General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> King
Name Suffix:<NSFX> I
Succeeded his father, Childeric I in 481 as Merovingian king. Married (493) the Burgundian princess, Clothilda, youngest of two daughters of Chilperic. Clothilda was of Roman communion and is credited with converting her husband to Christianity in 496. To this point Burgundians were Arians, and Clovis' choice may have been deliberate.

Clovis' conversion won powerful papal and episcopal support and opened the way to wide conquests of the heretic (i.e., Arian) German peoples. He won over the Gallic population by leaving them in posession of their lands and the Oothodox Christian clergy by respecting their creed and their wealth.

Defeated a "Roman" army in 486 at Soissons in Northwest Gaul. During the next 10 years extended his conquests till they touched Brittany and the Loire. In 493 he married a Christian, Clothilda, who soon converted him from pagaism to Nicene Christianity. Remi, bishop and saint, baptized him at Reims before an audience of prelates and notables judiciously invited from all Gaul; and 3000 soldiers followed Clovis to the font. The orthodox population in Visigothic and Burgundian Gaul now looked askance at their Arian rulers, and became the secret or open allies of Clovis, the young Frank king.

Burgundy was conquered (after 500), the Visigoths (Alaric II) were defeated at Voutille, near Pointiers (507), and their whole kingdom north of the Pyrenees (except Septimania and Provence) was subjugated. These conquests were warmly supported by the Gallo-Roman clergy as a religious war. Sigebert, the old king of the Ripurian Franks, had long been an ally of Clovis. He was murdered by his son - at the urging of Clovis, who in turn was murderd allowing Clovis to occupy Cologne and persude the Ripurian chieftains to accept him as their king.

Clovis founded the Church of the Holy Apostles (St. Genevieve) at Paris, and shortly moved his "capital" from Soissons to Paris. He was made honourary consul by the Emperor Anastasius, a proceediung which brought the Franks technically into the Empire.

After the death of Clovis on November 17th, 511: (1) His four sons (Theuderich I, Clodomir, Childebert I and Clothar I [Lothair]) established four capitals - Metz of Austrasia, Soissons of Neustria, Paris and Orleans. Expansion eastward continued along the upper Elbe; Burgundy was added, and the territory of the Ostrogothhs north of the Alps. After a period of ruthless conflict only Clothar I(Lothair) survived, and for a brief time (558-561) the Frankish lands were under one head again, (2) Clothar's division of his lands among his four sons (Chilperich, Sigibert I, Charibert, Dagobert/Guntram) led to a great feud from which three kingdoms emerged: (a) Austrasia (capital Metz)lying to the east and mostly Teutonic; Neustria (capital Soissons)and mostly Gallo-Roman in blood; Burgundy, without a king but joined Neustia for a common ruler. Under Chlothar II, son of Chilperich, all three kingdoms were again united in 613.