General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> King Of The Salian Franks
CHILDERIC I (c. 437-481), king of the Salian Franks, succeeded his father, Merwech (Merovech), as king about 457. With his tribe he was established around the town of Tournai on lands which he had received as a 'foederatus' of the Romans, and for some time he kept the peace with his allies. About 463, in conjunction with the Roman general Egidius, he assisted Count Paul in attempting to check an invasion of the Saxons. Paul having perished in the struggle, Childeric defended Angers against the Saxons, recovered from them the islands they had seized at the mouth of the Loire and destroyed their forces. The Saxon chief Odoacer now agreed to serve the Romans and the two chieftains, now reconciled, intercepted a band of the Alamanni. These are all the facts known about him. The stories of his early life by the Franks, of his stay of eight years in Thuringia with King Basin and his wife (or sister) Basine, of his return when a faithful servant advised him that he could safely do so by sending to him half of a piece of gold which he had broken with him and of the arrival at Tournai of Queen Basine, whom he married, are presevered by Gregory of Tours, and have found a place in French epic poetry. After the fall of the western empire in 476 there is no doubt that Childeric regarded himself as freed from his engagements toward Rome. He died in 481 and was buried at Tournai, leaving a son Clovis, afterward king of the Franks. His tomb was discovered in 1653, when numerous precious objects, arms, jewels, coins and a ring with his name and the image of along-haired warrior, were found