Childeric I, the Merovingian King of the Salian Franks, had been on a continuous campaign as the barbarian ally of the Romans. Together with Roman legions wherever they needed him, and captured and conquered territories for the Romans. Childeric I was a King in his own right but he had to obey the Roman governors as they had many times protected the Franks from the Gauls.

Childeric I served the Romans and had little time to spare for his own people throughout his reign. His queen, Basina of Thuringia, had always been distasteful of his servitude to the Roman Empire. 466 AD, a time when the Great Western Roman Empire was headed towards its downfall, a number of other civilisations had entered into conflict with the mighty Romans and even against each other. The Barbaric Gauls, Celts and Goths had all waged a war against the long-standing rule of the Romans. The Goths had the upper hand in most battles with the Romans, and the Romans effectively had to give up most of their provinces in the west.

During this era, multiple ethnicities and cultures cropped up such as Franks, the ‘long-haired’ tribe, which had become evident during the beginning of the fourth century. However, the Franks had never been under one ruler or one command due to the cultural differences between Riparian and Salians, the 2 important Frankish communities. Rifts were deliberately being created between them by other Kingdoms so that they would never unite. But the birth of a child born in the Merovingian dynasty of the Salian Franks was destined to change it all. He was Clovis I, the first King of Franks.

Much of central and southern Gaul had fallen to the Visigoths under the expansive King Euric and they had even pushed up to the Loire and into the south of Belgica, supporting Syagrius & Alaric II; his son was King since 485. 

Clovis decided the time was right to challenge the Kingdom of Syagrius, the last bastion of Roman power in northern Gaul, and in so doing he also defeated the hated Visigothic allies of Syagrius who had deposed his father and probably killed him.

Clovis didn’t move against Syagrius for five years. Gregory of Tours only gives us a very brief account of the actual fighting. 

Clovis demanded that Syagrius meet him in battle. Syagrius, who was confident in his ability to defeat the Franks, offered battle but his army was crushed. Clovis gave him the key to the civitas of Soisson, with its fortification and arms factory. The Roman units which had served Syagrius were integrated into the army of Clovis. The military settlements, Laeti, settled in that area under the Empire also came under his control as did the Alaman military settlements in Reims, Senlis, Sermiers, Sermaize les Bains, Sermoise and Sermaise. 

Many other Roman legionnaires who were stationed in Gaul joined the Frankish army among them many horsemen becoming the elite troops of Clovis. As early as 493 Clovis could count on the support of Gallo-Roman Magnates like Aurelianus who led his warband into Clovis’s services and who was given Melun as a reward for his loyalty. With such assets and protected by there fortified villa’s the Gallo-Roman Magnates was a formidable force in local affairs as well on the battlefield. 

All this gave Clovis an experienced professional fighting force which could campaign throughout the year. With a substantial mounted force of Alans, Sarmatians, Taifal and some Franks and Alamans, Clovis troops could successfully fight the Visigothic cavalry, and in battle most certainly siege engines and other apparatus were used. 

The Merovingian military was built on the remains of the Imperial military!

In 486, when he was just twenty, Clovis defeated the Romans at the Battle of Soissons, and in 491 defeated the Thuringians to the east. He forged an alliance with the Ostrogoths in the south by marrying his sister Audofleda to their King, Theoderic the Great. The turning point came in the Battle of Tolbiac, when the Franks fought against the Alamanni of eastern Germany at some time between 496 and 508.

In the beginning of 491 AD, Clovis’ mother, Queen Basina advised Clovis to take the support of the Thuringians, the people from her home country, as they would prove instrumental in controlling his Kingdom. However, despite Clovis’ plea for alliance, the Thuringians maintained a hostile stance towards the Salians. Clovis once again decided to take the matters into his hand, albeit the hard way and defeated the Thuringians in 491 AD. By this time, all the Frankish Kingdoms were under Clovis’ rule.

“Leudes”

The Leudes of the Franks of Clovis were a propagation of the military “comitatus” of the Franks progenitors, of the Germans of the first century of Christianity, with this distinction notwithstanding, that on a basic level, the individuals from past the Rhine stream all had “colleagues”, while we see just the King’s Trusts show up among the Salians, it is at that point when Clovis, requested the drafting of the old traditions of his country and of the laws which were to administer the relations of the Franks with the indigenous populaces, that this King had vanquished a force which outperformed that of numerous Kings and of numerous clans.

Day by day, Clovis’ power was growing. This made the Ostrogoths insecure as they felt threatened. They assumed that a clash with the Franks was inevitable. On the other hand, Clovis knew that he could not win against the Goths so in a smart political move, he extended a hand of friendship by convincing his sister Audofleda to marry the Ostrogothic king, Theodoric the great in 492 AD. With this move, Clovis secured an alliance through familial relations with the Ostrogoths. Clovis implemented a similar strategic move to be friends with the Burgindians and married Clotilde, a Catholic in the court of Arian Christians, in 493 AD. Clovis was already married to a pagan wife and had a son named Theuderic from her. After there marriage, Clotilde would often urge her husband to convert to the Christian faith but Clovis was adamant about following his pagan gods. When a son was born to Clotilde, she got him baptised without Clovis’s will and he died at a young age. After their second son was born, Clotilde got him baptised again secretly from Clovis and he fell seriously ill. Fortunately, the son survived but this made Clovis despise Christian faith. Eventually, he had 3 more sons and a daughter.

Clovis did not enjoy the support of the Gallo-Roman clergy, hence he proceeded to pillage the Roman territory, including the churches. Quickly, the Bishop of Reims requested Clovis to return everything taken from the Church of Reims, the young king aspired to establish cordial relationships with the clergy and returned a valuables taken from Reims. Despite his position, some Roman cities refused to yield to the Franks, namely Verdun‒which surrendered after a brief siege‒and Paris, which stubbornly resisted for a few years. He later made Paris his capital and established an abbey dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul on the south bank of the Seine.

Clovis came to the realisation that he wouldn’t be able to rule Gaul without the help of the clergy and aimed to please the clergy by taking a Catholic wife. He also integrated many of Syagrius’ units into his own army. Once Aquitaine was conquered, Clovis’ next political step was to subdue the remaining Frankish Kings in order to eliminate any chances of rebellion amongst the Franks. Some of these Kings were Richer brother of Ragnachar of Cambrai and their brother Rignomer of Le Mans.

In 507 Clovis was allowed by the magnates of his realm to invade the remaining threat of the Kingdom of the Visigoths.

King Alaric had previously tried to establish a cordial relationship with Clovis by serving him the head of the exiled Syagrius on a silver plate, this was around 486.

In 509, Clovis visited his old ally, Ragnachar in Cambrai. Following his conversion to the Christian Orthodox faith, many of his pagan retainers had defected to Ragnachar’s side, making him a political threat. Ragnachar denied Clovis’s entry, prompting Clovis to make a move against him. He bribed Ragnachar’s retainers and soon, Ragnachar and his brother, Ricchar were captured and executed.

Once this was achieved, Clovis shifted his attention to cultural and theological matters. Before accepting Catholicism, he was interested in the Christian heresy Arianism, sympathetic with it. His conversion to Catholicism was that of one man, not that of his Kingdom, but it can be seen as pivotal in Frankish history.

In 508 he finally converted to Catholicism in a small church near modern Reims, being baptised there by Saint Remigius, after lengthy negotiations with the Roman Catholic Church.

Clovis called upon a Synod or the holy council of the Church along with Gallic Bishops for a meeting in Orléans. It was to bring reforms in the Church and create a strong bond between the Crown and the Clergy. This historical event is known as the First Council of Orléans, wherein 33 bishops assisted Clovis and 31 decrees regarding the duties and obligations of individuals were created. Clovis brought in equality between Roman and Frank subjects by implying the decrees on the former and the latter. However, while returning from Orléans, Clovis was afflicted with fever and fatigue. The time came when the people of Western Europe learned to believe in one God and were converted to Christianity, but the old stories about the god, Valkyries, giants and heroes, who were half gods and half men, were not forgotten”.

As the weeks passed by, Clovis’ health began to deteriorate rapidly. The pagan witch doctors and Catholic medicine men tried in vain to get him out of his discomfort.

Clovis sensed that his end was near and dedicated more and more of his time to peaceful purposes. Clotilde and his sons were also aware of this and hence started taking care of the matters of the Kingdom. Observing their servitude towards the Kingdom, Clovis divided his Kingdom equally amongst his four sons, Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert and Clotaire.

In 506, on returning from Lutetia, where he had gone to heal King Clovis, Saint Séverin died in Château Landon village. On his deathbed Clovis orders his son Childebert I to build a beautiful church on the place where Saint Séverin died. Childebert runs and endows the new Church with Properties. Sigisbert I, King of Metz, brother of Chilperic I, built there a large abbey which took the name of Saint Séverin.

Clovis finally breathed his last breath on the morning of 27th of November, 511 AD. He was 45 years of age. He was laid to rest in the Saint Denis Basilica, near Paris in a Catholic as well as a Pagan ceremony.

At the time of Clovis’ death in 511, his Kingdom comprised most of what is now France, from the Pyrenees in the South, and to the North into the Netherlands, and even territories East of the River Rhine. In the far South and far East the Kingdoms of the Burgundians and Ostrogoths still held sway.

By the time Clovis died, several aspects of the Frankish Kingdom, such as language, religious beliefs, and law, were a mix of the Germanic and Roman cultures. The Franks also preserved several Roman manufacturing industries and applied traditional Germanic craftsmanship in their art and architecture.

The legacy of Clovis I:

the first King of a United Frankish Kingdom, which covered more or less the modern country of France, with Catholicism as the state religion, the capital of the Kingdom in Paris, and with a codified Roman Law, now known as the Salian Law.

Chronologie:

466: Clovis is born in Tournai.
467: Clovis’ sister, Audofleda is born.
468: Clovis’s sister, Lanthilde is born.
477: Clovis’s mother, Basina dies.
481: Clovis’s father, Childeric I dies and is succeeded by Clovis.
486: Clovis defeats Syagrius in Soissons and begins the takeover of the Kingdom.
487: Clovis’ son Theuderic I is born.
491: Clovis completes the conquest of the Kingdom
493: Clovis marries Audofleda to Theoderic the Great.
Clovis marries a Burgundian princess, Clotilde.
494: Clovis’ and Clotilde’s first child, Ingomer is born and dies.
495: Clovis’ and Clotilde’s second son, Chlodomer is born.
Clovis becomes an uncle as Audofleda gives birth to an Ostrogothic princess, Amalasuntha.
496: Clovis is baptised (early estimate).
Clovis defeats the Alamanni threat.
Clovis’ and Clotilde’s third son, Childebert I is born.
497. Clovis’ and Clotilde’s fourth son, Chlothar I is born.
500: Clovis subjugates Burgundy.
Clovis’ and Clotilde’s only daughter, Clotilde is born, Albofleda dies.
501: Clovis’ ally and brother-in-law, Godegisel is murdered.
502:Clovis allies himself with the Armonici, Theuderic marries Suavegotha.
503: Clovis becomes a grandfather, when Theuderic secures a son of his own, Theudebert I.
507: Clovis liberates Aquitania and murders various Frankish reguli.
508: Clovis baptized by the Bishop of Reims
509: Clovis executes the last pagan regulus.

Clovis is declared the King of all the Franks.
511 November 27: Clovis dies in Paris.