Clovis Founds the Frankish Empire

This series has nine easy 5 minute installments.

Introduction
Clovis, the sturdy Frank, wrought marvelous changes in Gaul. His marriage to the Christian princess Clotilde was followed by the conversion of himself and, gradually, that of his people. With a well-disciplined army he pulled down and swept away the last pillars of Roman power out of Gaul. Guizot gives a graphic account of the transition of the Franks, during two hundred and fifty years, from being isolated wandering tribes, each constantly warring against the other, to a well-ordered Christian kingdom, which led to the establishment of the French monarchy. The climax of this period of transition came in the reign of Clovis, with whom commences the real history of France. Under his strong hand the various tribes were gradually brought under his sole rule.

When Clovis, at the age of fifteen, succeeded his father, Childeric, as king of the Salian tribe, his people were mainly pagans; the Salian domain was very limited, the treasury empty, and there was no store of either grain or wine. But these difficulties were overcome by him; he subjugated the neighboring tribes, and made Christianity the state religion. The new faith was accorded great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favorable to humanity and showing respect to the rights of individuals. So great an advance in civilization is an early milestone on the path of progress.

This selection is by François P.G. Guizot.

Time: 486-511

About A.D. 241 or 242 the Sixth Roman legion, commanded by Aurelian, at that time military tribune, and thirty years later emperor, had just finished a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken for the purpose of driving the Germans from Gaul, and was preparing for eastern service, to make war on the Persians. The soldiers sang:

We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand
Sarmatians; we want a thousand, thousand,
Thousand Persians.”

That was, apparently, a popular burthen at the time, for on the days of military festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the children sang, as they danced:

We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand
Thousand;
One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand,
Thousand thousand;
May he live a thousand thousand years, he who
Hath slain a thousand thousand!
Nobody hath so much of wine as he
Hath of blood poured out.”

Aurelian, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to the pouring out of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he wrote to the senate:

I marvel, conscript fathers, that ye have so much misgiving about opening the Sibylline books, as if ye were deliberating in an assembly of Christians, and not in the temple of all the gods. Let inquiry be made of the sacred books, and let celebration take place of the ceremonies that ought to be fulfilled. Far from refusing, I offer, with zeal, to satisfy all expenditure required with captives of every nationality, victims of royal rank. It is no shame to conquer with the aid of the gods; it is thus that our ancestors began and ended many a war.”

Human sacrifices, then, were not yet foreign to pagan festivals, and probably the blood of more than one Frankish captive on that occasion flowed in the temple of all the gods.

It is the first time the name of Franks appears in history; and it indicated no particular, single people, but a confederation of Germanic peoples, settled or roving on the right bank of the Rhine, from the Main to the ocean. The number and the names of the tribes united in this confederation are uncertain. A chart of the Roman Empire, prepared apparently at the end of the fourth century, in the reign of the emperor Honorius — which chart, called tabula Peutingeri, was found among the ancient MSS. collected by Conrad Peutinger, a learned German philosopher, in the fifteenth century — bears, over a large territory on the right bank of the Rhine, the word Francia, and the following enumeration: “The Chaucians, the Ampsuarians, the Cheruscans, and the Chamavians, who are also called Franks;” and to these tribes divers chroniclers added several others, “the Attuarians, the Bructerians, the Cattians, and the Sicambrians.”

Whatever may have been the specific names of these peoples, they were all of German race, called themselves Franks, that is “freemen,” and made, sometimes separately, sometimes collectively, continued incursions into Gaul — especially Belgica and the northern portions of Lyonness — at one time plundering and ravaging, at another occupying forcibly, or demanding of the Roman emperors lands whereon to settle. From the middle of the third to the beginning of the fifth century the history of the Western Empire presents an almost uninterrupted series of these invasions on the part of the Franks, together with the different relationships established between them and the imperial government. At one time whole tribes settled on Roman soil, submitted to the emperors, entered their service, and fought for them even against their own German compatriots. At another, isolated individuals, such and such warriors of German race, put themselves at the command of the emperors, and became of importance. At the middle of the third century the emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian, wrote, “Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, and Carioviscus.”

Some Frankish tribes allied themselves more or less fleetingly with the imperial government, at the same time that they preserved their independence; others pursued, throughout the empire, their life of incursion and adventure. From A.D. 260 to 268, under the reign of Gallienus, a band of Franks threw itself upon Gaul, scoured it from northeast to southeast, plundering and devastating on its way; then it passed from Aquitania into Spain, took and burned Tarragona, gained possession of certain vessels, sailed away, and disappeared in Africa, after having wandered about for twelve years at its own will and pleasure. There was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious and ephemeral as their power may have been, to defend the empire, and especially Gaul, against those enemies, themselves ephemeral, but forever recurring; Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, and Probus gallantly withstood those repeated attacks of German hordes. Sometimes they flattered themselves they had gained a definitive victory, and then the old Roman pride exhibited itself in their patriotic confidence. About A.D. 278, the emperor Probus, after gaining several victories in Gaul over the Franks, wrote to the senate:

I render thanks to the immortal gods, conscript fathers, for that they have confirmed your judgment as regards me. Germany is subdued throughout its whole extent; nine kings of different nations have come and cast themselves at my feet, or rather at yours, as suppliants with their foreheads in the dust. Already all those barbarians are tilling for you, sowing for you, and fighting for you against the most distant nations. Order ye, therefore, according to your custom, prayers of thanksgiving, for we have slain four thousand of the enemy; we have had offered to us sixteen thousand men ready armed; and we have wrested from the enemy the seventy most important towns. The Gauls, in fact, are completely delivered. The crowns offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I have submitted, conscript fathers, to your grace; dedicate ye them with your own hands to Jupiter, all-bountiful, all-powerful, and to the other immortal gods and goddesses.

Continued.

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