Franks
2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General history
The Franks or the Frankish people were one of several west Germanic federations. The confederation was formed out of Germanic tribes: Salians, Sicambri, Chamavi, Tencteri, Chattuarii, Bructeri, Usipetes, Ampsivarii, Chatti. They entered the late Roman Empire from present central Germany and the Southern Netherlands and settled in northern Gaul where they were accepted as a foederati and established a lasting realm (sometimes referred to as Francia) in an area which eventually covered most of modern-day France, the Low Countries, and the western regions of Germany ( Franconia, Rhineland, Hesse), forming the historic kernel of all these modern countries. The conversion to Christianity of the pagan Frankish king Clovis in the late 5th century was a crucial event in the history of Europe.
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 precisely describing 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 Merovingian kings claimed descent of their dynasty from the Sicambri, a Scythian or Cimmerian tribe, asserting that this tribe had changed their name to "Franks" in 11 BC, following their defeat and relocation by Drusus, under the leadership of a certain chieftain called Franko. The ethnonym has also been traced to a *frankon—"javelin, lance" ( Old English franca, compare the Saxons, named after the seax, and the Lombards, named after the battle-axe—the throwing axe of the Franks is known as the Francisca) but, conversely, the weapon may also have been named after the tribe.
The meaning of "free" (English frank, frankly) arose because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks had the status of freemen.
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.
Earliest records of the Franks
The 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, quotes from otherwise lost sources like Sulpicius Alexander and Frigeridus, and profits from Gregory's personal contact with many Frankish notables. Apart from Gregory's History, some surviving earlier Roman sources such as Ammianus and Sidonius Apollinaris mention the Franks.
Gregory states that the Franks originally lived in Pannonia, but later settled on the banks of the Rhine. Additional early sources likewise relate that the Franks migrated in prehistoric times from the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea, to the Rhine, where they adopted their name (circa. 11 BC) in honour of a hereditary chieftain called Franko – replacing the earlier tribal name Sicambri (or Sugambri) – said to be an offshoot of the Cimmerians or Scythians. This legend of a Scythian or Cimmerian background is thus consistent with the origin legends of nearly all other European nations as well.
Modern scholars of the period of the migrations are in agreement that the Frankish confederacy emerged at the beginning of the third century from the unification of various earlier,smaller Germanic groups, including the Sicambri, Usipetes, Tencterii, and Bructerii), who inhabited the Lower Rhine valley and lands immediately to the east. The confederacy was a social development perhaps accelerated by increasing upheaval in the area arising from the war between Rome and the Marcomanni beginning in 166, and subsequent conflicts of the late second century and the third century. A region in the northeast of the modern-day Netherlands – north of the erstwhile Roman border – still bears the name Salland, and may have received that name from the Salians, who formed the core of the Frankish sea raiders. Around 250, one 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, who were feared as pirates along the shores at least till Julian time, when some of them were settled in Toxandria according to a treaty with Roman authority. They began to press harder on the land route; they participated in the spectacular episode as Conspiratio Barbarica (367-369).
Since the very end of the second century, Franks appear in Roman textual and archeological sources as enemies and allies (laeti or dediticii) on Roman soil.
Language
The Old Frankish language spoken by the early Franks is not directly attested, but it left its imprint on many Old French and even Latin loanwords. It evolved into Old Low Franconian (also called Old Dutch) in the Low Countries from the 7th century and was replaced by Old French further south.
Frankish Empire
In 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 Dutch language predominates there, a direct descendant of Frankish) 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. One of their allies was Theodoricthe Ostrogoth. 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.
Merovingians
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 ( Cambrai) and expanding the border of frankish territory south to the Somme. This probably took some time; Sidonius relates that Aëtius 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, Aëtius called upon his Germanic allies on Roman soil to help fight off an invasion by Attila the Hun. 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 Meroveus (Merovech) as king of the Franks and possibly a son of Chlodio. Meroveus was succeeded by Childeric I, whose grave, rediscovered in 1653, contained a ring that identified him as king of the Franks.
The Merovingians themselves seemed to be lazy, and actually didn't rule at all. The real ruler behind the scenes was the current "Govenor of the Palace." This was the real ruler who took charge of the kingdom. The Merovingians were only kings by name, who enjoyed all the pleasure of being kings, but not the responsibility. In fact, the governers would even lead the Franks to war. The Merovingians were corrupt, and they fell to the next Frankish line, the Carolingians.
Carolingians
The Carolingian kingship traditionally begins with the deposition of the last Merovingian king, with papal assent, 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 "kingworthy" leader out of the ruling clan 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 II, who presented the king of the Franks a copy of the forged " Donation of Constantine" at Paris and in a magnificent ceremony at Saint-Denis anointed the king and his family and declared him patricius Romanorum ("protector of the Romans"). The following year Pippin fulfilled his promise to the pope and retrieved the Exarchate of Ravenna, recently fallen to the Lombards, and returned it, not to the Byzantine emperor again, but to the Papacy. Pippin donated the re-conquered areas around Rome to the Pope, laying the foundation for the Papal States in the " Donation of Pippin" which he laid on the tomb of St Peter. The papacy had good cause to expect that the remade Frankish monarchy would provide a deferential power base (potestas) in the creation of a new world order, centred on the Pope.
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 (Charles the Great), a powerful, intelligent, and modestly literate figure who became a legend for the later history of both France and Germany. Charlemagne restored an equal balance between emperor and pope.
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 neighbours by armed force; Frankish Christian 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 Verdun, 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. Quashing the rebellion incorporated Bavaria 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.
Charles thus created a realm that reached from the Pyrenees in the southwest (actually, including an area in Northern Spain ( Marca Hispanica) 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. In the hierarchy of the church, bishops and abbots looked to the patronage of the king's palace, where the sources of patronage and security lay. Charles had fully emerged as the leader of Western Christendom, and his patronage of monastic centres of learning gave rise to the " Carolingian Renaissance" of literate culture.
On Christmas Day, 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charles as " Emperor of the Romans" in Rome in a ceremony presented as if a surprise (Charlemagne did not wish to be indebted to the bishop of Rome), a further papal move in the series of symbolic gestures that had been defining the mutual roles of papal auctoritas and imperial potestas. Though Charlemagne, in deference to Byzantine outrage, preferred the title "Emperor, king of the Franks and Lombards", the ceremony formally acknowledged the Frankish Empire as the successor of the (Western) Roman one (although only the forged "Donation" gave the pope political authority to do this), thus triggering a series of disputes with the Byzantines around the Roman name. After an initial protest at the usurpation, in 812, the Byzantine Emperor Michael I Rhangabes acknowledged Charlemagne as co-Emperor. The coronation gave permanent legitimacy to Carolingian primacy among the Franks. The Ottonians later resurrected this connection in 962.
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 I 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.
- Louis' second son, Louis the German, became King of the East Franks. This area formed the kernel of the later Holy Roman Empire, the cradle of Germany. For a list of successors, see the List of German Kings and Emperors.
- 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.
On December 12, 884, Charles the Fat reunited most of the Carolingian Empire, aside from Burgundy. In late 887, his nephew, Arnulf of Carinthia revolted and assumed the title as King of the East Franks. Charles retired and soon died on January 13, 888. Odo, Count of Paris was chosen to rule in the west, and was crowned the next month. The Carolingians were 10 years later restored in France, and ruled until 987, when the last Frankish King, Louis V, died.
Carolingian legacy
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 that 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.
Crusaders and other Western Europeans as "Franks"
Because the Frankish kingdom dominated Western Europe for centuries, terms derived from "Frank" were used by many in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond as a synonym for Roman Christians (e.g., al-Faranj in Arabic, farangi in Persian, Feringhi in Hindustani, farang in Thai, and Frangos in Greek). During the crusades, which were at first led mostly by nobles from northern France who claimed descent from Charlemagne, both Muslims and Christians used these terms as ethnonyms to describe the Crusaders. This usage is often followed by modern historians, who call Western Europeans in the eastern Mediterranean "Franks" regardless of their country of origin. Compare with Rhomaios, Rûmi ("Roman"), used for Orthodox Christians. Catholics on various islands in Greece are still referred to as Φραγκοι, "Frangoi" (Franks). Examples include the naming of a Catholic from the Island of Syros as "Frangosyrianos" (Φραγκοσυριανος).