Chlodovech (Clovis)
First King of all the Franks
"The Franks were a loose grouping of heathen Germans tribes governed by many
princelings claiming descent from the house of the Merovings. They were famed
for their treachery and perjury. In spite of their long contact with Romans
along the Rhine and their employment in the Imperial army, they remained largely
uninfluenced by Roman culture or law. It was not until the reign of Chlodovech
(Clovis), 481-511, that they were combined under a single king. He succeeded
his father Childeric at the age of sixteen and almost at once began his life's work
by over-turning the Roman province of Soissons. He then turned on his fellow
Franks, and in a series of campaigns incorporated all except the kingdom of
Cologne into his own lands, slaying all of the royal line who fell into his
hands. He then attacked the Alamanni to the east of the Rhine; and later the
Burgundians to this south. In 507 he turned on the Visigoths under their young
king, Amalric, choosing as a cause their Arian persecution of their Catholic
subjects, to which faith he had meanwhile been
converted.
The Visigothic power in the south was only saved by the intervention of Theodoric the Ostrogoth,
grandfather of Amalric. Finally, Chlodovech seized the last surviving
independent Frankish kingdom, Cologne, having encouraged the old king's son to
revolt and murder his own father.
"Chlodovech was the only one of the great Teutonic founder-kings whose work was to
survive, and this was partly because he and his tribe after him were baptised
as Catholics and were therefore in religious sympathy with their Roman subjects,
unlike the Goths, Lombards, and Vandals, all of whom were Arians. Chlodovech's
personal prestige was strengthened in 508 by the gift of a diadem and robe from
the Emperor Anastasius, who hoped to make him his ally against the Ostrogoths
in Italy. This gave Chlodovech an appearance of legality in the eyes of his
Roman subjects."
A.V.B. Norman, The Medieval Soldier 8-9 (1993 Barnes & Noble, Inc.).
Richard R. Orsinger
rrichard@txdirect.net
Copyright © 1996 Richard R. Orsinger
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