CLOVIS, King of the Franks. - He was of royal stock and belonged to the tribe of the Salian Franks; b. in 446, at the age of 15 he was already king. Raised in the pagan religion, he converted to Christianity after a battle against the Alemanni. St. Remigius, bishop of Reims, baptized him on 25 Dec. 498 or 499. The act was certainly determined, besides by personal motives and by the action of his wife, the most pious Clotilde, by political expediency, and it allowed the king to have with him the entire Roman population of Gaul; between the two peoples there was no separation as elsewhere, but they enjoyed equal rights and all entered the army. Thus C. was able to accomplish many conquests, especially that of the Visigothic kingdom, occupying its capital Toulouse as well. He obtained from Byzantium the title of consul; with Theodoric, king of the Goths residing in Italy, he had many conflicts resolved with varying fortunes. C., who died in 511, was a rough, primitive, violent man; he killed with his own hand as many as cast a shadow over him; he had a greed for dominion; even in his religious feeling he was impulsive and intolerant. Nevertheless, precisely for this reason he well expressed the characteristics of the new forces of society and anticipated the result of the medieval work, consisting in the fusion of Romans and barbarians within the bosom of the Catholic Church.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: The principal source is the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours; for recent bibliography, in addition to the general histories of France, cf. G. Kurth, Clovis, Brussels 1923; L. Levillain, Le Baptême de Clovis, in Biblioth. de l'Ecole de Chartes, 67 (1906), pp. 472-88; id., La Companion et le Baptême de Clovis, in Revue de l'Église de France, 21 (1935), pp. 161-92; Manitius, p. 136; A. van de Vyver, La victoire contre les Alumnes et la conversion de Clovis, in Revue belg. de philol. et d'hist., 15 (1936), pp. 850-914; 16 (1937), pp. 35-94.

Paolo Brezzi

@incollection{ec3_clodoveo_re_dei_franchi, author = {Brezzi, Paolo}, title = {Clodoveo, re dei franchi}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1876--1877}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/clodoveo-re-dei-franchi} }

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Clovis, King of the Franks

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