Franks
or Karl dem Großen (
Charles the Great) in
Frankfurt]]\n \nThe
Franks formed one of several west
Germanic tribes who entered the late
Roman Empire from
Frisia as
foederati and established a lasting
realm in an area that covers part of today's
France, and
Germany (
Franconia), forming the historic kernel of both these two modern countries.
The Frankish realm underwent many partitions and repartitions, since the Franks divided their property among surviving sons, and lacking a broad sense of a
res publica, they conceived of the realm as a large extent of
private property. This practice explains in part the difficulty of describing precisely the dates and physical boundaries of any of the Frankish kingdoms and who ruled the various sections. The contraction of
literacy while the Franks ruled compounds the problem: they produced few written records. In essence however, two
dynasties of leaders succeeded each other, first the
Merovingians and then the
Carolingians.
The word
frank meant "free" in the
Frankish language. Freedom did not extend to women or to the population of
slaves that moved with the free Franks. Initially two main subdivisions existed within the Franks: the
Salian ("salty") and the
Ripuarian ("river") Franks. By the
9th century, if not earlier, this division had in practice become virtually non-existent, but continued for some time to have implications for the legal system under which a person could go on trial.
The earliest Franks
\n
\nThe earliest Frankish history remains relatively unclear. Our main source, the
Gallo-Roman chronicler
Gregory of Tours, whose
Historia Francorum (
History of the Franks) covers the period up to
594 C.E., quotes from otherwise lost sources like
Sulpicius Alexander and
Frigeridus and profits from personal contact with many Frankish notables known to Gregory personally. Apart from Gregory's
History there exist some earlier Roman sources, such as
Ammianus and
Sidonius Apollinaris
Modern scholars of the period of the migrationss have suggested that the Frankish people emerged from the unification of various earlier, smaller
Germanic groups inhabiting the
Rhine valley and lands immediately to the east, a social development perhaps related to the increasing disorder and upheaval experienced in the area as a result of the war between Rome and the
Marcomanni, which began in
166 C.E., and subsequent conflicts of the late
2nd century and the
3rd century. For his part, Gregory states that the Franks originally lived in
Pannonia, but later settled on the banks of the Rhine. A region in the northeast of the modern-day
Netherlands—north of the erstwhile Roman border—bears the name Salland, and may have received that name from the Salians.
Around
250, a group of Franks, taking advantage of a weakened Roman Empire, penetrated as far as
Tarragona in present-day
Spain, plaguing this region for about a decade before Roman forces subdued them and expelled them from Roman territory. About forty years later, the Franks had the
Scheldt region under control and interfered with the waterways to
Britain; Roman forces pacified the region, but did not expel the Franks.
Foundation of the Frankish kingdom
\nIn 355–
358, the later Emperor
Julian once again found the shipping lanes on the Rhine under control of the Franks and again pacified them. Rome granted a considerable part of
Gallia_Belgica to the Franks. From this time on they became
foederati of the Roman Empire. A region roughly corresponding to present-day
Flanders and the
Netherlands south of the rivers remains a Germanic-speaking region to this day. (The
West Germanic language known as Dutch predominates there now.) The Franks thus became the first Germanic people who permanently settled within Roman territory.
See this
external map.
From their heartland, the Franks gradually conquered most of Roman Gaul north of the
Loire valley and east of
Visigothic Aquitaine. At first they helped defend the border as allies; for example, when a major invasion of mostly East Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine in
406, the Franks fought against these invaders. The major thrust of the invasion passed south of the Loire river. (In the region of
Paris, Roman control persisted until
486, a decade after the fall of the emperors of
Ravenna, in part due to alliances with the Franks.)
The Merovingians
\nMain article: Merovingian.
The reigns of earlier Frankish chieftains—Pharamond (about
419 until about
427) and
Clodio (Chlodio) (about
427 until about
447)—seem to owe more to myth than fact, and their relationship to the
Merovingian line remains uncertain.
Gregory mentions
Chlodio as the first king who started the conquest of Gaul by taking Camaracum (today's
Cambrai) and expanding the border down to the
Somme. This probably took some time; Sidonius relates that
Aetius surprised the Franks and drove them back (probably around
431). This period marks the beginning of a situation that would endure for many centuries: the Germanic Franks became rulers over an increasing number of Gallo-Roman subjects.
In
451,
Aetius called upon his Germanic allies on Roman soil to help fight off an invasion by the
Huns. The Salian Franks answered the call, the Ripuarians fought on both sides as some of them lived outside the Empire. Gregory's sources tentatively identify
Merovech as king of the Franks and possibly a son of Chlodio.
Clovis engaged in a campaign of consolidating the various Frankish kingdoms in Gaul and the
Rhineland, which included defeating
Syagrius in
486. This victory ended Roman control in the Paris region.
In the
Battle of Vouillé (
507), Clovis, with the help of the
Burgundians, defeated the
Visigoths, expanding his realm eastwards down to the
Pyrenees mountains.
The conversion of Clovis to
Trinitarian Roman Christianity, after his marriage to the Catholic Burgundian princess
Clothilde in
493, may have helped to increase his standing in the eyes of the
Pope and the other orthodox Christian rulers. Clovis' conversion signalled the conversion of the rest of the Franks. Because they were able to worship with their Catholic neighbors, the newly-
Christianized Franks found much easier acceptance from the local Gallo-Roman population than did the
Arian Visigoths,
Vandals or
Burgundians. The
Merovingians thus built what eventually proved the most stable of the successor-kingdoms in the west.
Stability, however, did not feature day-to-day in the Merovingian era. While casual violence existed to a degree in late Roman times, the introduction of the Germanic practice of the blood-
feud to obtain personal justice led to a perception of increased lawlessness. Disruptions to trade occurred, and civic life became increasingly difficult, which led to an increasingly localized and fragmented society based on self-sufficient villas. Literacy practically disappeared outside of churches and monasteries.
The Merovingian chieftains adhered to the Germanic practice of dividing their lands among their sons, and the frequent division, reunification and redivision of territories often resulted in murder and warfare within the leading families. So though Clovis drove the Visigoths out of Gaul, at his death in
511, his four sons divided his realm between themselves, and over the next two centuries his descendants shared the kingship.
The Frankish area expanded further under Clovis' sons, eventually covering most of present-day France, but including areas east of the Rhine river as well, such as Alamannia (today's southwestern Germany) and
Thuringia (from
531).
Saxony, however, remained outside the Frankish realm until conquered by
Charlemagne centuries later.
After a temporary reunification of the separate kingdoms under
Clotaire I, the Frankish lands split once again in
561 into
Neustria,
Austrasia, and
Burgundy, which had been absorbed into the Frankish realms through a combination of political marriage and force of arms.
In each Frankish kingdom the
Mayor of the Palace served as the chief officer of state. From about the turn of the
8th century, the Austrasian Mayors tended to wield the real power in the kingdom, laying the foundation for a new dynasty: their descendants the
Carolingians.
The Carolingians
\nThe Carolingian kingship traditionally begins with the deposition of the last Merovingian king and the accession in
751 of
Pippin the Short, father of
Charlemagne. Pippin had succeeded his own father,
Charles Martel, as Mayor of the Palace of a reunited and re-erected Frankish kingdom comprised of the formerly independent parts.
Pippin reigned as an elected king. Although such elections happened infrequently, a general rule in Germanic law stated that the king relied on the support of his leading men. These men reserved the right to choose a new leader if they felt that the old one could not lead them in profitable battle. While in later France the kingdom became hereditary, the kings of the later
Holy Roman Empire proved unable to abolish the elective tradition and continued as elected rulers until the Empire's formal end in
1806.
Pippin solidified his position in
754 by entering into an alliance with
Pope Stephen III against the
Lombards; this papal support proved crucial to silencing any objections to his new position. Pippin donated the re-conquered areas around Rome to the Pope, laying the foundation for the
Papal States, of which only the
Vatican City remains today, and in turn received the title
patricius Romanorum (protector of the Romans).
Upon Pippin's death in
768, his sons, Charles and
Carloman, once again divided the kingdom between themselves. However, Carloman withdrew to a monastery and died shortly thereafter, leaving sole rule to his brother, who would later become known as
Charlemagne or Karl der Große (Charles the Great) and become an almost
mythical figure for the later history of both France and Germany.
From
772 onwards, Charles conquered and eventually defeated the
Saxons to incorporate their realm into the Frankish kingdom. This campaign expanded the practice of non-Roman Christian rulers undertaking the conversion of their neighbors by armed force; Frankish Catholic missionaries, along with others from
Ireland and
Anglo-Saxon England, had entered Saxon lands since the mid-
8th century, resulting in increasing conflict with the Saxons, who resisted the missionary efforts and parallel military incursions. Charles' main Saxon opponent,
Widukind, accepted baptism in
785 as part of a peace agreement, but other Saxon leaders continued to fight. Upon his victory in
787 at
Verden, Charles ordered the wholesale killing of thousands of
pagan Saxon prisoners. After several more uprisings, the Saxons suffered definitive defeat in
804. This expanded the Frankish kingdom eastwards as far as the
Elbe river, something the
Roman empire had only attempted once, and at which it failed in the
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (
9 AD). In order to more effectively christianize the Saxons, Charles founded several
bishoprics, among them
Bremen,
Münster,
Paderborn, and
Osnabrück.
At the same time (
773–
774), Charles conquered the
Lombards and thus could include northern Italy in his sphere of influence. He renewed the Vatican donation and the promise to the papacy of continued Frankish protection.
In
788, Tassilo,
dux (duke) of Bavaria rebelled against Charles. After the quashing of the rebellion, Bavaria became incorporated into Charles' kingdom. This not only added to the royal
fisc, but also drastically reduced the power and influence of the Agilolfings (Tassilo's family), another leading family among the Franks and potential rivals. Until
796, Charles continued to expand the kingdom even farther southeast, into today's
Austria and parts of
Croatia.
until
843 when a treaty split it amongst his grandsons: Central Franks ruled by
Lothar (green), East Franks ruled by
Louis the German (yellow), and
Charles the Bald led West Franks (purple).]]
Charles thus created a realm that spanned from the
Pyrenees in the southwest (actually, including an area in Northern Spain after 795) over almost all of today's France (except
Brittany, which the Franks never conquered) eastwards to most of today's Germany, including northern
Italy and today's
Austria.
On
December 23 and
December 24,
800,
Pope Leo III crowned Charles as
Emperor in Rome in a ceremony that formally acknowledged the Frankish Empire as the successor of the (Western) Roman one. The coronation gave the Empire the backing of the church, and gave permanent legitimacy to Carolingian primacy among the Franks. The
Ottonians later resurrected this connection in
962. In
812, the
Byzantine Emperor
Michael I Rhangabes acknowledged Charlemagne's position as co-Emperor.
Upon Charlemagne's death on
January 28,
814 in
Aachen, he was buried in his own
Palace Chapel at Aachen.
Charlemagne had several sons, but only one survived him. This son,
Louis the Pious, followed his father as the ruler of a united Empire. But sole inheritance remained a matter of chance, rather than intent. When Louis died in
840, the Carolingians adhered to the custom of partible inheritance, and the
Treaty of Verdun in
843 divided the Empire in three:
- Louis' eldest surviving son Lothair became Emperor and ruler of the Central Franks. His three sons in turn divided this kingdom between them into Lotharingia, Burgundy and (Northern) Italy. These areas would later vanish as separate kingdoms.\n# Louis' second son, Louis the German, became King of the East Franks. This area formed the kernel of the later Holy Roman Empire, which eventually evolved into modern Germany. For a list of successors, see the List of German Kings and Emperors.\n# His third son Charles the Bald became King of the West Franks; this area became the foundation for the later France. For his successors, see the List of French monarchs.
Legacy
\nAlthough an historical accident, the unification of most of what is now western and central Europe under one chief ruler provided a fertile ground for the continuation of what is known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Despite the almost constant internecine warfare the Carolingian Empire endured, the extension of Frankish rule and Roman Christianity over such a large area ensured a fundamental unity throughout the Empire. Each part of the Carolingian Empire developed differently; Frankish government and culture depended very much upon individual rulers and their aims. Those aims shifted as easily as the changing political alliances within the Frankish leading families. However, those families, the Carolingians included, all shared the same basic beliefs and ideas of government. These ideas and beliefs had their roots in a background that drew from both Roman and Germanic tradition, a tradition that began before the Carolingian ascent and continued to some extent even after the deaths of Louis the Pious and his sons.
When modern historians (from the late
18th century on) hearken back to an example of a unified
Europe, they turn to the Carolingian Empire, not to the Roman Empire. Whether the Carolingian Empire lasted (or, one could argue, ever really existed as an Empire
per se) in a geographical or political sense has no material bearing on this view. The model of several individual kingdoms (or
regna, to give them their proper names) under one rule clearly resonates today. One might argue that the divisions of Verdun still provide the general borders of Germany, France, and Italy, but one can scarcely suppose that they provide any clear cultural divide. They cannot divide the Germanic-Roman Christian legacy begun by the Carolingians.
Related articles
\n* List of Frankish Kings\n*
List of French monarchs\n*
List of German Kings and Emperors
Further reading
\n*Geary, Patrick J. Before France and Germany: the Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0195044584.
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