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The Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum) were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as occupying land on the Lower and Middle Rhine. In the 3rd century some Franks raided Roman territory, while others joined the Roman troops in Gaul. The Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the Romans after 357. After the collapse of imperial authority in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians. During the 6th century they succeeded in conquering most of Gaul.

The Merovingian dynasty, descended from the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of western Europe by the end of the eighth century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

In the Middle Ages the term Frank was used in the East as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of western Europe.123



A 19th-century depiction of different Franks (AD 400-600)

The name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts and Suebi the Franks must have seemed alike: they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known and within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the original tribes. The older tribal names have sometimes survived in place-names: Hesse originates from the Chatti tribe.

Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm,4 the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English.5 The word has a range of meanings, all of which have been proposed at one time as the basis for the name Frank. One theory suggests that the meaning of 'free' was adopted because after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.6 Other theories propose that Frank comes from the Germanic word for 'javelin' (such as in Old English franca and Old Norse frakka): the Latin word francisca ('throwing axe') may have been named after the tribe. Words in other Germanic languages meaning 'bold' or 'fierce' (Middle Dutch vrac, Old English frǣc and Old Norwegian frakkr) may be significant.7 Eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures:89 Ubi nunc est illa ferocia? Ubi semper insida mobilitas? ("Where now is that famed ferocity of yours, that ever untrustworthy fickleness?"). Feroces was used often to describe the Franks.10

Contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. A formulary written by Marculf in around 700 described a continuation of national identities within a mixed population when it stated that "all the peoples who dwell [in the official's province], Franks, Romans, Burgundians, and those of other nations, live... ...according to their law and their custom."11 Writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that "the word 'Frankish' quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the Loire everyone seems to have been considered a Frank by the mid-seventh century at the latest; Romani were essentially the inhabitants of Aquitaine after that".12

Mythological origins

The two earliest sources that describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar and the anonymous Liber Historiae Francorum, written a century later. Neither of these works is accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum, which was written in the 6th century.

The author of the Chronicle of Fredegar claimed that the Franks came originally from Troy and quoted the works of Vergil and Hieronymous, but the Franks are not mentioned in those works, except in a general way by Hieronymous.13 The chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy. In Macedonia the Franks then divided. The European Franks reached Francia under 'King Francio', just as Romulus went to Rome. Another branch, under 'King Turchot' became the Turks. Fredegar stated that Theudemer, named king of the Franks by Gregory, was descended from Priam, Friga and Francio.

Another work, the Gesta, is nowadays acknowledged by serious scholars as a fantasy. Its author described how twelve thousand Trojans, led by Priam and Antenor, sailed from Troy to the River Don River (Russia) and (with a total disregard of geography) to Pannonia (which is on the Danube), settling there near the Sea of Azov. There they founded a city called 'Sicambria'. The Trojans joined the Roman army in accomplishing the task of driving their enemies into the marshes of Maetosis, for which they received the name of Franks (meaning 'savage'). A decade later the Romans killed Priam and drove Marcomer and Sunno, the sons of Priam and Antenor, and the other Franks away.


Early history

The appearance of the Franks, according to Sidonius Apollinaris (5th century)

"Their eyes are faint and pale, with a glimmer of greyish blue. Their faces are shaven all round, and instead of beards they have thin moustaches which they run through with a comb. Close fitting garments confine the tall limbs of the men, they are drawn up high so as to expose the knees, and a broad belt supports their narrow middle."

The major primary sources on the early Franks include Panegyrici Latini, Ammianus Marcellinus, Claudian, Zosimus, Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours. The Franks are first mentioned in the Augustan History, a collection of biographies of the Roman emperors. The Life of Aurelian, which was possibly written by Vopiscus, mentions that in 328, Frankish raiders (possibly Ripuarians) were captured by the 6th Legion stationed at Mainz. As a result of this incident, seven hundred Franks were killed and three hundred were sold into slavery.1516 Frankish incursions over the Rhine became so frequent that the Romans began to settle the Franks on their borders in order to control them. In 292 Constantius defeated the Franks who had settled at the mouth of the Rhine. These were moved to the nearby region of Toxandria.17 Eumenius mentions Constantius as having "killed, expelled, captured, [and] kidnapped" the Franks that had settled there and other that had crossed the Rhine, using the term nationes Franciae for the first time.

Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana, showing Francia at the top

The Salians, who eventually became the Merovingians, were first mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus, who described Julian's defeat of "the first Franks of all, those whom custom has called the Salians," in 358.1819 He promoted them to the status of foederati within the Empire.20 The 5th century Notitia Dignitatum lists their soldiers as Salii. Jordanes, in Getica and mentions the Riparii as auxiliaries of Flavius Aetius during the Battle of Châlons in 451: "Hi enim affuerunt auxiliares: Franci, Sarmatae, Armoriciani, Liticiani, Burgundiones, Saxones, Riparii, Olibriones ..." 21 The Riparii may not have been the Ripuarian Franks, as they do not appear for certain under that name until their final subjugation by Clovis I.

The Franks are mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana, a chart of the itineraries along Roman roads. It is a 13th-century copy of a 4th- or 5th-century document that reflects information from the 3rd century. The Romans knew the shape of Europe, but their knowledge is not evident from the map, which was only a practical guide to the roads, to be followed from point to point. In the middle Rhine region of the map, the word Francia is close to a misspelling of Bructeri. Beyond Mainz is Suevia, the country of the Suebi, and beyond that is Alamannia, the country of the Alamanni. Four tribes at the mouth of the Rhine are depicted: the Chauci, the Amsivarii ('Ems dwellers'), the Cherusci and the Chamavi, followed by qui et Pranci ('who are also Franks'). The tabula was probably based on the Orbis Pictus, a map of twenty years' labour commissioned by Augustus and then kept by the Roman's treasury department for the assessment of taxes. It did not survive as such. Information about the imperial divisions of Gaul probably derives from it.

Ptolemy's two maps of Germany portrayed Germania Inferior on the left bank of the Rhine, which was populated by Germanics, including those who had occupied the region before the Romans, and Magna Germania on the other side of the river, which acted as the Roman frontier. Tensions between the empire and the Franks existed because of this artificial division: the Franks saw no reason why they should be kept from settling on either side of the river and eventually they convinced the emperors to allow this to happen. The topography of the mouth of the Rhine was even more troubling: the Rhine divided far inland into a fan of outlets, in which there was a significant settlement area, the island of Batavia. The Romans diverted the Rhine into the Yssel through a canal, which emptied into an inland lagoon. After the construction of the canal Batavia was left under Roman jurisdiction, although it was settled by Germanics. The Roman naval base on the canal, Navalia, appears in Ptolemy's map of Germania Magna; Batavia, on the map of Germania Inferior.

Ptolemy's maps reflect generally the same tribal names as the Tabula Peutingeriana, except that the tabula does not mention the Sicambri. This difference suggests that in the few decades between the Ptolemaic map and the tabula, the Sicambri were absorbed by the Franks.


Approximate location of the original Frankish tribes in the 3rd century

According to the ancient writers, the Franks emerged at the first half of the 3rd century from a number earlier, smaller Germanic groups: the Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chatti, Chattuarii, Ampsivarii, Tencteri and the Ubii, who inhabited the Rhine valley from the Yssel (which flows from the Rhine) between Lacus Flevo, (now the Zuider Zee) and Mainz. The Romans held Lacus Flevo and all the marsh and riverland to the south. The Frankish confederation probably began to coalesce in the 210s, north of the Roman province called Germania Inferior ('Lower Germany'), which had been settled earlier by Celticised Germanic immigrants, known to Julius Caesar as the Belgae. Along the Rhine itself were a number of cities, the interface between Roman and Germanic civilization. Germanics who settled south of the Rhine without Roman authority were punished.

The Franks were interested in reoccupying the left bank of the Rhine, which the Romans prevented them from doing, and in marauding the Romans to the south by land or by sea, which they accomplished by the tactic of forced marches and surprise attacks. During the 3rd century, the Franks attempted to appropriate Batavia to the south of Lacus Flevo. This time the Romans allowed them to stay, settling them in Toxandria (near modern Antwerp), where they became an independent maritime power known as the Salians, or 'maritime people'. Other Franks, from Mainz to Duisburg, raided across the Rhine and at some point acquired the name Ripuarians, or 'river people'. Both groups remained politically distinct until Clovis, a Salian and a member of the Merovingian dynasty, unified Francia.


The Franks were described in Roman texts both as allies (laeti) and enemies (dediticii). Around 250, one group of Franks penetrated as far as Tarragona in present-day Spain, where they plagued the region for about a decade before they were subdued and expelled by the Romans. In 287 or 288, the Roman Caesar Maximian forced the Salian leader Genobaud and his people to surrender without a fight. Maximian then forced the Salians in Toxandria (the present Low Countries) to accept imperial authority, but was not able to follow on this success by reconquering Britain.

Some decades later, the Salian Franks controlled the River Scheldt and were disrupting transport links to Britain in the English Channel. Although Roman forces managed to pacifiy them, they failed to expel the Franks, who continued to be feared as pirates at least until 358, when, according to the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, Julian the Apostate allowed the Franks to settle as foederati in Toxandria.22 By the end of the fifth century, the Salian Franks had largely moved to a territory (what is now the Netherlands south of the Rhine and Belgium where they formed a kingdom that eventually gave rise to the Merovingian dynasty.23

Merovingian kingdom (481–751)

A 6th-7th century necklace of glass and ceramic beads with a central amethyst bead. Similar necklaces have been found in the graves of Frankish women in the Rhineland.
A 6th century bow fibula found in northeastern France and the Rhineland. They were worn by Frankish noblewomen in pairs at the shoulder or as belt ornaments.

Numerous small Frankish kingdoms existed during the 5th century, among them the ones in Cologne, Tournai, Le Mans and Cambrai. The kingdom of Tournai eventually came to dominate its neighbours, probably because of its association with Aegidius, the magister militum of northern Gaul. A Frankish king, Childeric I, fought with Aegidius in 463: historians have assumed that Childeric and his son Clovis I were both commanders of the Roman military in the Province of Belgica Secunda and were subordinate to the magister militum.

Clovis later turned against the Roman commanders, defeated Syagrius in 486 or 487 and then had the Frankish king Chararic imprisoned and executed. A few years later, he killed Ragnachar, the Frankish king of Cambrai, and his brothers. By the 490s, he had conquered all the Frankish kingdoms to the west of the River Maas except for the Ripuarian Franks and was in a position to make the city of Paris his capital. He became the first king of all Franks in 509, after he had conquered Cologne. After conquering the Kingdom of Soissons and expelling the Visigoths from southern Gaul at the Battle of Vouillé, he established Frankish hegemony over most of Gaul, excluding Burgundy, Provence and Brittany, which were eventually absorbed by his successors.

Clovis I divided his realm between his four sons, who united to defeat Burgundy in 534. Internecine feuding occurred during the reigns of the brothers Sigebert I and Chilperic I, which was largely fuelled by the rivalry of their queens, Brunhilda and Fredegunda and which continued during the reigns of their sons and their grandsons. Three distinct subkingdoms emerged: Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy, each of which developed independently and sought to exert influence over the others. The influence of the Arnulfing clan of Austrasia ensured that the centre of political gravity in the kingdom gradually shifted eastwards to the Rhineland.

The Frankish realm was reunited in 613 by Chlothar II, the son of Chilperic, who granted his nobles the Edict of Paris in an effort reduce corruption and reassert his authority. Following the military successes of his son and successor Dagobert I, royal authority rapidly declined under a series of kings, traditionally known as les rois fainéants. After the Battle of Tertry in 687, each mayor of the palace, who had formerly been the king's chief household official, effectively held power until in 751, with the approval of the Pope and the nobility, Pepin the Short deposed the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, and had himself crowned. This inaugurated a new dynasty, the Carolingians.

Carolingian empire (751–843)

The unification achieved by the Merovingians ensured the continuation of what has become known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The Carolingian Empire was beset by internicine warfare, but the combination of Frankish rule and Roman Christianity ensured that it was fundamentally united. Frankish government and culture depended very much upon each ruler and his aims and so each region of the empire developed differently. Although a ruler's aims depended upon the political alliances of his family, the leading families of Francia shared the same basic beliefs and ideas of government, which had both Roman and Germanic roots.citation needed

The sons of Louis the Pious fought a civil war after Louis' death, which ended when the Frankish lands were divided between them. Charles the Bald was given 'West Francia', which would later become France, Louis the German received the eastern lands, which would later become Germany, and Lothair I was given 'Middle Francia', which consisted of Lotharingia, Provence and northern Italy. Middle Francia was not united, and by the next generation it had disintegrated into smaller lordships, which West Francia and East Francia fought for control over.citation needed


Participation in the Roman army

Germanic peoples, including those tribes in the Rhine delta that later became the Franks, are known to have served in the Roman army since the days of Julius Caesar. After the Roman administration collapsed in Gaul in the 260s, the armies under the Germanic Batavian Postumus revolted and proclaimed him emperor and then restored order. From then on Germanic soldiers in the Roman army, most notably Franks, were promoted from the ranks. A few decades later, the Menapian Carausius created a Batavian-British rump state on Roman soil that was supported by Frankish soldiers and raiders. Frankish soldiers such as Magnentius, Silvanus and Arbitio held command positions in the Roman army during the mid 4th century. From the narrative of Ammianus Marcellinus it is evident that both Frankish and Alamannic tribal armies were organised along Roman lines.

After the invasion of Chlodio, the Roman armies at the Rhine border became a Frankish 'franchise' and Franks were known to levy Roman-like troops that were supported by a Roman-like armour and weapons industry. This lasted at least till the days of the scholar Procopius (c. AD 500 – c. AD 565), more than a century after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, who wrote describing the former Rhine army as still in operation with 'legions' of the style of their forefathers during Roman times.

The Franks under the Merovingians melded Germanic custom with Romanized organisation and several important tactical innovations. Before their conquest of Gaul, the Franks fought primarily as a tribe, unless they were part of a Roman military unit fighting in conjunction with other imperial units.

Military practices of the early Franks

The weapons of a 5th-6th century Frankish warrior

The primary sources for Frankish military custom and armament are Ammianus Marcellinus, Agathias, and Procopius, the latter two Eastern Roman historians writing about Frankish intervention in the Gothic War.

Writing of 539, Procopius says:

At this time the Franks, hearing that both the Goths and Romans had suffered severely by the war ... forgetting for the moment their oaths and treaties ... (for this nation in matters of trust is the most treacherous in the world), they straightway gathered to the number of one hundred thousand under the leadership of Theudebert I and marched into Italy: they had a small body of cavalry about their leader, and these were the only ones armed with spears, while all the rest were foot soldiers having neither bows nor spears, but each man carried a sword and shield and one axe. Now the iron head of this weapon was thick and exceedingly sharp on both sides, while the wooden handle was very short. And they are accustomed always to throw these axes at a signal in the first charge and thus to shatter the shields of the enemy and kill the men.24

His contemporary, Agathias, says:

The military equipment of this people [the Franks] is very simple .... They do not know the use of the coat of mail or greaves and the majority leave the head uncovered, only a few wear the helmet. They have their chests bare and backs naked to the loins, they cover their thighs with either leather or linen. They do not serve on horseback except in very rare cases. Fighting on foot is both habitual and a national custom and they are proficient in this. At the hip they wear a sword and on the left side their shield is attached. They have neither bows nor slings, no missile weapons except the double edged axe and the angon which they use most often. The angons are spears which are neither very short nor very long they can be used, if necessary, for throwing like a javelin, and also in hand to hand combat.25

While the above quotations have been used as a statement of the military practices of the Frankish nation in the sixth century and have even been extrapolated to the entire period preceding Charles Martel's reforms (early–mid eighth century), post-Second World War historiography has emphasised the inherited Roman characteristics of the Frankish military from the date of the beginning of the conquest of Gaul. The Byzantine authors present several contradictions and difficulties. Procopius denies the Franks the use of the spear while Agathias makes it one of their primary weapons. They agree that the Franks were primarily infantrymen, threw axes, and carried a sword and shield. Both writers also contradict the authority of Gallic authors of the same general time period (Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours) and the archaeological evidence. The Lex Ribuaria, the early 7th-century legal code of the Rhineland or Ripuarian Franks, specifies the values of various goods when paying a wergild in kind; whereas a spear and shield were worth only two solidi, a sword and scabbard were valued at seven, a helmet at six, and a "metal tunic" at twelve.26 Scramasaxes and arrowheads are numerous in Frankish graves even though the Byzantine historians do not assign them to the Franks.

The frontispiece of Gregory's Historia Francorum

The evidence of Gregory and of the Lex Salica implies that the early Franks were a cavalry people. In fact, some modern historians have hypothesised that the Franks possessed so numerous a body of horses that they could use them to plough fields and thus were agriculturally technologically advanced over their neighbours. The Lex Ribuaria specifies that a mare's value was the same as that of an ox or of a shield and spear, two solidi, and a stallion seven or the same as a sword and scabbard,26 which suggests that horses were relatively common. Perhaps the Byzantine writers considered the Frankish horse to be insignificant relative to the Greek cavalry, which is probably accurate.27

Merovingian military

Composition and development

The Frankish military establishment incorporated many of the pre-existing Roman institutions in Gaul, especially during and after the conquests of Clovis I in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. Frankish military strategy revolved around the holding and taking of fortified centres (castra) and in general these centres were held by garrisons of milities or laeti, who were former Roman mercenaries of Germanic origin. Throughout Gaul the descendants of Roman soldiers continued to wear their uniforms and perform their ceremonial duties.

Immediately beneath the Frankish king in the military hierarchy were the leudes, his sworn followers, who were generally 'old soldiers' in service away from court.28 Some historianswho? have gone to the length of relating their oath-making to the later development of feudalism. The king had an elite bodyguard called the truste. Members of the truste often served in centannae, garrison settlements that were established for military and police purposes. The day-to-day bodyguard of the king was made up antrustiones (senior soldiers who were aristocrats in military service) and pueri (junior soldiers and not aristocrats).29 All high-ranking men had pueri.

The Frankish military was not composed solely of Franks and Gallo-Romans, but also contained Saxons, Alans, Taifals, and Alemanni. After the conquest of Burgundy (534) the well-organised military institutions of that kingdom were integrated into the Frankish realm. Chief among these was the standing army under the command of the Patrician of Burgundy.

In the late sixth century, during the wars instigated by Fredegund and Brunhilda, the Merovingian monarchs introduced a new element into their militaries: the local levy. A levy consisted in all the able-bodied men of a district who at the call had to report for military service. The local levy applied only to a city and its environs. Initially only in certain cities in western Gaul, in Neustria and Aquitaine, did the kings possess the right or power to call up the levy. The commanders of the local levies were always different from the commanders of the urban garrisons. Often the former were commanded by the counts of the districts. A much rarer occurrence was the general levy, which applied to the entire kingdom and included peasants (pauperes and inferiores). General levies could also be made within the still-pagan trans-Rhenish stem duchies at the bequest of a monarch. The Saxons, Alemanni, and Thuringii all had the levy and it could be depended upon by the Frankish monarchs until the mid-seventh century, when the stem dukes began to sever their ties to the monarchy. Radulf of Thuringia called up the levy for a war against Sigebert III in 640.

Soon the local levy spread to Austrasia and the less Romanised regions of Gaul. On an intermediate level, the kings began calling up territorial levies from the regions of Austrasia (which did not have major cities of Roman origin). However, all the forms of the levy gradually disappeared in the course of the seventh century after the reign of Dagobert I. Under the so-called rois fainéants, the levies disappeared by mid-century in Austrasia and later in Burgundy and Neustria. Only in Aquitaine, which was fast becoming independent of the central Frankish monarchy, did complex military institutions persist into the eighth century. In the final half of the seventh century and first half of the eighth in Merovingian Gaul, the chief military actors became the lay and ecclesiastical magnates with their bands of armed followers called retainers. The other aspects of the Merovingian military, mostly Roman in origin or innovations of powerful kings, disappeared from the scene by the eighth century.

Strategy, tactics and equipment

Merovingian armies used coats of mail, helmets, shields, lances, swords, bows and arrows, and war horses. The armamant of private armies resembled those of the Gallo-Roman potentiatores of the late Empire. A strong element of Alanic cavalry settled in Armorica influenced the fighting style of the Bretons down into the 12th century. Local urban levies could be reasonably well-armed and even mounted, but the more general levies were composed of pauperes and inferiores who were mostly farmers by trade and carried ineffective weapons such as farming implements. The peoples east of the Rhine – Franks, Saxons, and even Wends – who were sometimes called upon to serve wore rudimentary armour and carried weapons such as spears and axes. Few of these men were mounted.citation needed

Merovingian society had a militarised nature. The Franks called annual meetings every Marchfeld (1 March), when the king and his nobles assembled in large open fields and determined their targets for the next campaigning season. The meetings were a show of strength on behalf of the monarch and a way for him to retain loyalty among his troops.30 In their civil wars with one another, the Merovingian kings concentrated on the holding of fortified places and the use of siege engines. In wars waged against external foes, the objective was typically the acquisition of booty or the enforcement of tribute. Only in the lands beyond the Rhine did the Merovingians seek to extend political control over their neighbours.

Tactically, the Merovingians borrowed heavily from the Romans, especially regarding siege warfare. Their battle tactics were highly flexible and were designed to meet the specific circumstances of a battle. The tactic of subterfuge was employed endlessly. Cavalry formed a large segment of an army, but troops readily dismounted to fight on foot. The Merovingians were capable of raising naval forces: the naval campaign waged against the Danes by Theuderic I in 515 involved ocean-worthy ships and rivercraft were used on the Loire, Rhone, and Rhine.


Language and literature

Frankish socio-political unity began with a confederation of tribes on the Lower and Middle Rhine, whom the Romans called 'Franci', and possibly ended with the Treaty of Verdun in 843. The treaty marked the recognition by Charlemagne's descendants that Francia no longer existed as a united country and that its former unity could not be restored. Francia was then divided into eastern and western Frankish kingdoms, with an intermediate zone, Lotharingia. The Holy Roman Empire continued as predominantly German, while the western Franks populated the predominantly Gallo-Roman nation of France and the mixed duchies of the Lowlands. Over around a thousand years of socio-political unity, with the exception of the first few centuries, no common Frankish language existed.citation needed


When the Franks first appeared as such in the 3rd century, they spoke the same language, Proto-Germanic. This has been reconstructed from Germanic reflex languages, chance personal and place names in documents, words from languages such as Latin and inscriptions in a native script called the Elder Futhark. Late Proto-Germanic would have included a number of dialects, one of which must have been Frankish. By the 5th century, phonetic developments of Futhark indicate that West Germanic - which included the Frankish dialect - was briefly distinct from East Germanic, but not from North Germanic.

By the 6th century, the Franks no longer spoke the same language. A phonetic change known as the High German consonant shift occurred along an east-west zone (now termed the Benrath Line) created Low German to the west and High German to the east, with an area, approximately equal to the Rhineland, serving as a middle zone. These changes reached beyond the Franks; the coastal Germanics living as far as the Baltic Sea spoke Low German, while High German prevailed up to the borders of the Slavic states in the east.

The Franks are considered to be the descendants of the original Rhinelanders who spoke a single language. After the 6th century, two modern languages developed, German (where the consonant shift occurred) and Dutch (where the consonant shift remained absent). At the end of the Proto-Germanic period, the language must have been divided into dialects, including Frankish, or Franconian, as well as the predecessors of Frisian and Saxon. These dialects persisted through the evolution of German and Dutch.

Analogous to the split between High and Low German is High Frankish and Low Frankish.31 Low Frankish, or Dietsch, is not identical to Dutch, which is subdivided into dialects. The Franks incorporated some of Friesland and Saxony into the Netherlands, who learned Dutch in their own way. High Frankish comprised several dialects: Ripuarian, Moselle-Franconian, Rhine-Franconian, East-Franconian and South-Franconian, Lorrainian and Luxembourgish.32 all of which mark the locations of formerly Frankish elements of the population.

The phases of the complete languages have analogous counterparts among the Frankish dialects as well. Old High German contains a dialect, Old High Franconian (Old East Franconian). Old Dutch is the same as Old Low Franconian; Old Low German comprises also Old Frisian and Old Saxon. The later phases of Frankish civilization expressed themselves through Old Frankish, the dialect analog of Old High German and Old Dutch. It includes Old High and Old Low Franconian dialects.

The Old Frankish phase; that is to say, Old High German and Old Dutch, ran from approximately the late 5th to approximately the 11th centuries of the Christian era. After them a Middle Franconian is defined but the Frankish identity as a social and political force had been submerged in French, Dutch and German. Some few writers consider the Old period to extend earlier to the Proto-Germanics but this usage is inconsistent with the naming conventions of Frankish. The linguists define Proto-Frankish, analogous to Proto-Germanic, as follows:33

"The Frankish dialects have a clear and separate identity as a consequence of exclusively shared common innovations.... And these innovations in turn reflect a period of exclusively shared common prehistory during which the dialects were in contact only with each other, so that innovations spread only through these dialects."

Modern French began as the language of the province of Neustria in northern France, which was created by the Franks after the Roman administration departed from northern Gaul. The language originally had been Gallo-Roman, but as the Franks gradually settled there it evolved into Old French. The main theory concerning the generation of Old French is that the Franks imposed much of their vocabulary and other mainly phonetic features on Gallo-Roman. The language of the Franks assimilated to Gallo-Roman: the extent to which Gallo-Roman was influenced by Frankish and what Frankish features were adopted have long been questions of scholarly debate.34


The Franks, being situated on and within the border of Roman Gaul, and across the channel from Roman Britain, were the most educated, most literate and most literarily prolific of all the Germanics of the Old High German and Old Dutch language phases. The first Germanic cities were located in their territory. Many Franks were high officers in the Roman administration, for which positions a Roman literary education was a prerequisite. Frankish troops guarded the Roman frontier from Britain to the Middle East.

Thousands of documents have been discovered within Frankish territory in several scripts and media, from tombstones to laws recorded on parchment. Their writers are by far the major sources of medieval European history outside the Gallo-Roman world. It is surprising therefore that very few of these documents were written in Frankish dialects. Old Frankish was very nearly an entirely verbal means of communication, as far as can be judged from the surviving writings. For more formal communications of any kind the Franks used the lingua franca, Medieval Latin. To be educated was to know Latin. As an administrative language it was indispensable. Monarchs prided themselves in their ability to communicate via Latin, especially to emissaries and rulers of foreign nations. Latin served in place of translation; with it all educated and administrative Europe spoke the same language.

There is no surviving work of literature in the Frankish language and perhaps no such works ever existed. Latin was the written language of Gaul before and during the Frankish period (e.g. Salic law). Of the Gallic works which survive, there are a few chronicles, many hagiographies and saints' lives, and a small corpus of poems.

Art and architecture

The pinnacle of Carolingian architecture: the palatine chapel at Aachen, Germany.

Early Frankish art and architecture belongs to a phase known as Migration Period art, which has left very few remains. The later period is called Carolingian art, or, especially in architecture, Pre-Romanesque.

Very little Merovingian architecture has been preserved. The earliest churches seem to have been timber-built, with larger examples being of a basilica type. The most completely surviving example, a baptistery in Poitiers, is a building with three apses of a Gallo-Roman style. A number of small baptistries can be seen in southern France: as these fell out of fashion, they were not updated and have subsequently survived as they were.

Jewellery (such as brooches), weapons (including swords with decorative hilts) and clothing (such as capes and sandals) have been found in a number of grave sites. The grave of Queen Aregund, discovered in 1959, and the Treasure of Gourdon, which was deposited soon after 524, are notable examples. The few Merovingian illuminated manuscripts that have survived, such as the Gelasian Sacramentary, contain a great deal of zoomorphic representations. Such Frankish objects show a greater use of the style and motifs of Late Antiquity and a lesser degree of skill and sophistication in design and manufacture than comparable works from the British Isles. So little has survived, however, that the best quality of work from this period may not be represented.35

The objects produced by the main centres of the Carolingian Renaissance, which represent a transformation from that of the earlier period, have survived in far greater quantity. The arts were lavishly funded and encouraged by Charlemagne, using imported artists where necessary, and Carolingingian developments were decisive for the future course of Western art. Carolingian illuminated manuscripts and ivory plaques, which have survived in reasonable numbers, approached those of Constantinople in quality. The main surviving monument of Carolingian architecture is the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, which is an impressive and confident adaptation of San Vitale, Ravenna - from where some of the pillars were brought. Many other important buildings existed, such as the monasteries of Centula or St Gall, or the old Cologne Cathedral, since rebuilt. These large structures and complexes frequently used towers.36


A sizeable portion of the Frankish aristocracy quickly followed Clovis in converting to Christianity (the Frankish church of the Merovingians). The conversion of all under Frankish rule required a considerable amount of time and effort.


Drawing of golden bees or flies that was discovered in the tomb of Childeric I

Echoes of Frankish paganism can be found in the primary sources, but their meaning is not always clear. Interpretations by modern scholars differ greatly, but it is likely that Frankish paganism shared most of the characteristics of other varieties of Germanic paganism. The mythology of the Franks was probably a form of Germanic polytheism. It was highly ritualistic. Many daily activities centred around the multiple deities, chiefest of which may have been the Quinotaur, a water-god from whom the Merovingians were reputed to have derived their ancestry.37 Most of their gods were linked with local cult centres and their sacred character and power were associated with specific regions, outside of which they were neither worshipped nor feared. Most of the gods were 'worldly', possessing form and having connections with specific objects, in contrast to the God of Christianity.38

Frankish paganism has been observed in the burial site of Childeric I, where the king's body was found covered in a cloth decorated with numerous bees. There is a likely connection with the bees to the traditional Frankish weapon, the angon (meaning 'sting'), from its distinctive spearhead. It is possible that fleur-de-lis is derived from the angon.


Statue in the Cathedral of Reims depicting the baptism of Clovis I by Saint Remi in around 496

Some Franks, like the 4th century usurper Silvanus, converted early to Christianity. In 496, Clovis I, who had married a Burgundian Catholic named Clotilda in 493, was baptised by Saint Remi after a decisive victory over the Alemanni at the Battle of Tolbiac. According to Gregory of Tours, over three thousand of his soldiers were baptised with him.39 Clovis' conversion had a profound effect on the course of European history, for at the time the Franks were the only major Christianized Germanic tribe without a predominantly Arian aristocracy and this led to a naturally amicable relationship between the Catholic Church and the increasingly powerful Franks.

Though many of the Frankish aristocracy quickly followed Clovis in converting to Christianity, the conversion of all his subjects was only achieved after considerable effort and in some regions a period of over two centuries.40 The Chronicle of St. Denis relates that, following Clovis' conversion, a number of pagans who were unhappy with this turn of events rallied around Ragnachar, who had played an important role in Clovis' initial rise to power. Though the text remains unclear as to the precise pretext, Clovis had Ragnachar executed.41 Remaining pockets of resistance were overcome region by region, primarily due to the work of an expanding network of monasteries.42

The Merovingian Church was shaped by both internal and external forces. It had to come to terms with an established Gallo-Roman hierarchy that resisted changes to its culture, Christianize pagan sensibilities and suppress their expression, provide a new theological basis for Merovingian forms of kingship deeply rooted in pagan Germanic tradition, and accommodate Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionary activities and papal requirements.43 The Carolingian reformation of monasticism and church-state relations was the culmination of the Frankish Church.

The increasingly wealthy Merovingian elite endowed many monasteries, including that of the Irish missionary Columbanus. The 5th, 6th and 7th centuries saw two major waves of hermitism in the Frankish world, which led to legislation requiring that all monks and hermits follow the Rule of St Benedict.44 The Church sometimes had an uneasy relationship with the Merovingian kings, whose claim to rule depended on a mystique of royal descent and who tended to revert to the polygamy of their pagan ancestors. Rome encouraged the Franks to slowly replace the Gallican Rite with the Roman rite. When the mayors took over, the Church was supportive and an Emperor crowned by the Pope was much more to their liking.


As with other Germanic peoples, the laws of the Franks were memorised by 'rachimburgs', who were analogous to the lawspeakers of Scandinavia.45 By the 6th century, when these laws first appeared in written form, two basic legal subdivisions existed: Salian Franks were subject to Salic law and Ripuarian Franks to Ripuarian law. Gallo-Romans south of the River Loire and clergy remained subject to traditional Roman law.46 Germanic law was overwhelmingly concerned with the protection of individuals and less concerned with protecting the interests of the state. According to Michel Rouche, "Frankish judges devoted as much care to a case involving the theft of a dog as Roman judges did to cases involving the fiscal responsibility of curiales, or municipal councilors".47


The term Frank has been used by many of the Eastern Orthodox and Muslim neighbors of medieval Latin Christendom (and beyond in Asia) as a general synonym for a European from Western and Central Europe, areas that followed the Latin rites of Christianity under the authority of the Pope in Rome. Another term with similar use was 'Latins'.

Modern historians often refer to Christians following the Latin rites in the eastern Mediterranean as 'Franks' or 'Latins', regardless of their country of origin, whereas they use the words Rhomaios and Rûmi ('Roman') for Orthodox Christians. On a number of Greek islands, Catholics are still referred to as Φράγκοι (Frangoi) or 'Franks', for instance on Syros, where they are called Φραγκοσυριανός (Frangosyrianos). Latin Christians living in the Middle East (particularly in the Levant) are known as Franco-Levantines.

During the Mongol Empire in the 13-14th centuries, the Mongols used the term 'Franks' to designate Europeans.48 The term Frangistan ("Land of the Franks") was used by Muslims to refer to Christian Europe and was commonly used over centuries in the Ottoman Empire and Iran.

The Mediterranean Lingua Franca (or "Frankish language") was a pidgin first spoken by 11th century European Christians and Muslims in Mediterranean ports which remained in use until the 19th century.

Examples of derived words include:

In the Thai usage the word can refer to any European person. When the presence of US soldiers during the Vietnam War placed Thai people in contact with African Americans, they (and people of African ancestry in general) came to called Farang dam ("Black Farang", ฝรั่งดำ).

Such words sometimes connote also things, plants or creatures introduced by Europeans/Franks. For example in Khmer, môn barang, literally "French Chicken", refers to a turkey, and in Thai, "Farang" is the name both for Europeans and for the guava fruit, introduced by Portuguese traders over 400 years ago.

In contemporary Israel, the Yiddishcitation needed word פרענק ('Frenk') has, by a curious etymological development, come to refer to Mizrahi Jews and carries a strong pejorative connotation.

See also


  1. ^ Angeliki Laiou, Henry P. Maguire, Byzantium: A World Civilization (Dumbarton Oaks 1992 ISBN 978-0-88402200-8), p. 62
  2. ^ Richard W. Bulliett et alii, The Earth and Its Peoples (Cengage Learning 2011 ISBN 978-0-49591310-8), p. 333
  3. ^ Janet L. Nelson, The Frankist World (Continuum International 2003 ISBN 978-1-85285105-7), p. xiii
  4. ^ Perry 1857, p. 42.
  7. ^ Murray, Alexander Callander (2000). From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader. Peterborough: Broadview Press Ltd. p. 1. "The etymology of 'Franci' is uncertain ('the fierce ones' is the favourite explanation), but the name is undoubtedly of Germanic origin." 
  8. ^ Panegyric on Constantine, xi.
  9. ^ Howorth 1884, p. 217.
  10. ^ Perry 1857, p. 43.
  11. ^ James 1988, p. 187.
  12. ^ Wickham, Chris (2010) [2009]. The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000. Penguin History of Europe, 2. New York: Penguin Books. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-670-02098-0. 
  13. ^ Rydberg, Viktor; Anderson, Rasmus B. (Translator) (1889). Teutonic Mythology. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. pp. 33–36. 
  14. ^ Apollinaris Sidonius, Letters, Book VIII. IX. To his friend Lampridius, Loeb Classical Library Translation.
  15. ^ As the 6th Gallicana is only known from this work, its existence is sometimes questioned along with the genuineness of the work; however, the question remains unanswered: Lendering, Jona. "Legio VI Gallicana". 
  16. ^ Howorth 1884, p. 213.
  17. ^ Howorth 1884, pp. 215–216.
  18. ^ Res Gestae, XVII.8.
  19. ^ The Latin, petit primos omnium Francos, eos videlicet quos consuetudo Salios appellavit is slightly ambiguous, resulting in an interpretation "first of all he proceeded against the Franks ..." with "first" presented improperly as an adjective instead of an adverb. As it stands the Salians are the first Franks of all; if an adverb is intended, the Franks are they who are the Salians.
  20. ^ Pfister 1911, p. 296.
  21. ^ Paragraph 191.
  22. ^ Previté-Orton. The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, vol. I. pp. 51–52. 
  23. ^ Previté-Orton. The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, vol. I. p. 151. 
  24. ^ Procopius HW, VI, xxv, 1ff, quoted in Bachrach (1970), 436.
  25. ^ Agathias, Hist., II, 5, quoted in Bachrach (1970), 436–437.
  26. ^ a b James, Edward, The Franks. Oxford; Blackwell 1988, p. 211
  27. ^ Bachrach (1970), 440.
  28. ^ Halsall, Guy. Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450-900 (London: Routledge, 2003), p.48
  29. ^ Halsall, pp.48-9
  30. ^ Halsall, p.43
  31. ^ Noske 2007, p. 4.
  32. ^ Van der horst, Joop (2000). Korte geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taal (Kort en goed) (in Dutch). Den Haag: Sdu. p. 42. ISBN 90-5797-071-6. 
  33. ^ Hock, Hans Henrich (1986). Principles of historical linguistics. Trends in linguistics., Studies and monographs; 3. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 448. 
  34. ^ Noske 2007, p. 1.
  35. ^ Otto Pächt, Book Illumination in the Middle Ages (trans fr German), 1986, Harvey Miller Publishers, London, ISBN 0-19-921060-8
  36. ^ Eduard Syndicus; Early Christian Art; pp. 164-74; Burns & Oates, London, 1962
  37. ^ Schutz, 152.
  38. ^ Gregory of Tours, in his History of the Franks, relates: "Now this people seems to have always been addicted to heathen worship, and they did not know God, but made themselves images of the woods and the waters, of birds and beasts and of the other elements as well. They were wont to worship these as God and to offer sacrifice to them." (Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, Book I.10)
  39. ^ Gregory of Tours. "Book II, 31". History of the Franks. 
  41. ^ The Chronicle of St. Denis, I.18-19, 23
  42. ^ Lorenz (2001:442)
  43. ^ J.M. Wallace-Hadrill covers these areas in The Frankish Church (Oxford History of the Christian Church; Oxford:Clarendon Press) 1983.
  44. ^ Michel Rouche, 435-436.
  45. ^ Michel Rouche, 421.
  46. ^ Michel Rouche, 421-422.
  47. ^ Michel Rouche, 422-423
  48. ^ Igor de Rachewiltz - Turks in China under the Mongols, in: China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries, pp.281
  49. ^ Rashid al-din Fazl Allâh, quoted in Karl Jahn (ed.) Histoire Universelle de Rasid al-Din Fadl Allah Abul=Khair: I. Histoire des Francs (Texte Persan avec traduction et annotations), Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1951. (Source: M. Ashtiany)
  50. ^ ฝรั่ง fa rang,, 2008


Primary sources

  • Fredegar
    • Fredegarius; John Michael Wallace-Hadrill (1981) [1960]. Fredegarii chronicorum liber quartus cum continuationibus (in Latin, English opposite). Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. 
    • Unknown; Bachrach, Bernard S. (Translator) (1973). Liber Historiae Francorum. Coronado Press. 
    • Woodruff, Jane Ellen; Fredegar (1987). The Historia Epitomata (third book) of the Chronicle of Fredegar: an annotated translation and historical analysis of interpolated material. Thesis (Ph. D.). Lincoln: University of Nebraska. 

Secondary sources

  • Geipel, John (1970) [1969]. The Europeans: The People - Today and Yesterday: Their Origins and Interrelations. New York: PEGASUS: a division of Western Publishing Company, Inc. 
  • Greenwood, Thomas (1836). The First Book of the History of the Germans: Barbaric period. London: Longman, Rees, Orne, and Co. .
  • Howorth, Henry H. (1884). "XVII. The Ethnology of Germany (Part VI). The Varini, Varangians and Franks. - Section II". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (London: Trübner & Co.) 13: 213–239. doi:10.2307/2841727. 
  • James, Edward (1988). The Franks. The Peoples of Europe. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-17936-4. 
  • Murray, Archibald Callander, and Goffart, Walter A. After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1998.
  • Noske, Roland (2007). "Autonomous typological prosodic evolution versus the Germanic superstrate in diachronic French phonology". In Aboh, Enoch; van der Linden, Elisabeth; Quer, Josep et al. Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: Benjamins  .
  • Pfister, M. Christian (1911). "(B) The Franks Before Clovis". In Bury, J.B. The Cambridge Medieval History. Volume I: The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms. London: Cambridge University Press 

External links