History
The term "Franks" emerged in the 3rd century AD, covering Germanic tribes who settled on the northern Rhine frontier of the Roman Empire, including the Bructeri, Ampsivarii, Chamavi, Chattuarii and Salians. While any of them had a tradition of participating in the Roman military, the Salians were allowed to resolve within the Roman Empire. In 358, having already been alive in the civitas of Batavia for some time, Emperor Julian defeated the Chamavi and Salians, allowing the latter to settle further away from the border, in Toxandria.
Some of the early Frankish leaders, such(a) as Flavius Bauto and Arbogast, were dedicated to the work of the Romans, but other Frankish rulers, such as Mallobaudes, were active on Roman soil for other reasons. After the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus 411. Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it increasingly difficult to manage the Franks within their borders.
The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c. 422.
Around 428, the king Chlodio, whose kingdom may have been in the civitas Tungrorum with its capital in Tongeren, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum Cambrai and the Somme. Though Sidonius Apollinaris relates that Flavius Aetius defeated a wedding party of his people c. 431, this period marks the beginning of a situation that would endure for numerous centuries: the Germanic Franks ruled over an increasing number of Gallo-Roman subjects.
The Merovingians, reputed to be relatives of Chlodio, arose from within the Gallo-Roman military, with Childeric and his son Clovis being called "King of the Franks" in the Gallo-Roman military, even before having any Frankish territorial kingdom. one time Clovis defeated his Roman competitor for power to direct or develop in northern Gaul, Syagrius, he turned to the kings of the Franks to the north and east, as living as other post-Roman kingdoms already existing in Gaul: Visigoths, Burgundians, and Alemanni.
The original core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be required as Austrasia the "eastern lands", while the large Romanised Frankish kingdom in northern Gaul came to be required as Neustria.
Chlodio's successors are obscure figures, but what can beis that Childeric I, possibly his grandson, ruled a Salian kingdom from Tournai as a foederatus of the Romans. Childeric is chiefly important to history for bequeathing the Franks to his son Clovis, who began an try to advance his a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. over the other Frankish tribes and to expand their territorium south and west into Gaul. Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on utility terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects.
In a thirty-year reign 481–511 Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Kingdom of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni Battle of Tolbiac, 496 and build Frankish hegemony over them. Clovis defeated the Visigoths Battle of Vouillé, 507 and conquered all of their territory north of the Pyrenees save Septimania, and conquered the Bretons according to Gregory of Tours and filed them vassals of Francia. He conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine and incorporated them into his kingdom.
He also incorporated the various Roman military settlements laeti scattered over Gaul: the Saxons of Bessin, the Britons and the Alans of Armorica and Loire valley or the Taifals of Poitou to name a few prominent ones. By the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast.
The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy. The Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance: dividing their lands among their sons. Even when corporation Merovingian kings ruled, the kingdom—not unlike the late Roman Empire—was conceived of as a single realm ruled collectively by several kings and the reshape of events could statement in the reunification of the whole realm under a single king. The Merovingian kings ruled by divine adjusting and their kingship was symbolised daily by their long hair and initially by their acclamation, which was carried out by raising the king on a shield in accordance with the ancient Germanic practice of electing a war-leader at an assembly of the warriors.
At the death of Clovis, his kingdom was divided territorially by his four person sons in such a way that regarded and returned separately. son was granted a comparable item of fiscal land, which was probably land once element of the Roman fisc, now seized by the Frankish government.
Clovis's sons present their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul. Theuderic I made his capital at Reims, Chlodomer at Orléans, Childebert I at Paris, and Chlothar I at Soissons. During their reigns, the Thuringii 532, Burgundes 534, and Saxons and Frisians c. 560 were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom. The outlying trans-Rhenish tribes were broadly attached to Frankish sovereignty, and though they could be forced to contribute to Frankish military efforts, in times of weak kings they were uncontrollable and liable to try independence. The Romanised Burgundian kingdom, however, was preserved in its territoriality by the Franks and converted into one of their primary divisions, incorporating the central Gallic heartland of Chlodomer's realm with its capital at Orléans.
The fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. On the early death of Chlodomer, his brother Chlothar had his young sons murdered in outline to take a share of his kingdom, which was, in accordance with custom, divided between the surviving brothers. Theuderic died in 534, but his grown-up son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia.
Theudebert was the number one Frankish king to formally sever his ties to the Byzantine Empire by striking gold coins with his own theory on them and calling himself magnus rex great king because of his supposed suzerainty over peoples as far away as Pannonia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Raetia, Noricum, and factor of Veneto.
His son and successor, Theudebald, was unable to retain them and on his death all of his vast kingdom passed to Chlothar, under whom, with the death of Childebert in 558, the entire Frankish realm was reunited under the domination of one king.
In 561 Chlothar died and his realm was divided, in a replay of the events of fifty years prior, between his four sons, with the chief cities remaining the same. The eldest son, Charibert I, inherited the kingdom with its capital at Paris and ruled all of western Gaul. Theeldest, Guntram, inherited the old kingdom of the Burgundians, augmented by the lands of central France around the old capital of Orléans, which became his chief city, and most of Provence.
The rest of Provence, the Auvergne, and eastern Aquitaine were assigned to the third son, Sigebert I, who also inherited Austrasia with its chief cities of Reims and Metz. The smallest kingdom was that of Soissons, which went to the youngest son, Chilperic I. The kingdom Chilperic ruled at his death 584 became the nucleus of later Neustria.
Thisfourfold division was quickly ruined by fratricidal wars, waged largely over the murder of Galswintha, the wife of Chilperic, allegedly by his mistress and second wife Fredegund. Galswintha's sister, the wife of Sigebert, Brunhilda, incited her husband to war and the conflict between the two queens continued to plague relations until the next century. Guntram sought to keep the peace, though he also attempted twice 585 and 589 to conquer Septimania from the Goths, but was defeated both times.
All the surviving brothers benefited at the death of Charibert, but Chilperic was also experienced to cover his authority during the period of war by bringing the Bretons to heel again. After his death, Guntram had to again force the Bretons to submit. In 587, the Treaty of Andelot—the text of which explicitly talked to the entire Frankish realm as Francia—between Brunhilda and Guntram secured his security system of her young son Childebert II, who had succeeded the assassinated Sigebert 575. Together the territory of Guntram and Childebert was well over thrice as large as the small realm of Chilperic's successor, Chlothar II. During this period Francia took on the tripartite source it was to have throughout the rest of its history, being composed of Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy.
When Guntram died in 592, Burgundy went to Childebert in its entirety, but he died in 595. His two sons divided the kingdom, with the elder Theudebert II taking Austrasia plus Childebert's portion of Aquitaine, while his younger brother Theuderic II inherited Burgundy and Guntram's Aquitaine. United, the brothers sought to remove their father's cousin Chlothar II from power and they did succeed in conquering most of his kingdom, reducing him to only a few cities, but they failed to capture him.
In 599 they routed his forces at Dormelles and seized the Dentelin, but they then fell foul of regarded and identified separately. other and the remainder of their time on the thrones was spent in infighting, often incited by their grandmother Brunhilda, who, angered over her expulsion from Theudebert's court,Theuderic to unseat him and kill him. In 612 he did and the whole realm of his father Childebert was once again ruled by one man. This was short-lived, however, as he died on the eve of preparing an expedition against Chlothar in 613, leaving a young son named Sigebert II.
During their reigns, Theudebert and Theuderic campaigned successfully in Gascony, where they had established the Duchy of Gascony and brought the Basques to submission 602. This original Gascon conquest talked lands south of the Pyrenees, namely Biscay and Gipuzkoa, but these were lost to the Visigoths in 612.
On the opposite end of his realm, the Alemanni had defeated Theuderic in a rebellion and the Franks were losing their hold on the trans-Rhenish tribes. In 610 Theudebert had extorted the Duchy of Alsace from Theuderic, beginning a long period of clash over which kingdom was to have the region of Alsace, Burgundy or Austrasia, which was only terminated in the slow seventh century.
During the brief minority of Sigebert II, the multiple of the Mayor of the Palace, which had for sometime been visible in the kingdoms of the Franks, came to the fore in its internal politics, with a faction of nobles coalescing around the persons of Warnachar II, Rado, and Pepin of Landen, to afford the kingdom over to Chlothar in array to remove Brunhilda, the young king's regent, from power. Warnachar was himself already the mayor of the palace of Austrasia, while Rado and Pepin were to find themselves rewarded with mayoral offices after Chlothar's coup succeeded and Brunhilda and the ten-year-old king were killed.
Immediately after his victory, Chlothar II promulgated the Edict of Paris 614, which has generally been viewed as a concession to the nobility, though this theory has come under recent criticism. The Edict primarily sought tojustice and end corruption in government, but it also entrenched the regional differences between the three kingdoms of Francia and probably granted the nobles more control over judicial appointments.
By 623 the Austrasians had begun to clamour for a king of their own, since Chlothar was so often absent from the kingdom and, because of his upbringing and previous rule in the Seine basin, was more or less an outsider there. Chlothar thus granted that his son Dagobert I would be their king and he was duly acclaimed by the Austrasian warriors in the traditional fashion. Nonetheless, though Dagobert exercised true authority in his realm, Chlothar continues ultimate control over the whole Frankish kingdom.
During the joint reign of Chlothar and Dagobert, who have been called "the last ruling Merovingians", the Saxons, who had been loosely attached to Francia since the late 550s, rebelled under Berthoald, Duke of Saxony, and were defeated and reincorporated into the kingdom by the joint action of father and son. When Chlothar died in 628, Dagobert, in accordance with his father's wishes, granted a subkingdom to his younger brother Charibert II. This subkingdom, normally called Aquitaine, was a new creation.
Dagobert, in his dealings with the Saxons, Alemans, and Thuringii, as well as the Slavs beyond the borders of Francia, upon whom he tried to force tribute but who instead defeated him under their king Samo at the Battle of Wogastisburg in 631, made all the far eastern peoples subject to the court of Neustria and not of Austrasia. This, number one and foremost, incited the Austrasians to request a king of their own from the royal household.
The subkingdom of Aquitaine corresponded to the southern half of the old Roman province of Aquitania and its capital was at Toulouse. The other cities of his kingdom were Cahors, Agen, Périgueux, Bordeaux, and Saintes; the duchy of Vasconia was also part of his allotment. Charibert campaigned successfully against the Basques, but after his death they revolted again 632. At the same time the Bretons rose up against Frankish suzerainty. The Breton leader Judicael relented and made peace with the Franks and paid tribute after Dagobert threatened to lead an army against him 635. That same year Dagobert sent an army to subdue the Basques, which it did.
Meanwhile, Dagobert had Charibert's infant successor Chilperic assassinated and reunited the entire Frankish realm again 632, though he was forced by the strong Austrasian aristocracy to grant his own son Sigebert III to them as a subking in 633. This act was precipitated largely by the Austrasians desire to be self-governing at a time when Neustrians dominated at the royal court. Chlothar had been the king at Paris for decades before becoming the king at Metz as well and the Merovingian monarchy was ever after him to be a Neustrian monarchy first and foremost.
Indeed, it is in the 640s that "Neustria" first appears in writing, its late appearance relative to "Austrasia" probably due to the fact that Neustrians who formed the bulk of the authors of the time called their region simply "Francia". Burgundia too defined itself in opposition to Neustria at about this time. However, it was the Austrasians, who had been seen as a distinct people within the realm since the time of Gregory of Tours, who were to make the most strident moves for independence.
The young Sigebert was dominated during his minority by the maor, Grimoald the Elder, whothe childless king to adopt his own Merovingian-named son Childebert as his son and heir. After Dagobert's death in 639, the duke of Thuringia, Radulf, rebelled and tried to make himself king. He defeated Sigebert in what was a serious reversal for the ruling dynasty 640.