FRANKS. - The prehistory of the F. before their entry into Gaul is unknown. One can only infer a previous settlement of theirs on the right bank of the lower Rhine: from there, King Clodio would have led them to the left bank, establishing the seat of his early government at Tournai.
The weakening of the Roman limes on the Rhine, in the middle of the 3rd century A.D., had already given the Frankish tribes the opportunity to cross the river. Their new settlements were not obtained without struggle; Aurelian, in 274, put them to flight; shortly afterward, Probus too had wars waged against the F. by his lieutenants; still later Maximian defeated them and forced them into peace; so then did Constantius Chlorus, Constantine, Constans. But in 350 they were able to take advantage of the civil war between Constantius and Magnentius to secure more stable settlements in Gaul. Last, Julian the Apostate realized Roman unity in Gaul and Germany, and, having obtained the restitution of Cologne, eliminated the groups of F. from Roman territory. A series of treaties made the conquered tribes vassals of Rome. From then on, and for about a century, one can speak of a Romano-Frankish civilization: notable was the contribution of the F. to Roman civil and especially military organization. They began to infiltrate the general commands of Gallic origin.
Once the Rhine frontier was abandoned under Theodosius, the Frankish tribes were able to settle on the other bank, without further fear. They plundered and destroyed. The Romanized Frank Arbogast, having had the imperial dignity assumed by a man of his, Eugenius, made his people a federate of the Empire. Stilicho followed the same path, without however obtaining a valid Frankish resistance against the incoming Vandals, Alans and Suebi. A little after the beginning of the 5th century the whole region of Trier and Cologne is in Frankish hands, while the movement of the Salians intensifies, led by their king from Chlodio to Merovech, from whom the Merovingian dynasty was to take its name. For a brief hour, Aetius reestablished the limes; but, if the Ripuarian F. are driven back, the Salians remain in their settlements, as federates of Rome. After Aetius, one may say that all resistance ceases in Gaul: it nevertheless remains the most Romanized country of the West and one that for centuries would keep alive and frequent its relations with Italy and the defense of Roman institutions.
From the beginning of the 5th century, moreover, autonomist ferment had become evident in Gaul. The F., Christianized, had begun to look, in the frequent crises of monarchical authority, to the bishops as the sole authority and the sole bond in the unstable connective tissue represented by the cities. After Merovech, Childeric assumed a preponderant position throughout Roman Gaul. Syagrius, son of Aegidius, aimed to establish an independent lordship for himself (Gregory of Tours calls him King of the Romans) but, when Clovis succeeded Childeric, Syagrius was defeated and put to death.
Clovis appears as the great founder of the Frankish monarchy. He places his seat at Paris, subdues one kingdom after another to his power, making it central, and, having married the Catholic Burgundian princess Clotilde, converts to Catholicism, marking by his act the advent of a France, firstborn daughter of the Roman Church. Not much more than a century would pass before, with the Lombards succeeding the Goths in Italy, the F. would seize the stage of the old and new center of the world, thereafter to play there a role of the first magnitude.
Faithful to Rome, in its institutions as well as in its undoubted spirit of drawing near to the civilization that animates it, the Merovingian monarchy is an evident imitation of the Roman Empire. Hereditary was the monarchical power, the royal power founded on a military and then landed aristocracy, the people divided into the three classes of free men, half-free men and slaves: the lex Salica is the fundamental document for knowledge of Frankish institutions. Between Romans and barbarians, in the new Frankish monarchy, while in Italy there would be the unsuccessful attempt of Theodoric, a relationship of equality is established, which becomes the surest guarantee of civil progress.
Heirs in this of the ancient dignity of their Celtic predecessors, the F. obtained the unanimous esteem, and the respect, of the Romans: if literary tradition will make them akin to the Greeks for their lack of faith in treaties, on the other hand the guest is sacred among them. Of purely Germanic tradition is the foundation of their criminal law, which lies in the feud, as well as in the praetium sanguinis, attributed to the person, but, unlike the Germans, they were fond of agriculture and, in particular, of the cultivation of cereals, the vine, and gardening. Deeply evident from the lex Salica is the respect for private property, strong and sound the conception of the family, within whose bosom a close solidarity operates. Devoid of original characteristics, as is revealed by the tomb furnishings, is Frankish art.
Bibliography10 works
Pier Fausto Palumbo