General Notes

ema p 128, 307 "the first great king of the Franks, was 15 when hesucceed
ed his father in 481."
ohme p 5 "With time the passive antagonism of the Roman population undermi
ned the power of the Visigothic kings, despite their frantic attempts to c
ourt support by issuing Roman law codes, and facilitated their defeat at t
he hands of the newly converted king of the Franks, CLOVIS, at Vouille ne
ar Tours in 507.  Thereafter the Visigothic kingdom was confined to Spa
in . . .", 68, 88
p 65 "Childeric was succeeded by his son CLOVIS, usually seen as the re
al founder of Frankish power in Gaul.  The details of his reign, record
ed for us by Bishop Gregory of Tours some seventy years after Clovis's dea
th, are in some dispute, but his achievements are plain.  He united the Ro
mans of north Gaul under his rule, by force of arms and by the expedie
nt of converting to their own religion, Catholic Christianity.  He unit
ed the Franks under his own rule, partly at least by having all rival kin
gs assassinated.  And both Romans and Franks must have been impressed by t
he success with which he led his armies against other Germans:  he conquer
ed the Thuringians to the east, and the Alamans, who were moving from the
ir homes in south-west Germany into what is now Alsace and northern Switze
rland; and in 507 Clovis led his followers south across the Loire to destr
oy the Visigothic kingdom of Alaric II.  When he died in 511 the kingdom w
as ruled jointly by his four sons, and it was they who destroyed the Burgu
ndian kingdom and who, by offering military aid to the Ostrogoths in excha
nge, annexed Provence to their kingdom.  By the middle of the sixth centu
ry the Frankish kings descended from Childeric and Clovis, known as the Me
rovingians, had become by far the most powerful of the barbarian hei
rs to the Roman Empire.  Almost all Gaul was under their direct rule; th
ey had a foothold in Italy and overlordship over the Thuringians, Alaman
s, and Bavarians in Germany; and the suzerainty they claimed over south-ea
st England may have been more of a reality than most English historians ha
ve thought."
FIMA "the royal name Louis, that is, Clovis."
pp 13-5 "There was a gradual acceptance of the idea of a gradual shi
ft of political focus westwards from the East--a notion whose origins a
re to be found in the cosmology of the crucifixion discussed in the previo
us chapter.  In contemporary eyes, this explained the successive transf
er of power from the Greeks to the Romans and then to the Franks.  The id
ea was strengthened by memories of the alliance made between the lead
er of the Franks and the Pope in the eighth century, which led to the form
al restoration of the Empire with the coronation of Charlemagne in 800.  T
here was also the more distant memory of CLOVIS's pact with the Catholic C
hurch, as a result of which he and his people saw themselves as especial
ly chosen by God.  In their eyes the pact had been an important fact
or in his victories over pagan and heretic barbarians.  There was a firm
ly rooted conviction that the Franks had established the Church in Gau
l.  The prologue of the Lex Salica (Salic Law), which had been retranscrib
ed in the eighth century, priased them because they had taken care of 't
he bodies of the holy martyrs burnt by the Romans, tortured by them, or th
rown to wild animals', digging up their remains and preserving them in fi
ne gold and jewelled reliquaries.  Most of the scholarly historical write
rs at this date came from the lands of the Franks and they were convinc
ed that this chosen people had freed the inhabitants of Gaul from the yo
ke of Roman oppression.  This assertion was based upon the books which th
ey found in cathedral and monastic libraries, especially the History of t
he Franks written by Gregory of Tours in the late sixth century.  His acco
unt of the baptism of Clovis is particularly relevant, and an eighty-centu
ry continuation p