General Notes

(klo´vIs) , c.466-511, Frankish king (481-511), son of Chil
deric I and founder of the Merovingian monarchy. Originall
y little more than a tribal chieftain, he became sole leade
r of the Salian Franks by force of perseverance and by murd
ering a number of relatives. In 486 he defeated the Roman l
egions under Syagrius at Soissons, virtually ending Roman d
omination over Gaul. He then subdued the Thuringians. Afte
r his marriage (493) to the Burgundian princess Clotild
a , a Catholic, he had his children baptized but was not im
mediately converted himself. He is said to have invoked th
e Christian God while locked in battle with the Alemanni i
n the late 490s. He defeated them and two years later conve
rted, having been persuaded by Clotilda and St. Remi (als
o known as Remigius), bishop of Reims, who baptized him, re
putedly along with 3,000 supporters. Thereafter Clovis wa
s the champion of orthodox Christianity against the Arian h
eretics, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths. He attacked th
e Burgundians (500) at Dijon and the Visigoths (507) unde
r Alaric II at Vouillé. When he died, he was master of mos
t of Gaul—except Burgundy, Gascony, Provence, and Septimani
a—and of SW Germany. Shortly before his death he probably h
ad the Salian Law revised and put into writing. Clovis unit
ed all Franks under his rule, gained the support of the Gal
lic clergy, made Paris his base of operations, and extende
d his conquests into Germany. He thus laid the foundation
, which even 400 years of chaos and misrule could not destr
oy, of the French monarchy and foreshadowed the conquests o
f Charlemagne. He was succeeded by his four sons, Theodori
c I , Clodomir, Childebert I , and Clotaire I .
Bibliography: See the history of Gregory of Tours; F. Lot
, The End of the Ancient World and the Beginnings of the Mi
ddle Ages (1927; tr. 1953, repr. 1961); E. James, The Origi
ns of France: Clovis and the Capetians, AD 500-1000 (1982)
; P. J. Geary Before France and Germany (1988).
Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, Copyright (c) 2004.
(Research):"The first great king of the Franks, was 15 whe
n he succeeded his father in 481."
ohme p 5 "With time the passive antagonism of the Roman pop
ulation undermined the power of the Visigothic kings, despi
te their frantic attempts to court support by issuing Roma
n law codes, and facilitated their defeat at the hands of t
he newly converted king of the Franks, CLOVIS, at Vouille n
ear Tours in 507. Thereafter the Visigothic kingdom was con
fined to Spain . . .", 68, 88
p 65 "Childeric was succeeded by his son CLOVIS, usually se
en as the real founder of Frankish power in Gaul. The detai
ls of his reign, recorded for us by Bishop Gregory of Tour
s some seventy years after Clovis's death, are in some disp
ute, but his achievements are plain. He united the Romans o
f north Gaul under his rule, by force of arms and by the ex
pedient of converting to their own religion, Catholic Chris
tianity. He united the Franks under his own rule, partly a
t least by having all rival kings assassinated. And both Ro
mans and Franks must have been impressed by the success wit
h which he led his armies against other Germans: he conquer
ed the Thuringians to the east, and the Alamans, who were m
oving from their homes in south-west Germany into what is n
ow Alsace and northern Switzerland; and in 507 Clovis led h
is followers south across the Loire to destroy the Visigoth
ic kingdom of Alaric II. When he died in 511 the kingdom wa
s ruled jointly by his four sons, and it was they who destr
oyed the Burgundian kingdom and who, by offering military a
id to the Ostrogoths in exchange, annexed Provence to thei
r kingdom. By the middle of the sixth century the Frankis
h kings descended from Childeric and Clovis, known as the M
erovingians, had become by far the most powerful of the bar
barian heirs to the Roman Empire. Almost all Gaul was unde
r their direct rule;