigated

to this unnatural course by the fierce hatred of party spirit. From the

result of the battle of Châlons, we must suppose that the ally of Aëtius

succeeded to the throne of Clodion (451).

[Sidenote: [451-481 A.D.]]

The effects of the invasion of Gaul by Attila were neither great nor

lasting, and his retreat left the German and Roman parties in much the

same condition as he found them. The Roman Empire indeed was at an end

in that province, yet the valour and wisdom of Ægidius enabled him to

maintain, as an independent chief, the authority which he had faithfully

exercised as master-general of Gaul, under the noble and virtuous

Majorian. The extent of his territory is not clearly defined, but it

must have been, in part at least, identical with that of which his son

and successor, Syagrius, was deprived by Clovis. Common opinion limits

this to the country between the Oise, the Marne, and the Seine, to which

some writers have added Auxerre and Troyes. The respect in which Ægidius

was held by the Franks, as well as his own countrymen, enabled him to

set at defiance the threats and machinations of the barbarian Ricimer,

who virtually ruled at Rome, though in another’s name. The strongest

proof of the high opinion they entertained of the merits of Ægidius, is

said to have been given by the Salians in the reign of their next king.

The prince, to whom the name Merovæus has been arbitrarily assigned,

was succeeded by his son Childeric, in 458 A.D. The conduct of this

licentious youth was such as to disgust and alienate his subjects, who

had not yet ceased to value female honour, nor adopted the loose manners

of the Romans and their Gallic imitators.

The authority of the Salian kings over their fierce warriors was held

by a precarious tenure. The loyalty which distinguished the Franks in

later times had not yet arisen in their minds, and they did not scruple

to send the corrupter of their wives and daughters into ignominious

exile. Childeric took refuge with Bissinus (or Bassinus), king of the

Thuringians, a people dwelling on the river Unstrut. It was then that

the Franks, according to the somewhat improbable account of Gregory,[o]

unanimously chose Ægidius for their king, and actually submitted to his

rule for the space of eight years. At the end of that period, returning

affection for their native prince, the mere love of change, or the

machinations of a party, induced the Franks to recall Childeric from

exile, or, at all events, to allow him to return.

Whatever may have been the cause of his restoration, it does not appear

to have been the consequence of an improvement in his morals. The period

of his exile had been characteristically employed in the seduction of

Basina, the wife of his hospitable protector at the Thuringian court.

This royal lady, whose character may perhaps do something to diminish

the guilt of Childeric in our eyes, was unwilling to be left behind

on the restoration of her lover to his native country. Scarcely had

he re-established his authority when he was unexpectedly followed by

Basina, whom he immediately married. The offspring of this questionable

alliance was Clovis, who was born in the year 466 A.D. The remainder of

Childeric’s reign was chiefly spent in a struggle with the Visigoths, in

which Franks and Romans, under their respective leaders Childeric and

Ægidius, were amicably united against the common foe.

We hasten to the reign of Clovis,[120] who, during a rule of about thirty

years, not only united the various tribes of Franks under one powerful

dynasty, and founded a kingdom in Gaul on a broad and enduring basis, but

made his throne the centre of union to by far the greater portion of the

whole German race.

THE REIGN OF CLOVIS

[Sidenote: [481-486 A.D.]]

When Clovis succeeded his father as king of the Salians, at the early

age of fifteen, the extent of his territory and the number of his

subjects were, as we know, extremely small; at his death, he left to his

successors a kingdom more extensive than that of modern France.

The influence of the grateful partiality discernible in the works of

Catholic historians and chroniclers towards “the eldest son of the

church,” who secured for them the victory over heathens on the one

side, and heretics on the other, prevents us from looking to them for

an unbiassed estimate of his character. Many of his crimes appeared to

be committed in the cause of Catholicity itself, and these they could

hardly see in their proper light. Pagans and Arians would have painted

him in different colours; and had any of their works come down to us,

we might have sought the truth between the positive of partiality and

the negative of hatred. But fortunately, while the chroniclers praise

his actions in the highest terms, they tell us what those actions were,

and thus compel us to form a very different judgment from their own. It

would not be easy to extract from the pages of his greatest admirers the

slightest evidence of his possessing any qualities but those which are

necessary to a conqueror. In the hands of providence he was an instrument

of the greatest good to the country he subdued, inasmuch as he freed it

from the curse of division into petty states, and furthered the spread

of Christianity in the very heart of Europe. But of any word or action

that could make us admire or love the man, there is not a single trace in

history. His undeniable courage is debased by a degree of cruelty unusual

even in his times; and his consummate skill and prudence, which did more

to raise him to his high position than even his military qualities,

are rendered odious by the forms they take of unscrupulous falsehood,

meanness, cunning, and hypocrisy.

It will add to the perspicuity of our brief narrative of the conquests of

Clovis, if we pause for a moment to consider the extent and situation of

the different portions into which Gaul was divided at his accession.

There were in all six independent states: (1) that of the Salians; (2)

that of the Ripuarians; (3) that of the Visigoths; (4) that of the

Burgundiones; (5) the kingdom of Syagrius; and (6) Armorica (by which the

whole sea coast between Seine and Loire was then signified). Of the first

two we have already spoken. The Visigoths held the whole of southern

Gaul. It is important to bear these geographical divisions in mind,

because they coincide with the successive Frankish conquests made under

Clovis and his sons.

It would be unphilosophical to ascribe to Clovis a preconceived plan of

making himself master of these several independent states, and of not

only overthrowing the sole remaining pillar of the Roman Empire in Gaul,

but, what was far more difficult, of subduing other German tribes, as

fierce and independent, and in some cases more numerous than his own. In

what he did, he was merely gratifying a passion for the excitements of

war and acquisition, and that desire of expanding itself to its utmost

limits, which is natural to every active, powerful, and imperious mind.

He must indeed have been more than human to foresee, through all the

obstacles that lay in his path, the career he was destined by providence

to run. He was not even master of the whole Salian tribe; and besides the

Salians, there were other Franks on the Rhine, the Scaldis (Schelde),

the Mosa, and the Mosella, in no way inferior to his own subjects, and

governed by kings of the same family as himself.

Nor was Syagrius, to whom the anomalous power of his father Ægidius had

descended, a despicable foe. His merits, indeed, were rather those of an

able lawyer and a righteous judge than of a warrior; but he had acquired

by his civil virtues a reputation which made him an object of envy to

Clovis, who dreaded perhaps the permanent establishment of a Roman

dynasty in Gaul. There were reasons for attacking Syagrius first, which

can hardly have escaped the cunning of Clovis, and which doubtless guided

him in the choice of his earliest victim. The very integrity of the noble

Roman’s character was one of these reasons. Had Clovis commenced the

work of destruction by attacking his kinsmen Sigebert of Cologne and

Ragnachar of Cambray (Cameracum) he would not only have received no aid

from Syagrius in his unrighteous aggression, but might have found him

ready to oppose it. But against Syagrius it was easy for Clovis to excite

the national spirit of his brother Franks, both in and out of his own

territory. In such an expedition, even had the kings declined to take an

active part, he might reckon on crowds of volunteers from every Frankish

_gau_.

As soon therefore as he had emerged from the forced inactivity of extreme

youth (a period in which, fortunately for him, he was left undisturbed by

his less grasping and unscrupulous neighbours), he determined to bring

the question of pre-eminence between the Franks and Romans to as early

an issue as possible. Without waiting for a plausible ground of quarrel,

he challenged Syagrius, _more Germanico_, to the field, that their

respective fates might be determined by the god of battles. Ragnachar

of Cambray was solicited to accompany his treacherous relative on this

expedition, and agreed to do so. Chararic, another Frankish prince,

whose alliance had been looked for, preferred waiting until fortune had

decided, with the prudent intention of siding with the winner, and coming

fresh into the field in time to spoil the vanquished.

[Illustration: CLOVIS I

(Based on an old French print)]

Syagrius was at Soissons (Augusta Suessionum), which he had inherited

from his father, when Clovis, with characteristic decision and rapidity,

passed through the wood of Ardennes, and fell upon him with resistless

force. The Roman was completely defeated, and the victor, having taken

possession of Soissons, Rheims, Durocortorum, and other Roman towns

in the Belgica Secunda, extended his frontier to the river Loire, the

boundary of the Visigoths. This battle took place in 486 A.D.

We know little or nothing of the materials of which the Roman army was

composed. If it consisted entirely of Gauls, accustomed to depend on

Roman aid, and destitute of the spirit of freemen, the ease with which

Syagrius was defeated will cause us less surprise. Having lost all in

a single battle, the unfortunate Roman fled for refuge to Toulouse

(Tolosa), the court of Alaric king of the Visigoths, who basely yielded

him to the threats of the youthful conqueror. But one fate awaited those

who stood in the way of Clovis: Syagrius was immediately put to death,

less in anger than from the calculating policy which guided all the

movements of the Salian’s unfeeling heart.

[Sidenote: [486-496 A.D.]]

During the next ten years after the death of Syagrius, there is less to

relate of Clovis than might be expected from the commencement of his

career. We cannot suppose that such a spirit was really at rest: he was

probably nursing his strength and watching his opportunities; for, with

all his impetuosity, he was not a man to engage in an undertaking without

good assurance of success. In the year 496 A.D. the Salians began that

career of conquest, which they followed up with scarcely any intermission

until the death of their warrior king.

The Alamanni, extending themselves from their original seats on the right

bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Danube, had pushed forward

into Germanica Prima, where they came into collision with the Frankish

subjects of King Sigebert of Cologne. Clovis flew to the assistance

of his kinsman, and defeated the Alamanni in a great battle in the

neighbourhood of Zülpich. He then established a considerable number

of his Franks in the territory of the Alamanni, the traces of whose

residences are found in the names of Franconia and Frankfort.

CLOVIS TURNS CHRISTIAN (496 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [496 A.D.]]

The same year is rendered remarkable in ecclesiastical history by the

conversion of Clovis to Christianity. In 493 A.D., he had married

Clotilda,[121] Chilperic the king of Burgundy’s daughter, who, being

herself a Christian, was naturally anxious to turn away her warlike

spouse from the rude faith of his forefathers. The real result of her

endeavours it is impossible to estimate, but, at all events, she has

not received from history the credit of success. The mere suggestions

of an affectionate wife would be considered as too simple and prosaic

a means of accounting for a change involving such mighty consequences.

The conversion of Clovis was so vitally important to the interests of

the Catholic church, that the chroniclers of that wonder-loving age,

profuse in the employment of extraordinary means for the smallest ends,

could never be brought to believe that this great event was the result of

anything but a miracle of the most public and striking character.

The way in which the convictions of Clovis were changed is unknown to

us, but there were natural agencies at work, and his conversion is not,

under the circumstances, a thing to excite surprise. According to the

common belief, however, in the Roman church, it was in the battle of

Zülpich[122] that the heart of Clovis, callous to the pious solicitude

of his wife, and the powerful and alluring influence of the Catholic

ritual, was touched by a special interposition of providence in his

behalf. When the fortune of the battle seemed turning against him, he

thought of the God whom his wife adored, of whose power and majesty he

had heard so much, and vowed that if he escaped the present danger, and

came off victorious, he would suffer himself to be baptised, and become

the champion of the Christian faith. Like another Constantine, he saw

written on the face of heaven that his prayer was heard; he conquered,

and fulfilled his promise at Christmas in the same year, when he was

baptised by Remigius at Rheims, with three thousand of his followers.

The sincerity of Clovis’ conversion has been called in question for many

reasons--such as the unsuitability of his subsequent life to Christian

principles; but chiefly on the ground of the many political advantages to

be derived from a public profession of the Catholic faith. We are too

ready with such explanations of the actions of distinguished characters,

too apt to forget that politicians are also men, and to overlook the

very powerful influences which lie nearer to their hearts than even

political calculation. A spirit was abroad in the world, drawing men away

from the graves of a dead faith to the life and light of the Gospel--a

spirit which not even the coldest and sternest heart could altogether

resist. There was something, too, peculiarly imposing in the attitude of

the Christian church at that period. All else in the Roman world seemed

dying of mere weakness and old age; the Christian church was still in

the vigour of youth, and its professors were animated by indomitable

perseverance and boundless zeal. All else fell down in terror before the

barbarian conqueror; the fabric of the church seemed indestructible, and

its ministers stood erect in his presence, as if depending for strength

and aid upon a power, which was the more terrible because indefinite in

its nature and uncertain in its mode of operation.

And Clovis was as likely to be worked upon by such means as the meanest

of his followers. We must not suppose that the discrepancy between

his Christian profession and his public and private actions, which we

discern so clearly, was equally evident to himself. How should it be

so? His own conscience was not specially enlightened beyond the measure

of his age. The bravest warriors of his nation hailed him as a patriot

and hero, and the ministers of God assured him that his victories

were won in the service of truth and heaven. It is always dangerous

to judge of the sincerity of men’s religious--perhaps we should say

theological--convictions by the tenor of their moral conduct, and this

even in our own age and nation; but far more so in respect to men of

other times and countries, at a different stage of civilisation and

religious development, at which the scale of morality was not only lower,

but differently graduated from our own.

The conscience of a Clovis remained undisturbed in the midst of deeds

whose enormity makes us shudder; and, on the other hand, how trivial in

our eyes are some of those offences which loaded him with the heaviest

sense of guilt! The eternal laws of the God of justice and mercy might be

broken with impunity; and means which we should call the basest treachery

and the most odious cruelty were employed to compass the destruction of

an heretical or pagan enemy; but woe to him who offended St. Martin, or

laid a finger on the property of the meanest of his servants! When Clovis

was seeking to gratify his lust of power, he believed, no doubt, that he

was at the same time fighting under the banner of Christ, and destroying

the enemies of God. And no wonder, for many a priest and bishop thought

the same, and told him what they thought.

[Illustration: HOMAGE TO CLOVIS II]

We are, however, far from affirming that the political advantages to

be gained from an open avowal of the Catholic faith at this juncture

escaped the notice of so astute a mind as that of Clovis. No one was

more sensible of those advantages than he. The immediate consequences

were indeed apparently disastrous. He was himself fearful of the effect

which his change of religion might have upon his Franks, and we are told

that many of them left him and joined his kinsman Ragnaric. But the ill

effects, though immediate, were slight and transient, while the good

results went on accumulating from year to year. In the first place,

his baptism into the Catholic church conciliated for him the zealous

affection of his Gallo-Roman subjects, whose number and wealth, and

above all whose superior knowledge and intelligence rendered their aid

of the utmost value. With respect to his own Franks, we are justified

in supposing that, removed as they were from the sacred localities with

which their faith was intimately connected, they either viewed the change

with indifference, or, wavering between old associations and present

influences, needed only the example of the king to decide their choice,

and induce them to enlist under the banner of the cross.

The German neighbours of Clovis had either preserved their ancient faith

or adopted the Arian heresy. His conversion therefore was advantageous or

disadvantageous to him, as regarded them, according to the objects he had

in view. Had he really desired to live with his compatriot kings on terms

of equality and friendship, his reception into a hostile church would

certainly not have furthered his views. But nothing was more foreign to

his thoughts than friendship and alliance with any of the neighbouring

tribes. His desire was to reduce them all to a state of subjection

to himself. He had the genuine spirit of the conqueror, which cannot

brook the sight of independence; and his keen intellect and unflinching

boldness enabled him to see his advantages and to turn them to the best

account.

[Illustration: WEAPONS OF THE FRANKS

(These were used for throwing and for scalping after the manner of the

American Indians.)]

Even in those countries in which heathenism or Arian Christianity

prevailed, there was generally a zealous and united community of

Catholic Christians (including all the Romance inhabitants), who,

being outnumbered and sometimes persecuted, were inclined to look for

aid abroad. Clovis became by his conversion the object of hope and

attachment to such a party in almost every country on the continent of

Europe. He had the powerful support of the whole body of the Catholic

clergy, in whose hearts the interests of their church far outweighed

all other considerations. In other times and lands (in our own for

instance) the spirit of loyalty and the love of country have often

sufficed to counteract the influence of theological opinions, and have

made men patriots in the hour of trial, when their spiritual allegiance

to an alien head tempted them to be traitors. But what patriotism could

Gallo-Romans feel, who for ages had been the slaves of slaves, or what

loyalty to barbarian oppressors, whom they despised as well as feared?

[Sidenote: [497-507 A.D.]]

The happy effects of Clovis’ conversion were not long in showing

themselves. In the very next year after that event (497 A.D.) the

Armoricans, inhabiting the country between the Seine and Loire, who had

stoutly defended themselves against the heathen Franks, submitted with

the utmost readiness to the royal convert, whom bishops delighted to

honour; and in almost every succeeding struggle the advantages he derived

from the strenuous support of the Catholic party became more and more

clearly evident.

In 500 A.D. Clovis reduced the Burgundiones to a state of

semi-dependence, after a fierce and bloody battle with Gundobald, their

king, at Dijon on the Ouche. In this conflict, as in almost every other,

Clovis attained his ends in a great measure by turning to account the

dissensions of his enemies. Gundobald had called upon his brother

Godegisil, who ruled over one division of their tribe, to aid him in

repelling the attack of the Franks. The call was answered, in appearance

at least; but in the decisive struggle Godegisil, according to a secret

understanding, deserted with all his forces to the enemy. Gundobald was

of course defeated, and submitted to conditions which, however galling to

his pride and patriotism, could not have been very severe, since we find

him immediately afterwards punishing the treachery of his brother, whom

he besieged in the city of Vienne (the Roman Vienna), and put to death in

an Arian church.

The circumstances of the times, rather than the moderation of Clovis,

prevented him from calling Gundobald to account. A far more arduous

struggle was at hand, which needed all the wily Salian’s resources of

power and policy to bring to a successful issue--the struggle with the

powerful king and people of the Visigoths, whose immediate neighbour he

had become after the voluntary submission of the Armoricans in 497 A.D.

The valour and conduct of their renowned king Euric had put the western

Goths in full possession of all that portion of Gaul which lay between

the rivers Loire and Rhone, together with nearly the whole of Spain.

That distinguished monarch had lately been succeeded by his son Alaric

II, who was now in the flower of youth. It was in the war with this

ill-starred prince--the most difficult and doubtful in which he had been

engaged--that Clovis experienced the full advantages of his recent change

of faith. King Euric, who was an Arian, wise and great as he appears to

have been in many respects, had alienated the affections of multitudes

of his people by persecuting the Catholic minority; and though the same

charge does not appear to lie against Alaric, it is evident that the

hearts of his orthodox subjects beat with no true allegiance towards

their heretical king. The baptism of Clovis had turned their eyes towards

him, as one who would not only free them from the persecution of their

theological enemies, but procure for them and their church a speedy

victory and a secure predominance. The hopes they had formed, and the aid

they were ready to afford him, were not unknown to Clovis, whose eager

rapacity was only checked by the consideration of the part which his

brother-in-law Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was likely to take in

the matter.

This great and enlightened Goth, whose refined magnificence renders the

contemptuous sense in which we use the term Gothic more than usually

inappropriate, was ever ready to mediate between kindred tribes of

Germans, whom on every suitable occasion he exhorted to live in unity,

mindful of their common origin. He is said on this occasion to have

brought about a meeting between Clovis and Alaric on a small island in

the Loire in the neighbourhood of Amboise. The story is very doubtful, to

say the least. Had he done so much, he would probably have done more, and

have shielded his youthful kinsman with his strong right arm. Whatever

he did was done in vain. The Frankish conqueror knew his own advantages

and determined to use them to the utmost. He received the aid not only of

his kinsman Sigebert of Cologne, who sent an army to his support under

Chararic, but of the king of the Burgundians (Burgundiones), who was

also a Catholic. With an army thus united by a common faith, inspired

by religious zeal, and no less so by the Frankish love of booty, Clovis

marched to almost certain victory over an inexperienced leader and a

kingdom divided against itself.

It is evident, from the language of Gregory of Tours,[o] that this

conflict between the Franks and Visigoths was regarded by the orthodox

party of his own and preceding ages as a religious war, on which, humanly

speaking, the prevalence of the Catholic or the Arian creed in western

Europe depended. Clovis did everything in his power to deepen this

impression. He could not, he said, endure the thought that “those Arians”

held a part of his beautiful Gaul. As he passed through the territory

of Tours, which was supposed to be under the peculiar protection of St.

Martin, he was careful to preserve the strictest discipline among his

soldiers, that he might further conciliate the church and sanctify his

undertaking. On his arrival at the city of Tours, he publicly displayed

his reverence for the patron saint, and received the thanks and good

wishes of a whole chorus of priests assembled in St. Martin’s church.

He was guided (according to one of the legends by which his progress

has been so profusely adorned) through the swollen waters of the river

Vienne by “a hind of wonderful magnitude”; and, as he approached the

city of Poitiers, a pillar of fire (whose origin we may trace, as suits

our views, to the favour of heaven or the treachery of man) shone forth

from the cathedral, to give him the assurance of success, and to throw

light upon his nocturnal march. The Catholic bishops in the kingdom of

Alaric were universally favourable to the cause of Clovis, and several

of them, who had not the patience to postpone the manifestation of their

sympathies, were expelled by Alaric from their sees. The majority indeed

made a virtue of necessity, and prayed continually and loudly, if not

sincerely, for their lawful monarch. Perhaps they had even in that age

learned to appreciate the efficacy of mental reservation.

Conscious of his own weakness, Alaric retired before his terrible and

implacable foe, in the vain hope of receiving assistance from the

Ostrogoths. He halted at last in the plains of Voulon, behind Poitiers,

but even then rather in compliance with the wishes of his soldiers than

from his own deliberate judgment. His soldiers, drawn from a generation

as yet unacquainted with war and full of that overweening confidence

which results from inexperience, were eager to meet the enemy. Treachery

also was at work to prevent him from adopting the only means of safety,

which lay in deferring as long as possible the too unequal contest. The

Franks came on with their usual impetuosity, and with a well-founded

confidence in their own prowess; and the issue of the battle was in

accordance with the auspices on either side. Clovis, no less strenuous

in actual fight than wise and cunning in council, exposed himself to

every danger, and fought hand to hand with Alaric himself. Yet the latter

was not slain in the field, but in the disorderly flight into which the

Goths were quickly driven. The victorious Franks pursued them as far as

Bordeaux (Burdigala), where Clovis passed the winter, while Thierry, his

son, was overrunning Auvergne, Quincy, and Rouergue. The Goths, whose new

king was a minor, made no further resistance; and in the following year

the Salian chief took possession of the royal treasure at Toulouse. He

also took the town of Angoulême, at the capture of which he was doubly

rewarded for his services to the church; for not only did the inhabitants

of that place rise in his favour against the Visigothic garrison, but the

very walls, like those of Jericho, fell down at his approach!

A short time after these events, Clovis received the titles and dignity

of Roman patricius and consul from the Greek emperor Anastasius; who

appears to have been prompted to this act more by motives of jealousy

and hatred towards Theodoric the Ostrogoth, than by any love he bore the

restless and encroaching Frank. The meaning of these obsolete titles,

as applied to those who stood in no direct relation to either division

of the Roman Empire, has never been sufficiently explained. We are at

first surprised that successful warriors and powerful kings, like Clovis,

Pepin, and Charlemagne himself, should condescend to accept such empty

honours at the hands of the miserable eunuch-ridden monarchs of the East.

That the Byzantine emperors should affect a superiority over contemporary

sovereigns is intelligible enough; the weakest idiot among them, who

lived at the mercy of his women and his slaves, had never resigned one

tittle of his pretensions to that universal empire which an Augustus and

a Trajan once possessed. But whence the acquiescence of Clovis and his

great successors in this arrogant assumption? We may best account for

it by remarking how long the prestige of power survives the strength

that gave it. The sun of Rome was set, but the twilight of her greatness

still rested on the world. The German kings and warriors received with

pleasure, and wore with pride, a title which brought them into connection

with that imperial city, of whose universal dominion, of whose skill in

arms and arts, the traces lay everywhere around them.

[Illustration: A FRANKISH OFFICER]

[Sidenote: [507-508 A.D.]]

Nor was it without some solid advantages in the circumstances in which

Clovis was placed. He ruled over a vast population, which had not long

ceased to be subjects of the empire, and still rejoiced in the Roman

name. He fully appreciated their intellectual superiority, and had

already experienced the value of their assistance. Whatever tended to

increase his personal dignity in their eyes (and no doubt the solemn

proclamation of his Roman titles had this tendency) he deemed of no small

importance.

In the same year that he was invested with the diadem and purple robe

in the church of St. Martin at Tours, the encroaching Franks had the

southern and eastern limits of their kingdom marked out for them by the

powerful hand of Theodoric the Great. The brave but peace-loving Goth

had trusted too much to his influence with Clovis, and had hoped to the

last to save the unhappy Alaric, by warning and mediation. The slaughter

of the Visigoths, the death of Alaric himself, the fall of Angoulême

and Toulouse, the advance of the Franks upon the Rhone, where they were

now besieging Arles (Arelate), had effectually undeceived him. He now

prepared to bring forward the only arguments to which the ear of a Clovis

is ever open--the battle-cry of a superior army. His faithful Ostrogoths

were summoned to meet in the month of June, 508 A.D., and he placed a

powerful army under the command of Eva (Ibba or Hebba), who led his

forces into Gaul over the southern Alps. The Franks and Burgundians, who

were investing Arles and Carcassonne, raised the siege and retired, but

whether without or in consequence of a battle is rendered doubtful by

the conflicting testimony of the annalists. The subsequent territorial

position of the combatants, however, favours the account given by

Julian;[j] that a battle did take place, in which Clovis and his allies

received a most decided and bloody defeat.

[Sidenote: [508-509 A.D.]]

The check thus given to the extension of his kingdom at the expense of

other German nations, and the desire perhaps of collecting fresh strength

for a more successful struggle thereafter, seem to have induced Clovis

to turn his attention to the destruction of his Merovingian kindred.

The manner in which he effected his purpose is related with a fulness

which naturally excites suspicion. But though it is easy to detect both

absurdity and inconsistency in many of the romantic details with which

Gregory has furnished us, we see no reason to deny to his statements a

foundation of historical truth.

Clovis was still but one of several Frankish kings; and of these Sigebert

of Cologne, king of the Ripuarians, was little inferior to him in the

extent of his dominions and the number of his subjects. But in other

respects--in mental activity and bodily prowess--“the lame” Sigebert was

no match for his Salian brother. The other Frankish rulers were Chararic,

of whom mention has been made in connection with Syagrius, and Ragnachar

(or Ragnachas), who held his court at Cambray. The kingdom of Sigebert

extended along both banks of the Rhine, from Mogontiacum (Mainz) down to

Cologne; to the west along the Moselle as far as Trèves; and on the east

to the river Fulda and the borders of Thuringia. The Franks who occupied

this country are supposed to have taken possession of it in the reign of

Valentinian III, when Mainz, Cologne, and Trèves were conquered by a host

of Ripuarians. Sigebert, as we have seen, had come to the aid of Clovis,

in two very important battles with the Alamanni and the Visigoths, and

had shown himself a ready and faithful friend whenever his co-operation

was required. But gratitude was not included among the graces of the

champion of catholicity, who only waited for a suitable opportunity to

deprive his ally of throne and life. The present juncture was favourable

to his wishes, and enabled him to rid himself of his benefactor in a

manner peculiarly suited to his taste. An attempt to conquer the kingdom

of Cologne by force of arms would have been but feebly seconded by

his own subjects, and would have met with a stout resistance from the

Ripuarians, who were conscious of no inferiority to the Salian tribe. His

efforts were therefore directed to the destruction of the royal house,

the downfall of which was hastened by internal divisions.

Clotaire (or Clotaric), the expectant heir of Sigebert, weary of hope

deferred, gave a ready ear to the hellish suggestions of Clovis, who

urged him, by the strongest appeals to his ambition and cupidity, to

the murder of his father. Sigebert was slain by his own son in the

Buchonian forest near Fulda. The wretched parricide endeavoured to secure

the further connivance of his tempter, by offering him a share of the

blood-stained treasure he had acquired. But Clovis, whose part in the

transaction was probably unknown, affected a feeling of horror at the

unnatural crime, and procured the immediate assassination of Clotaire--an

act which rid him of a rival, silenced an embarrassing accomplice,

and tended rather to raise than to lower him in the opinion of the

Ripuarians. It is not surprising, therefore, that when Clovis proposed

himself as the successor of Sigebert, and promised the full recognition

of all existing rights, his offer should be joyfully accepted. In 509

A.D. he was elected king by the Ripuarians, and raised upon a shield

in the city of Cologne, according to the Frankish custom, amid general

acclamation.

[Sidenote: [509-511 A.D.]]

“And thus,” says Gregory of Tours,[o] in the same chapter in which he

relates the twofold murder of his kindred, “God daily prostrated his

enemies before him and increased his kingdom, because he walked before

him with an upright heart, and did what was pleasing in his eyes!”--so

completely did his services to the Catholic church conceal his moral

deformities from the eyes of even the best of the ecclesiastical

historians.

To the destruction of his next victim, Chararic, whose power was far less

formidable than that of Sigebert, he was impelled by vengeance as well

as ambition. That cautious prince, instead of joining the other Franks

in their attack upon Syagrius, had stood aloof and waited upon fortune.

Yet we can hardly attribute the conduct of Clovis towards him chiefly to

revenge, for his most faithful ally had been his earliest victim; and

friend and foe were alike to him, if they did but cross the path of his

ambition. After getting possession of Chararic and his son, by tampering

with their followers, Clovis compelled them to cut off their royal locks

and become priests; subsequently, however, he caused them to be put to

death.

Ragnachar of Cambray, whose kingdom lay to the north of the Somme, and

extended through Flanders and Artois, might have proved a more formidable

antagonist, had he not become unpopular among his own subjects by the

disgusting licentiousness of his manners. The account which Gregory

gives of the manner in which his ruin was effected is more curious than

credible, and adds the charge of swindling to the black list of crimes

recorded against the man who “walked before God with an upright heart.”

According to the historian, Clovis bribed the followers of Ragnachar with

armour of gilded iron, which they mistook, as he intended they should,

for gold. Having thus crippled by treachery the strength of his enemy,

Clovis led an army over the Somme, for the purpose of attacking him in

his own territory. Ragnachar prepared to meet him, but was betrayed by

his own soldiers and delivered into the hands of the invader. Clovis,

with facetious cruelty, reproached the fallen monarch for having

disgraced their common family by suffering himself to be bound, and then

split his skull with an axe. The same absurd charge was brought against

Richar, the brother of Ragnachar, and the same punishment inflicted on

him. A third brother was put to death at Mans.

Gregory refers, though not by name, to other kings of the same family,

who were all destroyed by Clovis. “Having killed many other kings,” he

says, “who were his kinsmen, because he feared they might deprive him of

his power, he extended his kingdom through the whole of Gaul.” He also

tells us that the royal hypocrite, having summoned a general assembly,

complained before it, with tears in his eyes, that he was “alone in the

world.” “Alas, for me!” he said, “I am left as an alien among strangers,

and have no relatives who can assist me.” This he did, according to

Gregory, “not from any real love of his kindred, or from remorse at the

thought of his crimes, but that he might find out any more relatives and

put them also to death.”

Clovis died at Paris, in 511 A.D., in the forty-fifth year of his age and

the thirtieth of his active, blood-stained, and eventful reign. He lived

therefore only five years after the decisive battle of Voulon.

Did we not know, from the judgment he passes on other characters in his

history, that Gregory of Tours was capable of appreciating the nobler

and gentler qualities of human nature, we might easily imagine as we

read what he says of Clovis that, Christian bishop as he was, he had an

altogether different standard of right and wrong from ourselves. Not a

single virtuous or generous action has the panegyrist found to record

of his favoured hero, while all that he does relate of him tends to

deepen our conviction that this favourite of heaven, in whose behalf

miracles were freely worked, whom departed saints led on to victory and

living ministers of God delighted to honour, was quite a phenomenon of

evil in the moral world, from his combining in himself the opposite and

apparently incompatible vices of the meanest treachery and the most

audacious wickedness.

We can only account for this amazing obliquity of moral vision in such

a man as Gregory, by ascribing it to the extraordinary value attached

in those times (and would that we could say in those times only) to

external acts of devotion, and to every service rendered to the Roman

church. If, in far happier ages than those of which we speak, the most

polluted consciences have purchased consolation and even hope by building

churches, endowing monasteries, and paying reverential homage to the

dispensers of God’s mercy, can we wonder that the extraordinary services

of a Clovis to Catholic Christianity should cover even his foul sins as

with a cloak of snow?

He had, indeed, without the slightest provocation, deprived a noble and

peaceable neighbour of his power and life. He had treacherously murdered

his royal kindred, and deprived their children of their birthright. He

had on all occasions shown himself the heartless ruffian, the greedy

conqueror, the blood-thirsty tyrant; but by his conversion he had led the

way to the triumph of Catholicism; he had saved the Roman church from

the Scylla and Charybdis of heresy and paganism, planted it on a rock in

the very centre of Europe, and fixed its doctrines and traditions in the

hearts of the conquerors of the West.

Other reasons, again, may serve to reconcile the politician to his

memory. The importance of the task which he performed (though from

the basest motives), and the influence of his reign on the destinies

of Europe, can hardly be overrated. He founded the monarchy on a firm

and enduring basis. He levelled, with a strong though bloody hand, the

barriers which separated Franks from Franks, and consolidated a number

of isolated and hostile tribes into a powerful and united nation. It

is true, indeed, that this unity was soon disturbed by divisions of a

different nature; yet the idea of its feasibility and desirableness was

deeply fixed in the national mind; a return to it was often aimed at, and

sometimes accomplished.[q]

“The only conceivable palliation for any of the crimes which Clovis

committed,” says Hodgkin,[r] “would have been the advantage of securing

the unity of the Frankish state. Yet that unity was immediately impaired

by the division of his dominions among his four sons.”

SUCCESSORS OF CLOVIS TO PEPIN

[Sidenote: [511-531 A.D.]]

In the reign of Clovis a new monarchy had been formed beyond the Rhine,

that of the Thuringians, who, after their incorporation with other

tribes, fell on the trans-Rhenish Franks. The latter implored the aid of

their kindred tribes in Gaul: Thierry, the eldest, and Clotaire, another

son of Clovis, carried the war into Thuringia. These princes triumphed

over the enemy, whose rulers they exterminated, and whose country Thierry

added to his possessions. Some of King Hermanfrid’s children, however,

escaped into Italy, whence, in the sequel, they appear to have returned

and to have given rise to the ducal house of Thuringia. In the same

manner the duchies of Swabia and Bavaria were added to the domains of

Thierry; so that the empire of the Franks now extended from Bohemia

to the British Channel, and from the mouth of the Elbe to Languedoc

and Toulouse. But it did not satisfy their ambition, which next turned

towards Burgundy (532).

[Sidenote: [531-555 A.D.]]

Clotilda, the widow of Clovis, whom superstition has canonised,

remembered the massacre of her parents and brothers, and the dangers of

her own infancy, and she instigated her sons to vengeance. Sigismund,

the son of her uncle Gundebald, now occupied the throne of Burgundy.

He too is honoured as a saint, though soon after his accession he had

murdered his own son at the instigation of a second wife. Through the

exhortations of the holy widow, her three sons Childebert, Clotaire, and

Clodomir (Thierry, who was not her son, refused to have any part in the

war) invaded the province, and defeated Sigismund. Clodomir took him

captive, and threw him, with his wife and children, into a well. Godemar,

brother of Sigismund, collected another army, defeated the Franks,

and having gained possession of Clodomir--such is fate’s retributive

justice!--beheaded him. After the death of Clodomir, Clotaire, the second

brother, who had two wives already, married the widow, and became the

protector of his two infant sons.

[Illustration: CLOTAIRE

(Based on an old print)]

Resolved to keep their inheritance, Childebert and Clotaire sent to

Clotilda, their grandmother, a sword and a pair of scissors, wishing

to know whether she preferred their death or their seclusion in the

cloister. In the passion of the moment, she declared that she would

rather see them dead than deprived of their rightful inheritance; and

her words sealed their fate. Clotaire seized the elder, not ten years

of age, and plunged a knife into his heart; the younger, who was not

seven, terrified at the sight, knelt before Childebert, and pathetically

prayed for life. Childebert was suddenly sensible of pity; and, with

tears in his eyes, he begged that the child’s life might be spared.

“It was thyself that urged me to this!” replied the fiendish Clotaire:

“give me the child, or die in his stead!” The survivor was immediately

murdered; their nurses, pages, and servants shared the same fate, and the

kingdom of Clodomir was divided between the two royal assassins. With an

increased army, they again invaded Burgundy, which they conquered and

divided between them, as they had before divided that of their brother

Clodomir.

On the death of Thierry, in 534, he was succeeded by his son Theudibert,

who inherited his martial character, and was consequently too formidable

to be served like the sons of Clodomir. He headed several expeditions

into Italy and Spain, which, however, were not distinguished by much

success; nor was his son and successor Theudebald (548-555) more

fortunate. On the death of the latter, Clotaire, his uncle, married his

widow and seized his kingdom, without dividing it with Childebert: the

whole kingdom of the Franks was consequently in the hands of the two sons

of Clovis. In revenge, Childebert excited a civil war; but dying before

its conclusion (558), his kingdom was forcibly seized by Clotaire, now

sole monarch of the Franks, who exiled his wife and daughters. A year

before his death, Clotaire condemned to the fire his eldest son, who

had rebelled against him, and that prince’s wife and daughters, with

as much coolness as he could have ordered the execution of the most

guilty stranger. In fact, in the wide catalogue of human vices, there is

scarcely one which was not practised by the abominable princes of this

dynasty, whose memory will be held in everlasting execration.

[Sidenote: [555-575 A.D.]]

To follow in detail the actions, in other words the crimes, of this

detestable dynasty, would neither suit our limits nor gratify the

reader: we must rapidly glance at the chief resolutions of the Frankish

Empire. Like his father, Clotaire I at his death left four sons, and

all four divided his states among them. This division was effected by

lot. Austrasia, or eastern France, comprehending the provinces on both

sides of the Rhine, and extending from Bar-sur-Aube into Bohemia, fell

to Sigebert, who removed his capital from Rheims to Metz. Neustria, or

western France, which extended from Bar to the channel, and even to the

confines of Aquitaine, fell to Chilperic, whose court was at Soissons.

Gontram, who had Burgundy, established himself at Châlons-sur-Saône; and

Charibert, from Paris his capital, ruled over Aquitaine and a narrow slip

of the intermediate country. But Charibert soon died, leaving his states

to be divided among his three brothers.

The reader’s mind is no doubt prepared for the same dissensions among

the sons of Clotaire as among those of Clovis; he might peruse far more

horrors, if either our limits or inclination disposed us to withdraw the

veil which covered them. We will raise one corner. Sigebert and Chilperic

were unusually hostile to each other, not so much through ambition as

through the enmity of their wives, the famous Brunehild and Fredegund:

the former was daughter of Athanagild, Visigothic king of Spain; the

latter a low Frenchwoman, who seeing herself rejected by Chilperic for

Galeswintha, a sister of Brunehild, swore revenge not only against her

rival but also against Sigebert and Brunehild.

Soon renewing her empire over the heart of Chilperic, Fredegund procured

the murder of Galeswintha, and her own elevation as queen. She then

incited her husband to a long war with Sigebert; but, as it was not so

successful as she wished; and as Sigebert came near to dethroning herself

and her husband, she avoided that fate by the dagger: in 575, the victor

fell by one of her hired assassins. The victim was succeeded in the

kingdom of Austrasia by his son Childebert II; but, as the prince was too

young to govern, the administration devolved on a new functionary--the

mayor of the palace, a grand judge and general of the kingdom. Brunehild

was taken captive; and her fate would soon have been decided, had not

Merovæus, the son of Chilperic, but not of Fredegund, fallen in love with

her, and married her.

[Illustration: CLOVIS II

(From a French print, 1832)]

The newly married couple took sanctuary in the church of St. Martin

at Tours, and were protected by the historian and bishop St. Gregory.

Chilperic, however, separated them: he restored Brunehild to the

Austrasians, who were arming in the cause of their monarch’s mother; but

Merovæus soon fell a victim to the persecutions of Fredegund. Clovis,

another son of her husband by a former queen, Fredegund, no doubt with

Chilperic’s consent, caused to perish by the dagger: so that now her

own children only remained to inherit the kingdom of Neustria. But on

the assassination of her husband, in 584, though she proclaimed her son

Clotaire II, the army, detesting both her and her offspring, hailed

Gundowald, a bastard of the deceased monarch, as their chief. Gundowald,

however, who could not support his elevation, perished miserably; and his

firmest support, St. Prætextatus, bishop of Rouen, fell under the sword

of an assassin hired by Fredegund. In 593, Gontram, who was childless,

paid the debt of nature, and Childebert of Austrasia seized Burgundy, to

the prejudice of Clotaire II, the reputed heir.[123]

[Sidenote: [575-654 A.D.]]

On the death of Childebert, probably by poison, Austrasia fell to his

eldest son Theudebert, aged only ten years; and Burgundy to his second,

Thierry II, aged only nine. As Clotaire II, king of Neustria, was only

eleven, the monarchy of the Franks was subject to three minors, or rather

to the three mayors of the palace who governed in their name. In 612,

Thierry II, with the aid of Clotaire, vanquished his brother Theudebert

of Austrasia, whom he calmly put to death; the following year he suddenly

died; his sons fell into the power of Clotaire, who was not likely to

show much mercy to the offspring of his mother Fredegund’s enemy. Two of

the sons he murdered; a third, whom he had held over the baptismal font,

he consented to save; and Brunehild, their grandmother, who at the same

time became his captive, he caused to expire in the most cruel torments.

[He tied her to the heels of a wild horse.] By these bloody executions he

was, in 613, at the head of the whole Frankish Empire in Germany and Gaul.

Some years before his death, he caused Dagobert, his elder son, to be

crowned king of Austrasia; and after that event (628), Aquitaine fell

to his second, Charibert; but in three years Charibert died, his infant

son was murdered by Dagobert, and unity was once more restored to the

monarchy. But Dagobert, like all the princes of his name during the

last century and a half of its existence, was as feeble in body as he

was cruel in heart; like them, through his early vices he was overtaken

by old age in the prime of life. On his death in 638, his states were

divided between his two infant sons. Austrasia fell to Sigebert III;

Neustria and Burgundy to Clovis II. The former was governed by the

mayor, Pepin, subsequently by Grimwald, the son of Pepin; the latter by

Ercinwald. Both princes died about the usual age, between twenty and

twenty-five.[s]

THE RISE OF PEPIN

The accession of the five-year-old Childebert II to the kingdom of

Austrasia in 575 proved an excellent opportunity for the vassals to

increase their power at the expense of the throne: and they elected a

high palace official to assume the charge of rearing the young king and

maintaining the peace.

It was not a new institution that the Austrasian nobles thus created.

Since the house of the petty chief of Tournay had become the palace of

the king of Gaul and his support a nursery of great officials and royal

dignitaries, the antrustions, sometimes dispersed over the conquered

territories, and again gathered around their prince, had preserved their

relations with him and between themselves. The chief and his companions

had grown great together, and men, become rich and powerful, continued to

fill in the communal household the functions of _seneskalk_ (seneschal),

of _mariskalk_ (marshal), and of _skanke_ (cupbearer); while he among the

antrustions who exercised a general surveillance over the household, who

took charge of the public welfare, and who sat in judgment over quarrels

arising between vassals, was quite naturally the first officer of the

palace, the intendant general of the crown domains, the prime minister,

and the highest personage of the state after the king himself. We are not

sure of the Germanic title of this official; it would seem that he was

commonly called in the Teutonic language the _herzog_, the duke or leader

_par excellence_. The Gallo-Romans called him the _major domus_, “the

greatest, the first of the house,” a qualification formerly given among

the wealthy Romans to the freedman, or even the slave, who had authority

over the other slaves and directed the management of the household.

Up to Childebert’s accession, this mayor of the palace had been the

creature of the king and his representative before the vassals, but

now the Austrasian nobility made him the representative of the vassals

before the king and the overseer of royalty. In this there was a complete

revolution.[w]

[Sidenote: [638-670 A.D.]]

On the death of Dagobert, 638 A.D., his son, Clovis II, a child of six

years old, succeeded him. During his minority the government of Neustria

and Burgundy was carried on by his mother Nanthildis, and the major-domus

Æga, while Pepin and others shared the supreme power in Austrasia. Pepin

died 639 or 640 A.D., and a long and ferocious contest ensued for the

vacant mayoralty, which was finally taken possession of by Pepin’s own

son Grimwald. So low had the power of the nominal monarchs already sunk,

that, on the death of Sigebert III, in 654 A.D., Grimwald ventured to

shear the locks of the rightful heir, Dagobert II, and, giving out that

he was dead, sent him to Ireland; he then proposed his own son for the

vacant throne, under the pretence that Sigebert had adopted him. But the

time was not yet ripe for so daring an usurpation, nor does Grimwald

appear to have been the man to take the lead in a revolution. Both the

attempt itself, and its miserable issue, go to prove that the son of

Pepin did not inherit the wisdom and energy of the illustrious stock

to which he belonged. The king of Burgundy and Neustria, pretending to

acquiesce in the accession of Grimwald’s son, summoned the father to

Paris, and caused him to be seized during his journey by some Franks--who

are represented as being highly indignant at his presumption--and put to

death.

The whole Frankish Empire was thus once more united, at least in

name, under Clovis II (who died in 656 A.D.), and under his son and

successor, Clotaire III, whose mother, Balthildis, an Anglo-Saxon by

birth, administered the kingdom with great ability and success. But the

interests and feelings of the German provinces were too distinct from

those of Burgundy and Neustria to allow of their long remaining even

nominally under one head. The Austrasians were eager to have a king

of their own, and accordingly another son of Clovis was raised to the

throne of Austrasia under the title of Childeric II, with Wulfwald as his

major-domus.

At the death of Clotaire III in Neustria (in 670 A.D.) the whole empire

was thrown into confusion by the ambitious projects of Ebroin, his

major-domus, who sought to place Thierry III, Clothaire’s youngest

brother, who was still a mere child, on the throne, that he might

continue to reign in his name. Ebroin appears to have proceeded towards

his object with too little regard for the opinions and feelings of the

other seigneurs, who rose against him and his puppet king, and drove them

from the seat of power. The successful conspirators then offered the

crown of Neustria to Childeric II, king of Austrasia, who immediately

proceeded to take possession, while Ebroin sought refuge in a monastery.

Childeric ascended the Neustrian throne without opposition; but his

attempts to control the seigneurs, one of whom, named Badilo, he is said

to have scourged, gave rise to a formidable conspiracy; and he was soon

afterwards assassinated, together with his queen and son, at Chelles.

Wulfwald escaped with difficulty, and returned to Austrasia. Another

son of Childeric, Childebert III, was then raised upon the shield by

the seigneurs, while the royal party brought forward Thierry III from

the monastery to which he had retired, and succeeded in making good his

claim. The turbulent and unscrupulous but able Ebroin ventured once

more to leave his place of refuge, and by a long series of the most

treacherous murders, and by setting up a pretender--as Clovis, a son of

Clotaire III--he succeeded (in 673 or 674 A.D.) in forcing himself upon

Thierry as major-domus of Neustria.

In the meantime Dagobert II, whom Grimwald had sent as a child to

Ireland, and who had subsequently found a faithful friend in the

well-known St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, was recalled and placed on the

Austrasian throne. But the restored prince soon (in 679 A.D.) fell a

victim to the intrigues of Ebroin, and the Neustrian faction among

the seigneurs, who aimed at bringing the whole empire under their own

arbitrary power. Nor does it seem at all improbable that the ability and

audacity of Ebroin might have enabled them to carry out their designs,

had not Austrasia possessed a leader fully equal to the emergency.

PEPIN OF HERISTAL

[Sidenote: [656-679 A.D.]]

Pepin, surnamed “of Heristal” from a castle belonging to his family

in the neighbourhood of Liège, was the son of Ansegisus by Begga, the

illustrious daughter of Pepin of Landen. This great man, who proved

himself worthy of his grandsire and his mother, was at this time

associated with Duke Martin in the government of Austrasia, which up to

678 A.D. had been administered by Wulfwald. Martin and Pepin summoned

their followers to arms to meet the expected attack of the Neustrians.

In the first instance, however, the Austrasians were surprised by

the activity of Ebroin, who fell upon them before they had completed

their preparations, and totally defeated them in the neighbourhood of

Luco-Fago.[124] Martin fled to the town of Laon; and the artifices by

which his enemies lured him from this retreat to his destruction are

worthy of notice, as giving us a remarkable picture of the manners of the

period in general and of the sad state of the church in particular.

[Sidenote: [679-687 A.D.]]

Ebroin, hearing that his intended victim had reached a place of safety,

despatched Agilbert bishop of Paris, and Probus bishop of Rheims, to

persuade Martin to repair to the Neustrian camp. In order to dispel the

apprehensions with which he listened to them, these holy men went through

the not unusual ceremony of swearing, upon a receptacle containing sacred

relics, that he should suffer no injury by following their advice. The

bishops, however, to save themselves from the guilt of perjury, had taken

care that the vessels, which were covered, should be left empty. Martin,

whom they omitted to inform of this important fact, was satisfied with

their oaths, and accompanied them to Ecri, where he and his followers

were immediately assassinated, without, as was thought, any detriment

to the faith of the envoys! Pepin, however, was neither to be cajoled

nor frightened into submission, and soon found himself at the head of a

powerful force, consisting in part of Neustrian exiles, whom the tyranny

of Ebroin had ruined or offended. A collision seemed inevitable, when the

position of affairs was suddenly changed by the death of Ebroin, who was

assassinated in 681 A.D. by Hermenfrid, a distinguished Neustrian Frank.

Waratto followed him in the mayoralty of Neustria, and seemed inclined

to live on friendly terms with Pepin: but Ghislemar, his son, who headed

the party most hostile to Pepin, succeeded in getting possession of the

government for a time, and renewed the war against the Austrasians.

Ghislemar’s death (in 684 A.D.), which the annalists[p] attributed to

the divine anger, restored Waratto to his former power; and hostilities

ceased for a time. When Waratto also died, about two years after his

undutiful son, he was succeeded by Berchar, his son-in-law, whom the

annalist pithily describes as _statura parvus, intellectu modicus_.

[Illustration: A LOMBARD KING]

The insolent disregard which this man showed for the feelings and wishes

of the most powerful Neustrians, induced many of them to make common

cause with Pepin, to whom they are said to have bound themselves by

hostages. In 687 A.D. Pepin was strong enough to assume the offensive;

and, yielding to the entreaties of the Neustrian refugees, he sent

an embassy to Thierry III to demand the restoration of the exiles to

their confiscated lands. The king of Neustria, prompted by Berchar, his

major-domus, haughtily replied that he would come himself and fetch his

runaway slaves. Pepin then prepared for war, with the unanimous consent

of the Austrasian seigneurs, whose wishes he scrupulously consulted.

Marching through the Silva Carbonaria he entered the Neustrian territory,

and took post at Textri (Testry) on the river Somme. Thierry and Berchar

also collected a large army and marched to meet the invaders. The two

armies encamped in sight of each other near the village of Textri, on

opposite sides of the little river Daumignon, the Neustrians on the

southern and the Austrasians on the northern bank. Whether from policy

or a higher motive, Pepin displayed great unwillingness, even then, to

bring the matter to extremities; and, sending emissaries into the camp

of Thierry, he once more endeavoured to negotiate; demanding, amongst

other things, that the property of which the churches had been “despoiled

by wicked tyrants” should be restored to them. He promised that, if his

conditions of peace were accepted and the effusion of kindred blood

prevented, he would give the king a large amount of silver and gold.

[Sidenote: [687-717 A.D.]]

The wise and humane reluctance of Pepin was naturally construed by

Thierry and his “little-minded” mayor into fear, and distrust of his

army, which was inferior to their own in numbers; a haughty answer was

returned, and all negotiations were broken off. Both sides then prepared

for the morrow’s battle. Pepin, having passed the night in forming his

plans, crossed the river before daybreak and drew up his army to the

east of Thierry’s position, that the rising sun might blind the enemy.

The spies of Thierry reported that the Austrasian camp was deserted, on

which the Neustrians were led out to pursue the flying foe. The mistake

of the scouts was soon made clear by the vigorous onset of Pepin; and

after a fierce but brief combat the Neustrians were totally defeated,

and Thierry and Berchar fled from the field. The latter was slain by his

own followers; the king was taken prisoner, but his life was mercifully

spared.

The battle of Textri is notable in Frankish history as that in which the

death-stroke was given to the Merovingian dynasty, by an ancestor of a

far more glorious race of monarchs. “From this time forward,” says the

chronicler Erchanbertus,[y] “the kings began to have only the royal name,

and not the royal dignity.” A very striking picture of the Rois Fainéants

has been handed down to us by Einhard[u] (Eginhard), in his famous

biography of Charlemagne which we quote in Chapter V. “The race of the

Merovingians,” he says, “from which the Franks were formerly accustomed

to choose their kings, is generally considered to have ended with

Chilperic; who, at the command of the Roman pontiff Stephen, was deposed,

shorn of his locks, and sent into a monastery. But although the stock

died out with him, it had long been entirely without life and vigour, and

had no distinction beyond the empty title of king; for the authority and

government were in the hands of the highest officers of the palace, who

were called majores-domus, and had the entire administration of affairs.

Nothing was left to the king, except that, contenting himself with the

mere royal name, he was allowed to sit on the throne with long hair and

unshorn beard, to play the part of a ruler, to hear the ambassadors from

whatever part they might come, and at their departure to communicate to

them the answers which he had been taught or even commanded to make, as

if by his own authority. Besides the worthless title of king and a scanty

maintenance, which the major-domus meted out according to his pleasure,

the king possessed only one farm, and that by no means a lucrative one,

on which he had a dwelling-house and a few servants, just sufficient to

supply his most urgent necessities. Wherever he had to go, he travelled

in a carriage drawn by a yoke of oxen and driven by a cowherd in rustic

fashion. It was thus that he went to the palace, to the public assembly

of the people, which met every year for the good of the kingdom; after

which he returned home. But the whole administration of the state, and

everything which had to be regulated or executed, either at home or

abroad, was carried on by the mayors.”

The whole power of the three kingdoms was thus suddenly thrown into the

hands of Pepin, who showed in his subsequent career that he was equal to

the far more difficult task of keeping, by his wisdom and moderation,

what he had gained by the vigour of his intellect and his undaunted

valour. He, too, was happily free from the little vanity which takes

more delight in the pomp than in the realities of power, and, provided

he possessed the substantial authority, was contented to leave the

royal name to others. He must have felt himself strong enough to do

what his uncle Grimwald had vainly attempted, and his grandson happily

accomplished; but he saw that by grasping at the shadow he might lose the

substance. He was surrounded by proud and suspicious seigneurs, whose

jealousy would have been more excited by his taking the title than by his

exercising the powers of a king; and, strange though it may seem, the

reverence for the ancient race, and the notion of their exclusive and

inalienable rights, were far from being extinguished in the breasts of

the common people. By keeping Thierry upon the throne and ruling in his

name, he united both reason and prejudice in support of his government.

Yet some approach was made, though probably not by his own desire,

towards acknowledged sovereignty in the case of Pepin. He was called _dux

et princeps Francorum_, and the years of his office were reckoned, as

well as those of the king, in all public documents.

Having fixed the seat of his government in Austrasia, as the more German

and warlike portion of his dominions, he named dependents of his own,

and subsequently his two sons, Drogo and Grimwald, to rule as mayors in

the two other divisions of the empire. He gave the greatest proof of his

power and popularity by restoring the assemblies of the Campus Martius,

a purely German institution, which under the romanising Merovingian

monarchs had gradually declined. At these annual meetings, which were

held on the 1st of March, the whole nation assembled for the purpose

of discussing measures for the ensuing year. None but a ruler who was

conscious of his own strength, and of an honest desire for the welfare of

his people, would have voluntarily submitted himself and his actions to

the chances of such an ordeal.

As soon as he had firmly fixed himself in his seat, and secured the

submission of the envious seigneurs, and the love of the people, who

looked to him as the only man who could save them from the evils of

anarchy, he turned his attention to the re-establishment of the Frankish

Empire in its full extent. The neighbouring tribes, which had with

difficulty, and for the most part imperfectly, been subdued by Clovis

and his successors, were ready to seize upon every favourable occasion

of ridding themselves of the hated yoke. Nor were the poor imbecile

boys who bore the name of kings, nor the turbulent mayors and seigneurs

who were wholly occupied with plotting and counterplotting, railing and

fighting against one another, at all in a position to call the subject

states to account, or to excite in them the desire of being incorporated

with an empire harassed and torn by intestine dissensions. The Frankish

Empire was in process of dissolution, and all the more distant tribes,

as the Bavarians, the Alamanni, Frisians, Bretons, and Gascons, had

virtually recovered their independence. But this partial decline of the

Frankish power was simply the result of misgovernment, and the domestic

feuds which absorbed the martial vigour of the nation; and by no means

indicated the decline of a military spirit in the Frankish people.

They only needed a centre of union and a leader worthy of them, both

of which they found in Pepin, to give them once more the hegemony over

all the German tribes, and prepare them for the conquest of Europe. The

Frisians were subdued, or rather repressed for a time, in 697 A.D., after

a gallant resistance under their king Ratbod; and about twelve years

afterwards we find the son of Pepin, Grimwald, forming a matrimonial

alliance with Theudelinda, daughter of the Frisian monarch; a fact which

plainly implies that Pepin desired to cultivate the friendship of his

warlike neighbours. The Swabians, or Alamanni, were also attacked and

defeated by Pepin on their own territories; but their final subjection

was completed by his son Charles Martel.

The wars carried on by Pepin with the above-mentioned nations, to which

in this place we can only briefly allude, occupied him nearly twenty

years; and were greatly instrumental in preserving peace at home, and

consolidating the foundations of the Carlovingian throne. The stubborn

resistance he met with from the still heathen Germans, was animated with

something of that zeal, against which his great descendant Charlemagne

had to contend in his interminable Saxon wars; for the adoption of

Christianity, which was hated, not only as being hostile to the

superstitions of their forefathers, but on account of the heavy taxes

by which it was accompanied, was always made by Pepin the indispensable

condition of mercy and peace. But, happily for the cause of Gospel truth,

other means were used for the spread of Christianity than the sword and

the scourge; and the labours of many a zealous and self-sacrificing

missionary from Ireland and England served to convince the rude German

tribes that the warrior-priests whom they had met on the battle-field,

and the greedy tax-gatherers who infested their homes, were not the true

ambassadors of the Prince of peace. And Pepin, who was by no means a

mere warrior, was well aware of the value of these peaceful efforts; and

afforded zealous aid to all who ventured their lives in the holy cause of

human improvement and salvation. The civil governors whom he established

in the conquered provinces were directed to do all in their power to

promote the spread of Christianity by peaceful means; and, to give

effect to his instructions, Pepin warned them that he should hold them

responsible for the lives of his pious missionaries.

During these same twenty years, in which Pepin was playing the important

and brilliant part assigned to him by providence, the pale and bloodless

shadows of four Merovingian kings flit gloomily across the scene. We know

little or nothing of them except their names, and the order in which they

followed each other. Thierry III died in 691 A.D., and was succeeded by

Clovis III, who reigned till 695 A.D. and was followed by Childebert III.

On the death of Childebert in 711 A.D., Pepin raised Dagobert III to the

nominal throne, where he left him when he himself departed from the scene

of his labours and triumphs; and this is really all that we feel called

upon to say of the descendants of the conquerors of Gaul and founders of

the Western Empire; _inclitum et notum olim, nunc tantum auditur_!

[Sidenote: [714 A.D.]]

[Illustration: CLOVIS III

(From a French print of 1832)]

The extraordinary power which Pepin exercised at a period when law was

weak, and authority extended no further than the sword could reach; when

the struggles of the rising feudal aristocracy for independence had

convulsed the empire and brought it to the verge of anarchy, sufficiently

attests the ability and courage, the wisdom and moderation, with which

he ruled. His triumphs over the ancient dynasty, and the Neustrian

faction, were far from being the most difficult of his achievements.

He had to control the very class to which he himself belonged; to curb

the turbulent spirits of the very men who had raised him to his proud

pre-eminence; and to establish regal authority over those by whose aid

he had humbled the ancient kings: and all this he succeeded in doing

by the extraordinary influence of his personal character. So firmly

indeed had he established his government, and subdued the wills of the

envious seigneurs by whom he was surrounded, that even when he showed

his intention of making his power hereditary in his family, they dared

not, at the time, oppose his will. On the death of Norbert, major-domus

at the court of Childebert III, Pepin--in all probability without even

consulting the seigneurs, in whom the right of election rested--appointed

his second son Grimwald to the vacant office. To his eldest son Drogo he

had already given the mayoralty of Burgundy, with the title of duke of

Campania. But though they dared not make any opposition at the time, it

is evident from what followed that the fear of Pepin alone restrained

the rage they felt at this open usurpation. In 714 A.D., when Pepin’s

life was drawing to a close, and he lay at Jupille near Liège upon a bed

of sickness, awaiting patiently his approaching end, the great vassals

took heart, and conspired to deprive his descendants of the mayoralty.

They employed the usual means for effecting their purpose--treachery and

murder. Grimwald was assassinated, while praying in the church of St.

Lambert at Jupille, by a Frisian of the name of Rantgar, who relied,

no doubt, on the complicity of the seigneurs and the weakness of Pepin

for impunity. But the conspirators had miscalculated the waning sands

of the old warrior’s life, and little knew the effect which the sight

of his son’s blood would have upon him. He suddenly recovered from the

sickness to which he seemed to be succumbing. Like another Priam, he

once more seized his unaccustomed arms, though, unlike the royal Trojan,

he used them with terrible effect. After taking an ample revenge upon

the murderers of his son, and quenching the spirit of resistance in the

blood of the conspirators, he was so far from giving up his purpose, or

manifesting any consciousness of weakness, that he nominated the infant

and illegitimate son of Grimwald, as if by hereditary right, to the joint

mayoralty of Burgundy and Neustria--an office which the highest persons

in the land would have been proud to exercise. By his very last act,

therefore, he showed the absolute mastery he had obtained, not only over

the “do-nothing” kings, but over the factious seigneurs, who shrank in

terror before the wrath of one, who had, as it were, repassed the gates

of death, to hurl destruction on their heads. His actual demise took

place in the same year, on the 16th of December, 714 A.D.

Pepin had two wives, the first of whom, Plectrudis, bore him two sons,

Drogo and Grimwald, neither of whom survived their father. In 688 A.D. he

married a second wife, the “noble and elegant” Alpaida, though Plectrudis

was still alive. From this second marriage sprang the real successor of

the Pepins, whom his father named in his own language Karl, and who is

renowned in history as Charles Martel, the bulwark of Christendom, the

father of kings and emperors.

Our estimate of the personal greatness of the Carlovingian mayors is

greatly raised when we observe that each of them in turn, instead

of taking quiet possession of what his predecessors had won, has to

reconquer his position in the face of numerous, powerful, and exasperated

enemies. It was so with Pepin of Landen, with Pepin of Heristal, and most

of all in the case of Charles Martel.

THE CAREER OF CHARLES MARTEL (714-732 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [714-717 A.D.]]

At the death of Pepin the storm which had long been gathering, and of

which many forebodings had appeared in his lifetime, broke forth with

tremendous fury. The bands of government were suddenly loosened, and

the powers which Pepin had wielded with such strength and dexterity

became the objects of a ferocious struggle. Plectrudis, his first wife,

an ambitious and daring woman, had resolved to reign as the guardian of

her grandchild, Theudwald, with whom she was at that time residing at

Cologne. Theudwald had at least the advantage of being the only candidate

for power installed by Pepin himself, and it was no doubt upon his

quasi-hereditary claims that Plectrudis based her hopes. She manifested

her foresight, discrimination, and energy, at the commencement of the

contest which ensued by seizing the person of Charles, her stepson,

and most formidable rival. But Charles and his party were not her only

opponents. The Neustrians and Burgundians, whom their recollections of

Brunehild and Fredegund by no means inclined to acquiesce in another

female regency, refused obedience to her commands; and endeavoured to

excite the puppet-monarch Dagobert to an independent exercise of his

authority. Their zeal as Neustrians too was quickened by the desire of

throwing off the Austrasian or German yoke, which they considered to have

been fixed upon them by the victories and energetic rule of Pepin.

It was owing to this hostile feeling between the Romance and the German

portions of the empire that many even of Pepin’s partisans took side

with Theudwald and Plectrudis, although the latter held their chief

incarcerated. The revolted Neustrians and the army of Plectrudis

encountered each other in the forest of Guise, near Compiègne; and, as

far as one can conjecture from the confused and contradictory accounts of

the annalists, Plectrudis and Theudwald suffered a defeat. The Neustrians

having obtained the mastery over the hated Germans in their own country,

prepared to extend their authority to Austrasia itself. Having chosen

Raginfrid as their major-domus, they suddenly marched into the Austrasian

territory, and laid it waste with fire and sword as far as the river

Maas. In spite of their Christian profession they sought further to

strengthen themselves by an alliance with Ratbod, the heathen king of the

Frisians, who at the death of Pepin had recovered his independence, and

the greater portion of his territory.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF TOURS]

In the meantime, the whole aspect of affairs was suddenly changed by

the escape of Charles from custody. The defeated army of Plectrudis,

and many of the Austrasian seigneurs, who were unwilling to support her

cause even against the Neustrians, now rallied with the greatest alacrity

around the youthful hero, and proclaimed him _Dux Francorum_ by the

title of his glorious father. In a very short time after the recovery

of his freedom, Charles found himself at the head of a very efficient,

though not numerous army. He was still, however, surrounded by dangers

and difficulties, under which a man of less extraordinary powers must

inevitably have sunk.

Dagobert III died soon after the battle of Compiègne; and the Neustrians,

who had felt the disadvantage of his imbecility, neglected the claims of

his son, and raised a priest called Daniel, a reputed son of Childeric,

to the throne, with the title of Chilperic II. This monarch, who appears

to have had a greater degree of energy than his immediate predecessors,

formed a plan with the Frisian king for a combined attack upon Cologne,

by which he hoped at once to bring the war to a successful issue. Ratbod,

true to his engagements, advanced with a numerous fleet of vessels up

the Rhine, while Chilperic and Raginfrid were marching towards Cologne

through the forest of Ardennes. To prevent this well-planned junction,

Charles determined to fall upon the Frisians before they reached Cologne.

His position must have been rendered still more critical by the failure

of this attack. We read that after both parties had suffered considerable

loss in a hard-fought battle, they retreated on equal terms.