At length,
in the summer, he sent an army across the Alps, and its arrival
forced the Franks and Burgundians to raise the siege of Aries.
in the summer, he sent an army across the Alps, and its arrival
forced the Franks and Burgundians to raise the siege of Aries.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
So also consulting
soothsayers (haruspices) or mathematicians respecting the health of the
Emperor, introduction of new sects or unknown religions to excite men's
minds, forgery or suppression of wills, forgery of seals, coining, melting
or mutilating coinage were sometimes punished capitally. Coining was
regarded as treason (326).
Constantine (818) forbad under pain of burning any soothsayer from
crossing the threshold of another person, even though an old friend, but
in the case of magical arts distinguished between those directed against
another's safety or chastity, and remedies for disease or country spells
against heat or rain upon the crops. Constantius (358) was also severe
against all divination, etc. Valentinian (364) forbad all nocturnal
religious rites, but relaxed this prohibition on the proconsul of Greece
representing that life then would be intolerable.
## p. 106 (#138) ############################################
106 Adultery
Adultery could be charged only by the nearest relatives: husband,
father, brother, uncle, first cousin. The husband had precedence for
sixty days, then the father having the woman in his power, then after
the like time outsiders, who however could not accuse her while married,
unless the adulterer had first been convicted.
A father was justified in killing his daughter (if in his power) if he
caught her in adultery at his or his son-in-law's house, and in killing the
adulterer also, but if he killed one and spared the other, he was liable
for murder. A husband was justified in killing his wife so caught, but
the adulterer only if he was a slave or freedman or pander or player or a
condemned criminal. The husband was otherwise bound to repudiate
his wife at once. Justinian (542) justified a husband's killing anyone
suspected of illicit intercourse with his wife, if, after sending her three
warnings supported by evidence of trustworthy persons, he found her
conversing with the adulterer in his own or her house or in taverns or
suburban places. For making assignations in church the husband after
like warnings could send both the wife and man to the bishop for
punishment as adulterers according to the laws.
A husband who retained a wife detected in adultery, or compounded
for her release, was guilty of pandering. So also was anyone who married
a woman convicted of adultery. One accused of adultery and escaping,
if he consorted with the woman again, was to be seized by any judge and
without further trial to be tortured and killed.
By a law of Augustus (Lex Julia) the punishment for adultery was
banishment, and for the man, forfeiture of half his property, for the
woman, forfeiture of half her dowry and a third of her property.
Constantine and Justinian made the punishment death by the sword for
the man. Justinian (566) sent the woman into a monastery after being
flogged. The like punishments were ordained for stuprum, i. e. , intercourse
with an unmarried woman or widow, who was neither in the relation of
concubine nor a person of disreputable life.
Anyone who without agreement with her parents carried off" a girl was
to be punished capitally, and the girl herself if she consented. A nurse
who persuaded her to do so was to have her throat and mouth filled
with molten lead. If the girl did not consent, she was still deprived
of right of succession to her parents for not having kept within doors or
raised the neighbours by her cries. The parents, if they overlooked the
matter, were to be banished: other assistants to be punished capitally,
slaves to be burnt. So Constantine in 320. Constantius limited the
penalty of free persons to death (349). Eventually Justinian punished
ravishers and their aiders with death and confiscated their property for
the benefit of the injured woman.
Punishments were not the same for all persons. Three classes of
persons were recognised in Justinian's Digest: honestiores, humiliores or
tenuiores, serxn.
## p. 107 (#139) ############################################
Punishments 107
I. The first class contained the imperial senators and their agnatic
descendants to the third degree; knights with public horses; soldiers
and veterans and their children; decurions. They were not liable to the
penalty of death except for parricide or treason or except by an imperial
order, nor to the mines or compulsory work or beating. The usual
penalty was deportation to an island, in some cases combined with
confiscation of part of their property. Deportation involved loss of
citizenship.
II. The second class were punished for grave offences by death,
more frequently by condemnation to the mines preceded by beating and
accompanied with chains. This punishment was usually for life and
involved loss of citizenship and property. It formerly involved loss
of freedom, but this was abolished by Justinian in 542. Banishment
(relegatio) might be for life or for a time, and citizenship was not
lost
The death penalty for free persons was usually beheading, in and
after second century by sword, not axe; rarely, and only for the gravest
offences, crucifying or burning. Beating or torturing to death, strangling
and poisoning, were forbidden.
Justinian in 556 enacted that for crimes involving death or banish-
ment the property of the criminals should not be confiscated either to
the judges or officials, or, as according to the old law, to the fisc, but
should pass to their descendants, or, if there were none, to the ascendants
up to the third degree. He also enacted that where the law ordered
both hands or both feet to be cut off, one only should be cut, and that
joints should not be dislocated. No limb should be cut off for theft,
if without violence.
Constantino (318) re-enacted the punishment assigned by old practice
to parricide, viz. , the criminal to be beaten with rods, sewn up in a sack
with a dog, cock, viper and ape, and thrown into a deep sea, if near, or
into a river. Justinian retained the law, but confined it to murderers
of father, mother and grandfather and grandmother, whereas it had
previously been applicable to many other relatives.
III. Slaves were punished for grave crime by beheading, sometimes
by crucifying or burning or exposure to wild beasts: for lesser crimes by
work in the mines. Flogging was usual in many cases, and regularly
preceded capital punishment. Imprisonment was not used as a punishment,
but only as security for trial.
Heretics were deprived by Constantine (326) of all privileges given on
the ground of religion and were forbidden (396) to occupy any place for
worship. In 407 Manichaeans and Donatists were ordered to be treated
as criminals; they forfeited all their property to their next of kin (if free
from heresy) and were incapable of succession, of giving, of buying and
selling, of contracting, of making a will; their slaves were to be held
guiltless only if they deserted their masters and served the Catholic Church.
## p. 108 (#140) ############################################
108 Punishment of heretics
In 428 Manichaeans were to be expelled from their towns, and given over
to extreme punishment, and a long list of heretics was forbidden to meet
and pray anywhere on Roman soil. In 485 Nestorians, in 455 the
followers of Eutyches and Apollinarius were to have their books burnt,
and were forbidden to meet and pray. In 527 heretics, Greeks, Jews,
and Samaritans were rendered incapable of serving in the army, of
holding civil office except in the lower ranks and then without a chance
of promotion; and were disabled from suing orthodox Christians for
private or public debts. Children of heretics, if themselves free from
the disease, might take their legal share of their father's property, and
their fathers were to support them and to give dowries to their daughters.
In 580 Montanists like other heretics were forbidden to assemble, to
baptise, to have Communion, and to receive charitable alms from law
courts or churches.
In suits against orthodox, whether both parties or only one be
orthodox, heretics and Jews were not good witnesses, but only in suits
among themselves. Even this was not applicable to Manichaeans,
Montanists, pagans, Samaritans and some others; for they being
criminals were incapable of bearing witness in judicial matters; they were
however allowed as witnesses to wills and contracts, lest proof should be
difficult.
A law of Augustus, confirming analogous republican practice, forbad
any Roman citizen who appealed to the Emperor being killed, tortured,
beaten or put into chains even by the governor or other high magistrate.
This is retained in Justinian's Digest.
Several constitutions at the end of the fourth century (398) were
directed against attempts of clergy or monks to prevent due execution
of sentences on criminals or debtors.
## p. 109 (#141) ############################################
109
CHAPTER IV.
GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN FRANKS.
NARRATIVE OF EVENTS.
At the accession of Clovis, who succeeded his father Childeric about
the year 481, the Salian Franks had advanced as far as the Somme.
Between the Somme and the Loire the suzerainty of the Roman Empire
was still maintained. The various Gallo-Roman cities preserved a certain
independence, while a Roman official, by name Syagrius, exercised a kind
of protection over them. Syagrius was the son of Aegidius, the former
magister militum, and he held the command by hereditary right. After
the fall of the Roman Empire of the West in 476, he maintained an
independent position, having no longer any official superior. Failing
any regular title, Gregory of Tours designates him Rex Romanorum, and
the former Roman official takes on the character of a barbarian king,
free from all ties of authority. The seat of his administration was the
town of Soissons.
To the south of the Loire began the kingdom of the Visigoths, which
reached beyond the Pyrenees and across Spain to the Strait of Gibraltar.
The country south of the Durance, that is to say Provence, also formed
part of this kingdom. After having long been allies of the Roman Empire
the Visigoths had broken the treaties which bound them to Rome; more-
over since 476 there was no emperor in Italy, and they occupied these
vast territories by right of conquest. Euric, who had been king
since 466, had extended his dominions on every side and was quite
independent.
In the valley of the Saone and the Rhone, as far as the Durance, the
Burgundians had been enlarging their borders. Starting from Savoy,
to which Aetius had confined them, they had extended their possessions
little by little, until these now included the town of Langres. In 481
the kingship of Burgundy was shared by two brothers, of whom the
elder, Gundobad, had his seat at Vienne, the younger, Godigisel, at
Geneva. A third brother, Chilperic, who had reigned at Lyons, had
just died. The rumour ran that he had met a violent death, his brothers
having had him assassinated in order to seize upon his inheritance.
The Visigoths and Burgundians endeavoured to live at peace with
## p. 110 (#142) ############################################
110 Gaul at the Accession of Clovis [481
the Gallo-Romans and to administer their territories wisely. The former
subjects of Rome would willingly have submitted to them in exchange
for the protection which they could afford and the peace which they
could secure; they would willingly have pardoned them for dividing up
their territories; but between the Gallo-Romans and the barbarians
there was one grave subject of dissension. The former had remained
faithful to orthodoxy, the latter were Arians; and although the rulers
were willing to exercise toleration and to maintain friendly relations
with the members of the episcopate, their Gallo-Roman subjects did not
cease to regard them as abettors of heresy, and to desire their fall as
a means to the triumph of the true faith.
To the north of the Burgundian kingdom, the Alemans had made
themselves masters of the territory between the Rhine and the Vosges—
the country which was to be known later as Alsace—and they were
seeking to enlarge their borders by attacking the Gallo-Roman cities to
the west, the Burgundians to the south, and the Ripuarian Franks to the
north-west. They also continued to hold the country on the right bank
of the Rhine which had been known as the agri decumates, and they had
established themselves in force upon the shores of the Lake of Constance
and to the east of the Aar. The Ripuarian Franks remained in possession
of a compact State round about Cologne and Treves, and, near them,
the Thuringians had founded a little State on the left bank of the
Rhine. It should be added that small colonies of barbarians, drawn
from many different tribes, had established themselves here and there
over the whole face of Gaul. Bands of armed barbarians ranged the
country, seeking a home for themselves; Saxon pirates infested the
coasts, and had established themselves in some force at Bayeux.
Such was the general condition of Gaul at the time when Clovis
became king of the Salian Franks. For five years the youthful king—
he was only fifteen at his accession—remained inactive. He seems to have
been held in check by Euric, the king of the Visigoths. But in the year
following the death of Euric, 486, he took up arms and, calling to his
aid other Salian kings, Ragnachar and Chararic, attacked Syagrius.
The two armies came into contact with one another in the neighbourhood
of Soissons. During the battle Chararic held off, awaiting the result of
the struggle. In spite of this defection Clovis was victorious, and
Syagrius had to take refuge with the king of the Visigoths, Alaric II,
who had succeeded Euric. Alaric however surrendered him, on the first
demand of the Frankish king, who thereupon threw him into prison
and had him secretly put to death. After this victory Clovis occupied
the town of Soissons, which thenceforth ranked as one of the capitals of
the kingdom. It is in the neighbourhood of Soissons that we find the
principal villae of the Merovingian kings, notably Brennacum (to-day
Berny-Riviere). From Soissons he extended his sway over the cities of
Belgica Secunda of which Rheims is the metropolis, and he entered into
## p. 111 (#143) ############################################
481-496] Beginnings of Clovis 111
relations with llemi (Remigius), the bishop of this city. Then, gradually,
meeting with more or less prolonged resistance, he gained possession of
other cities, among them Paris—the defence of which was directed, so
the legend runs, by Ste Genevieve—and Verdun-sur-Meuse, which is said
to have received honourable terms, thanks to its bishop, Euspicius.
Thus, little by little, the dominions of Clovis were extended to the
banks of the Loire. In this newly conquered territory Clovis followed
a new policy. In occupying Toxandria the Salians had expelled the
Gallo-Roman population; here, on the contrary, they left the Gallo-
Romans undisturbed and were content to mix with them. The ancient
language held its ground, and the Gallo-Romans retained their pos-
sessions; there was not even a division of the lands, such as the Visigoths
and Burgundians had made. Clovis was no doubt still a pagan, but he
respected the Christian religion and shewed an extraordinary deference
towards the bishops—that is the only conclusion that can be drawn from
the well-known incident of the bowl of Soissons—and the prelates already
seemed to see before them a glorious work to be accomplished in the
conversion of Clovis to orthodox Christianity.
Not content with bringing the Gallo-Romans under his sway, Clovis
waged war also with the barbarian peoples in the neighbourhood of his
kingdom. In the year 491 he forced the Thuringians on the left bank
of the Rhine to submit to him, and enrolled their warriors among his
own troops. He also invited other barbarian auxiliaries to march under
his standards—Procopius calls them 'Ap/Sopt/^ot—as well as the Roman
soldiers who had been placed to guard the frontier, and in this way he
formed a very strong army.
The fame of Clovis began to spread abroad. Theodoric, king of the
Ostrogoths, who had almost completed the conquest of Italy, asked the
hand of his sister Albofleda in marriage, and Clovis himself, in 493,
espoused a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, daughter of Chilperic, who
had died not long before, and niece of the kings Gundobad and
Godigisel.
Clotilda was an orthodox Christian and set herself to convert her
husband—it would be possible to trace the influence of women in many
of those great conversions which have had important political con-
sequences. Half won-over, the king of the Franks allowed his children
to be baptised, but he hesitated to abjure for himself the faith of his
ancestors. He did not make up his mind until after his first victory
over the Alemans.
After his victory at Soissons, Clovis pushed his advance towards the
east. The Alemans, already in possession of Alsace, were endeavouring
to extend their territories towards the west, across the Vosges. It was
inevitable that the two powers should come into collision. The struggle
was severe. Clovis succeeded in crossing the Vosges, and, on the banks
of the Rhine, probably in the neighbourhood of Strassburg, he defeated
## p. 112 (#144) ############################################
112 Conversion of Clovis [496-607
his adversaries in a bloody battle (a. d. 496), but was unable to reduce
them to subjection. He began to perceive at this time what strength
he would gain by embracing Christianity. The bishops, who exercised
a very powerful influence, would everywhere declare for him, and would
support him in his struggles with the heathen tribes, and even against
the barbarians who adhered to the Arian heresy. His wars would then
assume the character of wars of religion—crusades, to use the term of
later times. It was doubtless from such considerations of policy, rather
than from any profound conviction, that he decided to be baptised.
The ceremony, to which numerous persons of note were invited, took
place at Rheims, whatever some modern historians may say to the
contrary. It was celebrated on Christmas day of the year 496. Three
thousand Franks went to the font along with their king. This conversion
produced a profound and widespread impression. Throughout the
whole of Gaul, in the kingdom of the Burgundians as well as that of
the Visigoths, orthodox Christians spoke of it with enthusiasm. Avitus,
bishop of Vienne, a subject of King Gundobad, wrote to Clovis, king of
the Franks: "Your ancestors have opened the way for you to a great
destiny; your decision will open the way to a yet greater for your
descendants. Your faith is our victory. 11 And he urged him in emphatic
language to propagate Catholicism among the barbarian peoples in
more distant lands, " which have not yet been corrupted by heretical
doctrines. 11 It was quite evident that if the Catholics of the Burgundian
and Visigothic kingdoms did not precisely summon Clovis to their aid,
they would at least not resist him if he came of his own motion.
Accordingly, four years after his baptism, in the year 500, Clovis
commenced operations against the Burgundians. Coming to an under-
standing with Godigisel, he made war on Gundobad, king of Vienne. He
first defeated him near Dijon, and then advanced along the Rhone as far
as Avignon. But that was the limit of his success. On Gundobad's
promising to pay tribute, Clovis retired. Gundobad, however, not only
broke his word, but attacked his brother Godigisel, slew him in a church
in Vienne and made himself master of the whole of Burgundy. Thus
the attack of Clovis had the consequence of making Gundobad stronger
than before. From the year 500 onwards Burgundy enjoyed a period
of prosperity. It was at this period that the so-called Lew Gundobada and
the Roman law of Burgundy were promulgated. Clovis, not being able
to subdue Gundobad, notwithstanding the secret support of the orthodox
clergy, came to terms with him, and later found him a useful ally in the
war with the Visigoths.
If Clovis did not push home his success against the Burgundians, it
was doubtless because his own kingdom wws menaced by the Alemans.
About this time, therefore, he decided to expel that nation from the
territories which they occupied; and from 505 to 507 he waged against
them a war of extermination. He not only seized the country afterwards
## p. 113 (#145) ############################################
500-507] Wars with Burgundians and Visigoths 113
known as Alsace, but pursued the Alemans up the right bank of the
Rhine and drove them to take refuge in the valley of the upper Rhine
(Rhaetia). At this point Theodoric the Great, the king of the Ostro-
goths, intervened in favour of the vanquished. Theodoric desired to
exercise a kind of hegemony over the barbarian kings and with that
view to maintain the balance of power among them. He wrote an
eloquent letter to Clovis, in which, while sending him a player on the
cither, he begged him to spare the remnant of the Alemans, and
declared that he took them under his protection. The Alemans, who
were now occupying the high valleys of the Alps, thus passed under the
dominion of Theodoric, and paid tribute to him. They formed a kind
of buffer-State between the kingdoms of the Franks and the Ostrogoths.
We shall see how Witigis, a successor of Theodoric, gave up these
remnants of the Alemans to the Franks (536).
As early as 507 Clovis was bending all his energies to the project of
wresting from the Visigoths the part of Gaul which they held. The
orthodox bishops were now tired of being subject to Arian rulers, and
besought the aid of the king of the Franks. Alaric II, who had
succeeded Euric in 486, was undoubtedly a tolerant ruler. He gave to
the Romans of his dominions an important code of law which is known
by the name of the Breviarium Alarici; and he allowed the bishops
more than once to meet in councils. Rut being obliged to take severe
measures against certain bishops, he was counted a persecutor. Thus,
two successive bishops of Tours, Volusianus and Verus, were driven from
that see, Ruricius of Limoges was obliged to live in exile at Rordeaux;
and all these bickerings made the bishops long for an orthodox ruler.
Causes of contention between Franks and Visigoths were not lacking.
One difficulty after another arose between the two neighbouring king-
doms. In vain the kings endeavoured to remove them, meeting for this
purpose on an island in the Loire near Amboise; in vain Theodoric
the Great wrote urging the adversaries to compose their quarrel. He
advised Alaric to be prudent and not to stake the fate of his kingdom
upon a throw of the dice. He reminded Clovis that the issue of a
battle was always uncertain, and threatened to intervene himself if the
king of the Franks proceeded to extremities. He invited Gundobad
the king of the Rurgundians to co-operate with him in maintaining
peace. He warned three kings who held the right bank of the Rhine—
the kings of the Herulians, the Warnians and the Thuringians—of the
ambitions of Clovis. It was too late; the war could not be averted.
Reyond question, Clovis was the aggressor. He mustered his troops
and made a vigorous speech to them. "It grieves me that these
Arians should hold a part of Gaul. Let us march, with the help of
God, and reduce their country to subjection. " He had with him
Chloderic, son of Sigebert, king of the Ripuarian Franks, while
Gundobad king of the Rurgundians co-operated by advancing upon the
C. MED. II. VOL. II. OH. IV. 8
## p. 114 (#146) ############################################
114 Battle of Vougle [507-508
Visigoths from the east. The decisive battle took place at Vougle, in
the neighbourhood of Poitiers (a. d. 507). The Visigoths made a heroic
resistance, in which the Arvernians, led by Apollinaris the son of the
poet Sidonius, especially distinguished themselves. But the Franks
broke down all resistance, and Clovis slew Alaric with his own hand.
After the battle the Salians effected a junction with the Burgundians,
and the combined forces advanced on Toulouse and burned that city.
Then the conquerors divided their troops into three armies. Clovis
subjugated the western part of the country, capturing Eauze, Bazas,
Bordeaux and Angouleme; his son Theodoric (Thierry) operated in the
central region, and took the cities of Albi, Rodez and Auvergne;
Gundobad advanced towards the east, into Septimania, where a bastard
son of Alaric II named Gisalic had just had himself proclaimed king,
ousting the legitimate son, Amalaric. Soon there remained to the
Visigoths, to the north of the Pyrenees, nothing but Provence, with its
capital Aries, formerly the residence of the Praetorian Praefect and
known as the "little Rome of Gaul" (Galhda Roma). The Franks and
Burgundians had laid siege to this city when the army of the Ostrogoths
came upon the scene. Theodoric had been unable to intervene earlier,
for at the beginning of 508 a Byzantine fleet, perhaps at the instigation
of Clovis, had landed a force on the shores of Apulia, and the king
of the Ostrogoths had had to turn his attention thither.
At length,
in the summer, he sent an army across the Alps, and its arrival
forced the Franks and Burgundians to raise the siege of Aries. His
troops occupied the whole of Provence, but instead of restoring this
territory to the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths kept it for themselves.
Theodoric sent officials to the cities of Provence with orders to treat in
a conciliatory fashion this people which had been "restored to the bosom
of the Roman Empire. " The Ostrogoths did not however content
themselves with this success. Their general Ibbas retook Septimania
from the Franks and Burgundians, capturing Narbonne, Carcassonne
and Nimes. He left this territory, however, under the rule of Amalaric
and rid him of his rival Gisalic. Communication was thus established
along the coast of the Mediterranean between the kingdoms of the
Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
Nevertheless Clovis gained considerable advantage from the war. If
Septimania had eluded his grasp, he had extended his kingdom from
the Loire to the Pyrenees. Gundobad alone obtained no profit from
the struggle.
Clovis treated with clemency the Gallo-Roman populations whom he
had just brought under his dominion. He ordered all clergy, widows,
and serfs of the Church, who had been made prisoners by his troops
during the campaign, to be set at liberty. There was no new distribution
of lands. The Arians, indeed, were required to embrace the orthodox
faith, but even their conversion was effected rather by persuasion
## p. 115 (#147) ############################################
60s] Clovis at Tours and at Paris 115
than by force. The Arian clergy were allowed to resume their rank
in the hierarchy after a reconciliation by laying on of hands. Their
churches were not destroyed, but after reconsecration were made over to
the use of the orthodox.
On his way back from the war, Clovis in 508 visited the town of
Tours, where he made large gifts to the monastery of St Martin. At
Tours he received from the Emperor of the East, Anastasius, the patent
of consular rank. He was not entitled consul, and his name would be
sought in vain in the consular records; he was an honorary consul,
tanquam consul, as Gregory of Tours quite accurately expresses it.
He at once assumed the insignia of the consulship, with the purple
tunic and mantle of the same colour, and, starting from the church of
St Martin, he made a solemn entry into the town of Tours, and
proceeded to the cathedral of St Gatien, scattering largess as he went.
Clovis was evidently proud of this new honour, which was a proof of
the Emperor's friendship—perhaps he had come to an agreement with
the Emperor directed against Theodoric—but his investiture with the
consulship gave him no new authority. His rights were those of
conquest; they were not dependent on the sanction of the Emperor,
and he continued to govern the Gallo-Romans after 508 as he had
governed them before it. If he wore the Roman insignia at his entry
into Tours, he continued to wear also the crown characteristic of
barbarian kings, and along with the title of honorary consul—translated
in a prologue to the Salic law by Proconsul—he assumed that of
Augustus.
From Tours, Clovis proceeded to Paris where he now established the
seat of his government. The town was admirably situated, lying on an
island in the Seine, at a point about the middle of its course, and not
far from the points at which it receives its two great confluents, the
Marne and the Oise; well placed also for communication with the
northern plain, and with the south of France by way of the Gap of
Poitou. Already the town had overflowed to the left bank, and there
Clovis built a basilica dedicated to the Holy Apostles. This was later
the church of Ste Genevieve, close to what is now the Pantheon. In the
neighbourhood of Paris there sprang up a number of royal villae,
Clichy, Rueil, Nogent-sur-Marne, Bonneuil.
Clovis had won great victories; but there were still some Salian
tribes which were ruled over by their own kings, and round about
Cologne lay the kingdom of the Ripuarian Franks. By a series
of assassinations Clovis got rid of the Salian kings, Chararic
and Ragnachar, and the two brothers of the latter, Richar and
Rignomer—the former killed near Mans—and took possession of their
territories. The details which have come down to us of the assassination
of these petty kings are legendary, but that they were murdered would
appear to be the fact. There remained the kingdom of the Ripuarians.
ch. iv. 8—2
## p. 116 (#148) ############################################
116 The Sons of Clovis [508-5&8
Clovis stirred up Chloderic against his father Sigebert the Lame and
then presented himself to the Ripuarians in the character of the
avenger of Sigebert. The Ripuarians hailed him with acclamations and
accepted him as their king: "Thus day by day God brought low his
enemies before him, so that they submitted to him, and increased his
kingdom, because he walked before Him with an upright heart and did
that which was pleasing in His sight. '1 Such is the singular reflection
which closes the narrative of all these murders. Gregory of Tours
reproduces it, borrowing it from some traditional source, and the bishop
does not seem to have been conscious how singular it was1.
Clovis died in the year 511, after holding at Orleans a council at
which a great number of the bishops of his kingdom were assembled.
He had accomplished a really great work. He had conquered nearly
the whole of Gaul, excepting the kingdom of BurgundyTProvence and
Septimania. By subjugating the Alemans he had extended his authority
even to the other side of the Rhine. He had governed this kingdom
wisely, relying chiefly on the episcopate for support. He had codified
the customary law of the Salian Franks—it is from his reign, between
the years 508 and 511, that the first redaction of the Salic law is in all
probability to be dated. He may be called with justice the founder of
the French nation.
The Merovingians regarded the kingdom as a family inheritance, the
sons dividing their father's dominions into portions as nearly equal as
possible. This was now done by the sons of Clovis, Theodoric (Thierry),
Clodomir, Childebert and Chlotar. Each of them took a share of their
father's original kingdom to the north of the Loire, and another share
from among his more recent conquests to the south of that river. As
their capitals, they chose respectively Rheims, Orleans, Paris and
Soissons. Each of the four brothers, urged by covetousness, sought to
increase his portion at the expense of his neighbour, and they carried on
a contest of intrigue and chicanery. On the death of Clodomir in 524,
Childebert and Chlotar murdered his children in order to divide his
kingdom between themselves. Two other families were also doomed to
extinction. Theodoric died in 584, leaving a very able son Theudibert,
the most remarkable among the kings of that period, but he died
in 548, and his young son Theodebald fell a victim to precocious
debauchery in 555. Childebert died in 558 and of all the descendants
of Clovis there now remained only Chlotar I. He fell heir to the whole
of the Merovingian dominions, and his power was apparently very
great. His son Chramnus rebelled against him and fled to Chonober,
count of Brittany, but the father mustered his forces and defeated
1 Greg. Tur. n. 40: Prosternebat enim cotidie Dens hostes ejus sub manu ipsius.
Loebell, Giesebrecht and others take enim in the sense of but, as is not uncommon
in Gregory. In this case the writer will be marking his disapproval of the murders.
God prospered the orthodox king notwithstanding his crimes.
## p. 117 (#149) ############################################
6i7-66i] Conquest of the Burgundian Kingdom 117
him—" like another Absalom," says Gregory of Tours. Chlotar had
him shut up in a hut with his wife and children, and caused it to be
set on fire. Afterwards, however, he was overwhelmed with remorse.
In vain he sought peace for his soul at the tomb of St Martin of Tours.
Struck down by disease he died at his palace of Compiegne, his last
words being: "What think ye of the King of Heaven who thus overthrows
the kings of earth? " His surviving sons buried him with great pomp
in the basilica of St Medard at Soissons (561).
In spite of the fact that during the greater part of this period the
kingdom was divided into four parts, it was still regarded as a unity:
there was only one Frankish kingdom, regnum Francorum. The sons
of Clovis had a common task to accomplish in the carrying on of their
father's work and the completion of the conquest of Gaul. In this they
did not fail. Clovis1 expedition against the Burgundians in 500 had
miscarried; his sons subjugated that kingdom. Sigismund the son of
Gundobad had been converted to the orthodox faith; he restored the
great monastery of Agaunum in the Valais, on the spot where St Maurice
and his comrades of the Theban legion were slain. He reformed the
Church at the great Council of Epaone in 517, where very severe
measures were adopted against the Arian heresy. But it was now too
late. Sigismund failed to win over the orthodox and he provoked a
lively discontent among the Burgundian warriors. The sons of Clovis
were not slow to profit by this. Clodomir, Childebert and Chlotar
invaded Burgundy in 523, defeated Sigismund in a pitched battle and
took him prisoner. He was handed over, with his wife and children,
to Clodomir, who had them thrown into a well at St Peravy-la-
Colombe near Orleans. And while the Franks were invading the
kingdom of Burgundy from the north, Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths,
resenting Sigismund's zeal against Arianism, had sent troops from
Provence and captured several strong-places to the north of the
Durance: Avignon, Cavaillon, Carpentras, Orange and Vaison. Bur-
gundy however regained some strength under the rule of a brother
of Sigismund named Godomar, who defeated and slew Clodomir on
25 June 524, at Vezeronce near Vienne. He endeavoured to re-
establish some order in his dominions at the assembly of Amberieux,
and his kingdom was thus enabled to prolong its existence until the year
534. At that date Childebert, Chlotar and Theudibert seized Burgundy
and divided it between them, each one taking a portion of the country
and adding it to his dominions. The kingdom of the Burgundians
had existed for nearly a century, not without a certain brilliance. A
great legislative work had been accomplished, and among them we
find a historian in Marius of Aventicum and a poet in Avitus, whom
Milton was to recall in his Paradise Lost1. For long Burgundy formed
1 Guizot in his Hittoire de la Civilisation en France, Vol. II. led. xviii. , cites some
parallels tending to shew that Milton was acquainted with the poem of Avitus on
## p. 118 (#150) ############################################
118 Conquest of Provence [536
a separate division of the Frankish kingdom, and perhaps even to-day it
is possible to recognise among the dwellers on the banks of the Saone
and the Rhone certain moral and physical characteristics of the ancient
Burgundians seven and a half feet in height, hard-workers but loving
pleasure and good wine, and fond of letting their tongues run freely and
without reserve.
The sons of Clovis also annexed Provence and the cities to the north
of the Durance which the Ostrogoths had occupied. Witigis, who was
defending himself with difficulty against the Byzantines, offered them
these territories as the price of their neutrality, if thev would refrain
from siding with Justinian. The Frankish kings divided up Provence
(536) as they had divided up Burgundy. They were now masters of the
ancient Phocaean colony of Marseilles, with the whole coast-line; at
Aries, the old Roman capital of Gaul, they presided over the games in the
amphitheatre. Along with Provence, Witigis transferred to the Franks
the suzerainty over the Alemans who in 506 had taken refuge in
Rhaetia. From this time forward the Franks were masters of the whole
of ancient Gaul, with the exception of Septimania which continued to
be held by the Visigoths. Time after time did the sons of Clovis
attempt to wrest this country from them, but all their expeditions
failed for one reason or another. Septimania continued to be united to
Spain and shared the fortunes of that country, passing along with it
under the domination of the Arabs. It was not until the reign of Pepin
that this fair region was incorporated with France.
But if the kingdom of the Franks had on the whole been greatly
extended, in one quarter the limits of their dominion had been curtailed.
In the course of the sixth century some of the Kelts, driven out of Great
Britain by the Anglo-Saxon invasions, themselves invaded the Armorican
peninsula, which like the rest of Gaul had been completely Romanised.
"They embarked with loud lamentations, and, as the wind swelled their
sails, they cried with the Psalmist 'Lord, Thou hast delivered us like
sheep to the slaughter, and hast scattered us among the nations. '"
Arriving in small separate companies they gained a foothold at the
western extremity of the peninsula. Gradually establishing themselves
among the original population, before long they ousted it, pushin.
further towards the east. The aspect of the Armorican pen
underwent a rapid change; it lost its earlier name and became
as Brittany, after its new inhabitants. In the western districts
Romanic language disappeared entirely and Keltic took its place; an
special saints with unfamiliar names were there held in honour, St Brieuc,
St Tutwal, St Malo, St Judicael. The Britons were divided into three
groups, of which each one had its own chief; round about Vannes was
the early ages of the world, of which the first three books, De Origine Mundi,
De Peceato Original* and De Sententia Dei, form, as he says, a kind of Paradise
Lott.
## p. 119 (#151) ############################################
53i-66i] Further Frankisk Conquests 119
the Bro-Waroch, so called from the name of one of the chiefs; the
group of Comovii, coming from Cornwall, established itself in the
east; to the north, from Brest harbour to the river Couesnon extended
the Domnonee, the inhabitants of which were natives of Devon. No
doubt these various chiefs recognised in theory the suzerainty of the
Frankish kings, but they were not appointed by the latter, and were
in fact independent. The western extremity of France, the ancient
Armorica, was thus separate from the rest of the country; and similarly,
between the Gironde and the Pyrenees, the Basques, who belonged to a
distinct race and spoke a peculiar dialect, maintained their independence
under the rule of their dukes.
Such was the state of the Frankish kingdom proper; but, under the
sons of Clovis, Frankish influence extended even over the neighbouring
countries. They came in contact with various Germanic peoples and
imposed their suzerainty on some of them. Clovis himself had subjugated
the Alemans; Theodebald his great-grandson entered into relations with
the Bavarians beyond the Lech. Theodoric (Thierry) and Chlotar made
war on the Thuringians and destroyed their independence (581). It was
from Thuringia that Chlotar took his wife, Radegund, who left him in
order to found the famous convent of Ste Croix, at Poitiers. Chlotar
even made war upon the Saxons, who inhabited the great plain of northern
Germany, and imposed upon them a yearly tribute of 500 cows. Spain
and Italy, too, witnessed the warlike exploits of these Frankish princes.
From an expedition against Saragossa in 542 Childebert brought back
the tunic of St Vincent, and in honour of this relic he founded at the
gates of Paris the monastery of St Vincent, later known as St Germain-
des-Pres. Theudibert made several incursions into Italy. Sometimes
posing as a friend of the Ostrogoths, at others as a friend of the
Byzantines, he plundered some of the wealthy cities and amassed large
spoils. He even made himself master for a time of Liguria, Emilia and
Venetia, and had coins minted at Bologna. Indignant because the
Emperor added to his titles that of Francicus, he even thought of
penetrating by way of the valley of the Danube into Thrace, and of
appearing in arms before Constantinople. He addressed to Justinian a
JBtoghty letter, which has come down to us. So far these sons of Clovis
|fl kbear themselves like kings. They had achieved the conquest of
Bup to the frontiers assigned by nature to that country; they had also
MrTied their arms against Germany, the country of their origin, and had
^^opened up in that direction the pathway of civilisation. Like the ancient
Gauls whom they supplanted, they had descended upon Italy, where their
incursions created widespread consternation.
To all this the epoch of the grandsons of Clovis presents a striking
contrast. The vigorous expansion of the Franks was checked. They
failed to wrest Septimania from the Visigoths and make Gaul a united
whole. No doubt they made several expeditions against the Lombards
CH. IV.
## p. 120 (#152) ############################################
120 The Grandsons of Clovis [561-575
of Italy, but these were merely plundering-raids; there were no further
conquests. The Merovingians began to turn their warlike ardour against
each other; there follows a miserable period of civil war.
Of the four sons of Chlotar I—Charibert, Guntram, Sigebert and
Chilperic—who divided their father's kingdom in 561, Charibert the
king of Paris early disappeared from the scene, dying in 567. Sigebert
king of Metz and Chilperic king of Soissons were bitterly jealous of
one another, each constantly endeavouring to filch some fragment of
the other's territory. Between these two Guntram king of Orleans
and Burgundy adopted a waiting attitude, in order to maintain the
balance of power, and giving his aid at the opportune moment to the
weaker side to prevent it from being crushed. The rivalry of the two
brothers was intensified by that of their wives, which gives to these
struggles a peculiarly ruthless character. Sigebert, whose morals were
more respectable than those of his brothers, had sent an embassy to
Toledo to the king of the Visigoths, Athanagild, to ask the hand of
his daughter Brunhild (Brunehaut) in marriage. Brunhild renounced
Arianism, professed the Trinitarian faith, and brought to her husband
a very large dowry. The marriage was celebrated at Metz with great
magnificence. The young poet Fortunatus also, who had just left his
home at Treviso, indited an epithalamium in grandiloquent lines into
which he dragged all the divinities of Olympus. The new queen was
perhaps the only person present who understood these eulogies, for she
had been brilliantly educated and spoke Latin excellently. At the half-
barbarous court of Sigebert she made a profound impression. The news
of this marriage fired Chilperic with envy. He had espoused a somewhat
insignificant woman named Audovera, and had afterwards repudiated her
in order to live in low debauchery with a serving-woman named Fredegund.
But after the marriage of Sigebert, he asked of Athanagild the hand of
the latter's eldest daughter, Galswintha. The king of the Visigoths did
not dare to refuse. Galswintha came to Soissons, and at first her husband
loved her much "because she had brought great treasures. " Before long
however he went back to his mistress, and one morning Galswintha was
found strangled in her bed. Very shortly afterwards the king married
Fredegund, and ordered the execution of his first wife Audovera. In
this way arose a bitter quarrel between Fredegund and Brunhild, the
latter burning to avenge her sister; and it may well be conceived that a
peculiarly vindictive and relentless character was thus imparted to the
civil war. Almost at the beginning of the struggle Sigebert met his
death. He had defeated Chilperic, had conquered the greater part of
his kingdom and compelled him to shut himself up in Toumai; he was
about to be raised on the shield and proclaimed king at Vitry not far
from Arras, when two slaves sent by Fredegund struck him down with
poisoned daggers (scramasaon) (575).
The actors left upon the scene, from that time forward, were Chilperic
## p. 121 (#153) ############################################
561-584] Chilperic 121
who was now to get back his kingdom, and Brunhild who, after being
held prisoner for a time, succeeded after the most romantic adventures in
escaping from Rouen and reaching Austrasia, where her son, Childebert II
(still a child), had been proclaimed king.
Chilperic is the very type of a Merovingian despot. He had two
dominant passions, ambition and greed of gold. He desired to extend his
kingdom, he wished to accumulate treasure. He ground down his people
with taxes and caused a new assessment to be made. Many of his subjects
refused to submit to this increase of taxation, preferring to leave the
country and seek an easier life elsewhere. In his capacity as judge he
imposed especially heavy fines upon the rich as a means of confiscating
their property. He was envious of the great possessions of the Church,
complaining that "Our treasury is empty, all our wealth has passed over
to the churches; the bishops alone reign, our power is gone, it has been
transferred to the bishops of the cities. '1 He therefore pronounced void
all wills made in favour of the churches, he even revoked the gifts which
his father had left to them. He sold the bishoprics to the highest bidder,
and in his reign very few of the clergy attained to the episcopate; rich
laymen purchased the priestly office and passed in one day through the
various grades of orders. He was at once avaricious and debauched,
gourmand and cruel. He delighted in low amours and he made a god
of his belly. At the foot of his edicts he inscribes this formula:
"Whosoever sets at nought our order shall have his eyes put out. "
But with all this he was a man of original ideas. He desired that,
contrary to the strict provisions of the Salic law, women should in
certain cases be allowed to inherit land. He was no less ready to
attack religious dogma than ancient custom. He did not believe that
it is necessary to distinguish three Persons in God; he scoffed at the
anthropomorphic designations, the Father and the Son, as applied to the
Deity. He issued an edict forbidding the Trinity to be named in
prayer—the name God was alone to be used. Orthography as well as
dogma must bow to his decree. He added to the alphabet four letters,
borrowed from the Greek, to represent the long o, the "voiceless" th,
the as and the w. It was not the Germanic sounds which he wished to
represent more exactly: Chilperic despised the Germanic tongue, and
his reform was intended to apply to the Latin. He directed that children
were to be taught by the new methods; in ancient manuscripts the
writing was to be erased and reinserted with the additional letters. This
barbarian king was a devoted admirer of the Roman civilisation; he com-
posed poems in the manner of Sedulius, and wrote hymns which he also
set to music. His scepticism regarding the Trinity did not prevent him
from being superstitious: he believed in portents, in relics, in sorcerers.
He fancied himself able to outwit the Deity. Having sworn, for instance,
not to enter Paris without the consent of his brothers, he broke the
compact, but to avert misfortune he had a number of the bones of various
## p. 122 (#154) ############################################
122 Brunhild in Australia [576-487
saints carried in front of his troops. He was a fantastical and violent
man, of a strange and complex character; and it is no very flagrant
calumny when Gregory of Tours calls him the Nero and the Herod of
his time. From all these characteristics it can well be imagined that the
struggle which he carried on against Brunhild and her son was fierce
and merciless.
He wrested from them a number of towns, among them Poitiers
and Tours, and it was thus that Gregory became, to his intense
disgust, the subject of this debauched monarch, with whom he was
constantly at odds. It may well be supposed that Chilperic had stirred
up much wrath and many enmities and it is not surprising that he
died by violence. One day as he was returning from Chelles where he
had been hunting, a man came close to him and stabbed him twice with
a dagger (584). Who his assassin actually was, remained unknown.
While Chilperic succeeded in imposing his authority upon the
western Franks in the territories which formed the most recent
Frankish conquests—known a little later as Neustria, from the word
niugt "the newest"—Brunhild made strenuous efforts to preserve intact
all the prerogatives of the royal power in the eastern region, Austrasia.
Exceedingly ambitious, eager to secure her authority by every possible
means, it was she who in the name of her son Childebert II (575-596)
actually held the reins of power. The great men of the kingdom
threw themselves into an embittered struggle against her. Supported
by Chilperic and Neustria they refused to give obedience to a woman
and a foreigner. Ursio, Bertefried, Guntram-Boso and duke Rauching
placed themselves at their head and attacked the adherents of the royal
house, chief among whom was Lupus of Champagne. Brunhild tried in
vain to separate the combatants; the rebels answered brutally, "Woman,
get you gone, let it suffice you to have ruled during your husband's life-
time; now it is your son who reigns and it is not under your protection
but under ours that the kingdom is placed. Get you hence, or we shall
trample you under the hoofs of our horses.
soothsayers (haruspices) or mathematicians respecting the health of the
Emperor, introduction of new sects or unknown religions to excite men's
minds, forgery or suppression of wills, forgery of seals, coining, melting
or mutilating coinage were sometimes punished capitally. Coining was
regarded as treason (326).
Constantine (818) forbad under pain of burning any soothsayer from
crossing the threshold of another person, even though an old friend, but
in the case of magical arts distinguished between those directed against
another's safety or chastity, and remedies for disease or country spells
against heat or rain upon the crops. Constantius (358) was also severe
against all divination, etc. Valentinian (364) forbad all nocturnal
religious rites, but relaxed this prohibition on the proconsul of Greece
representing that life then would be intolerable.
## p. 106 (#138) ############################################
106 Adultery
Adultery could be charged only by the nearest relatives: husband,
father, brother, uncle, first cousin. The husband had precedence for
sixty days, then the father having the woman in his power, then after
the like time outsiders, who however could not accuse her while married,
unless the adulterer had first been convicted.
A father was justified in killing his daughter (if in his power) if he
caught her in adultery at his or his son-in-law's house, and in killing the
adulterer also, but if he killed one and spared the other, he was liable
for murder. A husband was justified in killing his wife so caught, but
the adulterer only if he was a slave or freedman or pander or player or a
condemned criminal. The husband was otherwise bound to repudiate
his wife at once. Justinian (542) justified a husband's killing anyone
suspected of illicit intercourse with his wife, if, after sending her three
warnings supported by evidence of trustworthy persons, he found her
conversing with the adulterer in his own or her house or in taverns or
suburban places. For making assignations in church the husband after
like warnings could send both the wife and man to the bishop for
punishment as adulterers according to the laws.
A husband who retained a wife detected in adultery, or compounded
for her release, was guilty of pandering. So also was anyone who married
a woman convicted of adultery. One accused of adultery and escaping,
if he consorted with the woman again, was to be seized by any judge and
without further trial to be tortured and killed.
By a law of Augustus (Lex Julia) the punishment for adultery was
banishment, and for the man, forfeiture of half his property, for the
woman, forfeiture of half her dowry and a third of her property.
Constantine and Justinian made the punishment death by the sword for
the man. Justinian (566) sent the woman into a monastery after being
flogged. The like punishments were ordained for stuprum, i. e. , intercourse
with an unmarried woman or widow, who was neither in the relation of
concubine nor a person of disreputable life.
Anyone who without agreement with her parents carried off" a girl was
to be punished capitally, and the girl herself if she consented. A nurse
who persuaded her to do so was to have her throat and mouth filled
with molten lead. If the girl did not consent, she was still deprived
of right of succession to her parents for not having kept within doors or
raised the neighbours by her cries. The parents, if they overlooked the
matter, were to be banished: other assistants to be punished capitally,
slaves to be burnt. So Constantine in 320. Constantius limited the
penalty of free persons to death (349). Eventually Justinian punished
ravishers and their aiders with death and confiscated their property for
the benefit of the injured woman.
Punishments were not the same for all persons. Three classes of
persons were recognised in Justinian's Digest: honestiores, humiliores or
tenuiores, serxn.
## p. 107 (#139) ############################################
Punishments 107
I. The first class contained the imperial senators and their agnatic
descendants to the third degree; knights with public horses; soldiers
and veterans and their children; decurions. They were not liable to the
penalty of death except for parricide or treason or except by an imperial
order, nor to the mines or compulsory work or beating. The usual
penalty was deportation to an island, in some cases combined with
confiscation of part of their property. Deportation involved loss of
citizenship.
II. The second class were punished for grave offences by death,
more frequently by condemnation to the mines preceded by beating and
accompanied with chains. This punishment was usually for life and
involved loss of citizenship and property. It formerly involved loss
of freedom, but this was abolished by Justinian in 542. Banishment
(relegatio) might be for life or for a time, and citizenship was not
lost
The death penalty for free persons was usually beheading, in and
after second century by sword, not axe; rarely, and only for the gravest
offences, crucifying or burning. Beating or torturing to death, strangling
and poisoning, were forbidden.
Justinian in 556 enacted that for crimes involving death or banish-
ment the property of the criminals should not be confiscated either to
the judges or officials, or, as according to the old law, to the fisc, but
should pass to their descendants, or, if there were none, to the ascendants
up to the third degree. He also enacted that where the law ordered
both hands or both feet to be cut off, one only should be cut, and that
joints should not be dislocated. No limb should be cut off for theft,
if without violence.
Constantino (318) re-enacted the punishment assigned by old practice
to parricide, viz. , the criminal to be beaten with rods, sewn up in a sack
with a dog, cock, viper and ape, and thrown into a deep sea, if near, or
into a river. Justinian retained the law, but confined it to murderers
of father, mother and grandfather and grandmother, whereas it had
previously been applicable to many other relatives.
III. Slaves were punished for grave crime by beheading, sometimes
by crucifying or burning or exposure to wild beasts: for lesser crimes by
work in the mines. Flogging was usual in many cases, and regularly
preceded capital punishment. Imprisonment was not used as a punishment,
but only as security for trial.
Heretics were deprived by Constantine (326) of all privileges given on
the ground of religion and were forbidden (396) to occupy any place for
worship. In 407 Manichaeans and Donatists were ordered to be treated
as criminals; they forfeited all their property to their next of kin (if free
from heresy) and were incapable of succession, of giving, of buying and
selling, of contracting, of making a will; their slaves were to be held
guiltless only if they deserted their masters and served the Catholic Church.
## p. 108 (#140) ############################################
108 Punishment of heretics
In 428 Manichaeans were to be expelled from their towns, and given over
to extreme punishment, and a long list of heretics was forbidden to meet
and pray anywhere on Roman soil. In 485 Nestorians, in 455 the
followers of Eutyches and Apollinarius were to have their books burnt,
and were forbidden to meet and pray. In 527 heretics, Greeks, Jews,
and Samaritans were rendered incapable of serving in the army, of
holding civil office except in the lower ranks and then without a chance
of promotion; and were disabled from suing orthodox Christians for
private or public debts. Children of heretics, if themselves free from
the disease, might take their legal share of their father's property, and
their fathers were to support them and to give dowries to their daughters.
In 580 Montanists like other heretics were forbidden to assemble, to
baptise, to have Communion, and to receive charitable alms from law
courts or churches.
In suits against orthodox, whether both parties or only one be
orthodox, heretics and Jews were not good witnesses, but only in suits
among themselves. Even this was not applicable to Manichaeans,
Montanists, pagans, Samaritans and some others; for they being
criminals were incapable of bearing witness in judicial matters; they were
however allowed as witnesses to wills and contracts, lest proof should be
difficult.
A law of Augustus, confirming analogous republican practice, forbad
any Roman citizen who appealed to the Emperor being killed, tortured,
beaten or put into chains even by the governor or other high magistrate.
This is retained in Justinian's Digest.
Several constitutions at the end of the fourth century (398) were
directed against attempts of clergy or monks to prevent due execution
of sentences on criminals or debtors.
## p. 109 (#141) ############################################
109
CHAPTER IV.
GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN FRANKS.
NARRATIVE OF EVENTS.
At the accession of Clovis, who succeeded his father Childeric about
the year 481, the Salian Franks had advanced as far as the Somme.
Between the Somme and the Loire the suzerainty of the Roman Empire
was still maintained. The various Gallo-Roman cities preserved a certain
independence, while a Roman official, by name Syagrius, exercised a kind
of protection over them. Syagrius was the son of Aegidius, the former
magister militum, and he held the command by hereditary right. After
the fall of the Roman Empire of the West in 476, he maintained an
independent position, having no longer any official superior. Failing
any regular title, Gregory of Tours designates him Rex Romanorum, and
the former Roman official takes on the character of a barbarian king,
free from all ties of authority. The seat of his administration was the
town of Soissons.
To the south of the Loire began the kingdom of the Visigoths, which
reached beyond the Pyrenees and across Spain to the Strait of Gibraltar.
The country south of the Durance, that is to say Provence, also formed
part of this kingdom. After having long been allies of the Roman Empire
the Visigoths had broken the treaties which bound them to Rome; more-
over since 476 there was no emperor in Italy, and they occupied these
vast territories by right of conquest. Euric, who had been king
since 466, had extended his dominions on every side and was quite
independent.
In the valley of the Saone and the Rhone, as far as the Durance, the
Burgundians had been enlarging their borders. Starting from Savoy,
to which Aetius had confined them, they had extended their possessions
little by little, until these now included the town of Langres. In 481
the kingship of Burgundy was shared by two brothers, of whom the
elder, Gundobad, had his seat at Vienne, the younger, Godigisel, at
Geneva. A third brother, Chilperic, who had reigned at Lyons, had
just died. The rumour ran that he had met a violent death, his brothers
having had him assassinated in order to seize upon his inheritance.
The Visigoths and Burgundians endeavoured to live at peace with
## p. 110 (#142) ############################################
110 Gaul at the Accession of Clovis [481
the Gallo-Romans and to administer their territories wisely. The former
subjects of Rome would willingly have submitted to them in exchange
for the protection which they could afford and the peace which they
could secure; they would willingly have pardoned them for dividing up
their territories; but between the Gallo-Romans and the barbarians
there was one grave subject of dissension. The former had remained
faithful to orthodoxy, the latter were Arians; and although the rulers
were willing to exercise toleration and to maintain friendly relations
with the members of the episcopate, their Gallo-Roman subjects did not
cease to regard them as abettors of heresy, and to desire their fall as
a means to the triumph of the true faith.
To the north of the Burgundian kingdom, the Alemans had made
themselves masters of the territory between the Rhine and the Vosges—
the country which was to be known later as Alsace—and they were
seeking to enlarge their borders by attacking the Gallo-Roman cities to
the west, the Burgundians to the south, and the Ripuarian Franks to the
north-west. They also continued to hold the country on the right bank
of the Rhine which had been known as the agri decumates, and they had
established themselves in force upon the shores of the Lake of Constance
and to the east of the Aar. The Ripuarian Franks remained in possession
of a compact State round about Cologne and Treves, and, near them,
the Thuringians had founded a little State on the left bank of the
Rhine. It should be added that small colonies of barbarians, drawn
from many different tribes, had established themselves here and there
over the whole face of Gaul. Bands of armed barbarians ranged the
country, seeking a home for themselves; Saxon pirates infested the
coasts, and had established themselves in some force at Bayeux.
Such was the general condition of Gaul at the time when Clovis
became king of the Salian Franks. For five years the youthful king—
he was only fifteen at his accession—remained inactive. He seems to have
been held in check by Euric, the king of the Visigoths. But in the year
following the death of Euric, 486, he took up arms and, calling to his
aid other Salian kings, Ragnachar and Chararic, attacked Syagrius.
The two armies came into contact with one another in the neighbourhood
of Soissons. During the battle Chararic held off, awaiting the result of
the struggle. In spite of this defection Clovis was victorious, and
Syagrius had to take refuge with the king of the Visigoths, Alaric II,
who had succeeded Euric. Alaric however surrendered him, on the first
demand of the Frankish king, who thereupon threw him into prison
and had him secretly put to death. After this victory Clovis occupied
the town of Soissons, which thenceforth ranked as one of the capitals of
the kingdom. It is in the neighbourhood of Soissons that we find the
principal villae of the Merovingian kings, notably Brennacum (to-day
Berny-Riviere). From Soissons he extended his sway over the cities of
Belgica Secunda of which Rheims is the metropolis, and he entered into
## p. 111 (#143) ############################################
481-496] Beginnings of Clovis 111
relations with llemi (Remigius), the bishop of this city. Then, gradually,
meeting with more or less prolonged resistance, he gained possession of
other cities, among them Paris—the defence of which was directed, so
the legend runs, by Ste Genevieve—and Verdun-sur-Meuse, which is said
to have received honourable terms, thanks to its bishop, Euspicius.
Thus, little by little, the dominions of Clovis were extended to the
banks of the Loire. In this newly conquered territory Clovis followed
a new policy. In occupying Toxandria the Salians had expelled the
Gallo-Roman population; here, on the contrary, they left the Gallo-
Romans undisturbed and were content to mix with them. The ancient
language held its ground, and the Gallo-Romans retained their pos-
sessions; there was not even a division of the lands, such as the Visigoths
and Burgundians had made. Clovis was no doubt still a pagan, but he
respected the Christian religion and shewed an extraordinary deference
towards the bishops—that is the only conclusion that can be drawn from
the well-known incident of the bowl of Soissons—and the prelates already
seemed to see before them a glorious work to be accomplished in the
conversion of Clovis to orthodox Christianity.
Not content with bringing the Gallo-Romans under his sway, Clovis
waged war also with the barbarian peoples in the neighbourhood of his
kingdom. In the year 491 he forced the Thuringians on the left bank
of the Rhine to submit to him, and enrolled their warriors among his
own troops. He also invited other barbarian auxiliaries to march under
his standards—Procopius calls them 'Ap/Sopt/^ot—as well as the Roman
soldiers who had been placed to guard the frontier, and in this way he
formed a very strong army.
The fame of Clovis began to spread abroad. Theodoric, king of the
Ostrogoths, who had almost completed the conquest of Italy, asked the
hand of his sister Albofleda in marriage, and Clovis himself, in 493,
espoused a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, daughter of Chilperic, who
had died not long before, and niece of the kings Gundobad and
Godigisel.
Clotilda was an orthodox Christian and set herself to convert her
husband—it would be possible to trace the influence of women in many
of those great conversions which have had important political con-
sequences. Half won-over, the king of the Franks allowed his children
to be baptised, but he hesitated to abjure for himself the faith of his
ancestors. He did not make up his mind until after his first victory
over the Alemans.
After his victory at Soissons, Clovis pushed his advance towards the
east. The Alemans, already in possession of Alsace, were endeavouring
to extend their territories towards the west, across the Vosges. It was
inevitable that the two powers should come into collision. The struggle
was severe. Clovis succeeded in crossing the Vosges, and, on the banks
of the Rhine, probably in the neighbourhood of Strassburg, he defeated
## p. 112 (#144) ############################################
112 Conversion of Clovis [496-607
his adversaries in a bloody battle (a. d. 496), but was unable to reduce
them to subjection. He began to perceive at this time what strength
he would gain by embracing Christianity. The bishops, who exercised
a very powerful influence, would everywhere declare for him, and would
support him in his struggles with the heathen tribes, and even against
the barbarians who adhered to the Arian heresy. His wars would then
assume the character of wars of religion—crusades, to use the term of
later times. It was doubtless from such considerations of policy, rather
than from any profound conviction, that he decided to be baptised.
The ceremony, to which numerous persons of note were invited, took
place at Rheims, whatever some modern historians may say to the
contrary. It was celebrated on Christmas day of the year 496. Three
thousand Franks went to the font along with their king. This conversion
produced a profound and widespread impression. Throughout the
whole of Gaul, in the kingdom of the Burgundians as well as that of
the Visigoths, orthodox Christians spoke of it with enthusiasm. Avitus,
bishop of Vienne, a subject of King Gundobad, wrote to Clovis, king of
the Franks: "Your ancestors have opened the way for you to a great
destiny; your decision will open the way to a yet greater for your
descendants. Your faith is our victory. 11 And he urged him in emphatic
language to propagate Catholicism among the barbarian peoples in
more distant lands, " which have not yet been corrupted by heretical
doctrines. 11 It was quite evident that if the Catholics of the Burgundian
and Visigothic kingdoms did not precisely summon Clovis to their aid,
they would at least not resist him if he came of his own motion.
Accordingly, four years after his baptism, in the year 500, Clovis
commenced operations against the Burgundians. Coming to an under-
standing with Godigisel, he made war on Gundobad, king of Vienne. He
first defeated him near Dijon, and then advanced along the Rhone as far
as Avignon. But that was the limit of his success. On Gundobad's
promising to pay tribute, Clovis retired. Gundobad, however, not only
broke his word, but attacked his brother Godigisel, slew him in a church
in Vienne and made himself master of the whole of Burgundy. Thus
the attack of Clovis had the consequence of making Gundobad stronger
than before. From the year 500 onwards Burgundy enjoyed a period
of prosperity. It was at this period that the so-called Lew Gundobada and
the Roman law of Burgundy were promulgated. Clovis, not being able
to subdue Gundobad, notwithstanding the secret support of the orthodox
clergy, came to terms with him, and later found him a useful ally in the
war with the Visigoths.
If Clovis did not push home his success against the Burgundians, it
was doubtless because his own kingdom wws menaced by the Alemans.
About this time, therefore, he decided to expel that nation from the
territories which they occupied; and from 505 to 507 he waged against
them a war of extermination. He not only seized the country afterwards
## p. 113 (#145) ############################################
500-507] Wars with Burgundians and Visigoths 113
known as Alsace, but pursued the Alemans up the right bank of the
Rhine and drove them to take refuge in the valley of the upper Rhine
(Rhaetia). At this point Theodoric the Great, the king of the Ostro-
goths, intervened in favour of the vanquished. Theodoric desired to
exercise a kind of hegemony over the barbarian kings and with that
view to maintain the balance of power among them. He wrote an
eloquent letter to Clovis, in which, while sending him a player on the
cither, he begged him to spare the remnant of the Alemans, and
declared that he took them under his protection. The Alemans, who
were now occupying the high valleys of the Alps, thus passed under the
dominion of Theodoric, and paid tribute to him. They formed a kind
of buffer-State between the kingdoms of the Franks and the Ostrogoths.
We shall see how Witigis, a successor of Theodoric, gave up these
remnants of the Alemans to the Franks (536).
As early as 507 Clovis was bending all his energies to the project of
wresting from the Visigoths the part of Gaul which they held. The
orthodox bishops were now tired of being subject to Arian rulers, and
besought the aid of the king of the Franks. Alaric II, who had
succeeded Euric in 486, was undoubtedly a tolerant ruler. He gave to
the Romans of his dominions an important code of law which is known
by the name of the Breviarium Alarici; and he allowed the bishops
more than once to meet in councils. Rut being obliged to take severe
measures against certain bishops, he was counted a persecutor. Thus,
two successive bishops of Tours, Volusianus and Verus, were driven from
that see, Ruricius of Limoges was obliged to live in exile at Rordeaux;
and all these bickerings made the bishops long for an orthodox ruler.
Causes of contention between Franks and Visigoths were not lacking.
One difficulty after another arose between the two neighbouring king-
doms. In vain the kings endeavoured to remove them, meeting for this
purpose on an island in the Loire near Amboise; in vain Theodoric
the Great wrote urging the adversaries to compose their quarrel. He
advised Alaric to be prudent and not to stake the fate of his kingdom
upon a throw of the dice. He reminded Clovis that the issue of a
battle was always uncertain, and threatened to intervene himself if the
king of the Franks proceeded to extremities. He invited Gundobad
the king of the Rurgundians to co-operate with him in maintaining
peace. He warned three kings who held the right bank of the Rhine—
the kings of the Herulians, the Warnians and the Thuringians—of the
ambitions of Clovis. It was too late; the war could not be averted.
Reyond question, Clovis was the aggressor. He mustered his troops
and made a vigorous speech to them. "It grieves me that these
Arians should hold a part of Gaul. Let us march, with the help of
God, and reduce their country to subjection. " He had with him
Chloderic, son of Sigebert, king of the Ripuarian Franks, while
Gundobad king of the Rurgundians co-operated by advancing upon the
C. MED. II. VOL. II. OH. IV. 8
## p. 114 (#146) ############################################
114 Battle of Vougle [507-508
Visigoths from the east. The decisive battle took place at Vougle, in
the neighbourhood of Poitiers (a. d. 507). The Visigoths made a heroic
resistance, in which the Arvernians, led by Apollinaris the son of the
poet Sidonius, especially distinguished themselves. But the Franks
broke down all resistance, and Clovis slew Alaric with his own hand.
After the battle the Salians effected a junction with the Burgundians,
and the combined forces advanced on Toulouse and burned that city.
Then the conquerors divided their troops into three armies. Clovis
subjugated the western part of the country, capturing Eauze, Bazas,
Bordeaux and Angouleme; his son Theodoric (Thierry) operated in the
central region, and took the cities of Albi, Rodez and Auvergne;
Gundobad advanced towards the east, into Septimania, where a bastard
son of Alaric II named Gisalic had just had himself proclaimed king,
ousting the legitimate son, Amalaric. Soon there remained to the
Visigoths, to the north of the Pyrenees, nothing but Provence, with its
capital Aries, formerly the residence of the Praetorian Praefect and
known as the "little Rome of Gaul" (Galhda Roma). The Franks and
Burgundians had laid siege to this city when the army of the Ostrogoths
came upon the scene. Theodoric had been unable to intervene earlier,
for at the beginning of 508 a Byzantine fleet, perhaps at the instigation
of Clovis, had landed a force on the shores of Apulia, and the king
of the Ostrogoths had had to turn his attention thither.
At length,
in the summer, he sent an army across the Alps, and its arrival
forced the Franks and Burgundians to raise the siege of Aries. His
troops occupied the whole of Provence, but instead of restoring this
territory to the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths kept it for themselves.
Theodoric sent officials to the cities of Provence with orders to treat in
a conciliatory fashion this people which had been "restored to the bosom
of the Roman Empire. " The Ostrogoths did not however content
themselves with this success. Their general Ibbas retook Septimania
from the Franks and Burgundians, capturing Narbonne, Carcassonne
and Nimes. He left this territory, however, under the rule of Amalaric
and rid him of his rival Gisalic. Communication was thus established
along the coast of the Mediterranean between the kingdoms of the
Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
Nevertheless Clovis gained considerable advantage from the war. If
Septimania had eluded his grasp, he had extended his kingdom from
the Loire to the Pyrenees. Gundobad alone obtained no profit from
the struggle.
Clovis treated with clemency the Gallo-Roman populations whom he
had just brought under his dominion. He ordered all clergy, widows,
and serfs of the Church, who had been made prisoners by his troops
during the campaign, to be set at liberty. There was no new distribution
of lands. The Arians, indeed, were required to embrace the orthodox
faith, but even their conversion was effected rather by persuasion
## p. 115 (#147) ############################################
60s] Clovis at Tours and at Paris 115
than by force. The Arian clergy were allowed to resume their rank
in the hierarchy after a reconciliation by laying on of hands. Their
churches were not destroyed, but after reconsecration were made over to
the use of the orthodox.
On his way back from the war, Clovis in 508 visited the town of
Tours, where he made large gifts to the monastery of St Martin. At
Tours he received from the Emperor of the East, Anastasius, the patent
of consular rank. He was not entitled consul, and his name would be
sought in vain in the consular records; he was an honorary consul,
tanquam consul, as Gregory of Tours quite accurately expresses it.
He at once assumed the insignia of the consulship, with the purple
tunic and mantle of the same colour, and, starting from the church of
St Martin, he made a solemn entry into the town of Tours, and
proceeded to the cathedral of St Gatien, scattering largess as he went.
Clovis was evidently proud of this new honour, which was a proof of
the Emperor's friendship—perhaps he had come to an agreement with
the Emperor directed against Theodoric—but his investiture with the
consulship gave him no new authority. His rights were those of
conquest; they were not dependent on the sanction of the Emperor,
and he continued to govern the Gallo-Romans after 508 as he had
governed them before it. If he wore the Roman insignia at his entry
into Tours, he continued to wear also the crown characteristic of
barbarian kings, and along with the title of honorary consul—translated
in a prologue to the Salic law by Proconsul—he assumed that of
Augustus.
From Tours, Clovis proceeded to Paris where he now established the
seat of his government. The town was admirably situated, lying on an
island in the Seine, at a point about the middle of its course, and not
far from the points at which it receives its two great confluents, the
Marne and the Oise; well placed also for communication with the
northern plain, and with the south of France by way of the Gap of
Poitou. Already the town had overflowed to the left bank, and there
Clovis built a basilica dedicated to the Holy Apostles. This was later
the church of Ste Genevieve, close to what is now the Pantheon. In the
neighbourhood of Paris there sprang up a number of royal villae,
Clichy, Rueil, Nogent-sur-Marne, Bonneuil.
Clovis had won great victories; but there were still some Salian
tribes which were ruled over by their own kings, and round about
Cologne lay the kingdom of the Ripuarian Franks. By a series
of assassinations Clovis got rid of the Salian kings, Chararic
and Ragnachar, and the two brothers of the latter, Richar and
Rignomer—the former killed near Mans—and took possession of their
territories. The details which have come down to us of the assassination
of these petty kings are legendary, but that they were murdered would
appear to be the fact. There remained the kingdom of the Ripuarians.
ch. iv. 8—2
## p. 116 (#148) ############################################
116 The Sons of Clovis [508-5&8
Clovis stirred up Chloderic against his father Sigebert the Lame and
then presented himself to the Ripuarians in the character of the
avenger of Sigebert. The Ripuarians hailed him with acclamations and
accepted him as their king: "Thus day by day God brought low his
enemies before him, so that they submitted to him, and increased his
kingdom, because he walked before Him with an upright heart and did
that which was pleasing in His sight. '1 Such is the singular reflection
which closes the narrative of all these murders. Gregory of Tours
reproduces it, borrowing it from some traditional source, and the bishop
does not seem to have been conscious how singular it was1.
Clovis died in the year 511, after holding at Orleans a council at
which a great number of the bishops of his kingdom were assembled.
He had accomplished a really great work. He had conquered nearly
the whole of Gaul, excepting the kingdom of BurgundyTProvence and
Septimania. By subjugating the Alemans he had extended his authority
even to the other side of the Rhine. He had governed this kingdom
wisely, relying chiefly on the episcopate for support. He had codified
the customary law of the Salian Franks—it is from his reign, between
the years 508 and 511, that the first redaction of the Salic law is in all
probability to be dated. He may be called with justice the founder of
the French nation.
The Merovingians regarded the kingdom as a family inheritance, the
sons dividing their father's dominions into portions as nearly equal as
possible. This was now done by the sons of Clovis, Theodoric (Thierry),
Clodomir, Childebert and Chlotar. Each of them took a share of their
father's original kingdom to the north of the Loire, and another share
from among his more recent conquests to the south of that river. As
their capitals, they chose respectively Rheims, Orleans, Paris and
Soissons. Each of the four brothers, urged by covetousness, sought to
increase his portion at the expense of his neighbour, and they carried on
a contest of intrigue and chicanery. On the death of Clodomir in 524,
Childebert and Chlotar murdered his children in order to divide his
kingdom between themselves. Two other families were also doomed to
extinction. Theodoric died in 584, leaving a very able son Theudibert,
the most remarkable among the kings of that period, but he died
in 548, and his young son Theodebald fell a victim to precocious
debauchery in 555. Childebert died in 558 and of all the descendants
of Clovis there now remained only Chlotar I. He fell heir to the whole
of the Merovingian dominions, and his power was apparently very
great. His son Chramnus rebelled against him and fled to Chonober,
count of Brittany, but the father mustered his forces and defeated
1 Greg. Tur. n. 40: Prosternebat enim cotidie Dens hostes ejus sub manu ipsius.
Loebell, Giesebrecht and others take enim in the sense of but, as is not uncommon
in Gregory. In this case the writer will be marking his disapproval of the murders.
God prospered the orthodox king notwithstanding his crimes.
## p. 117 (#149) ############################################
6i7-66i] Conquest of the Burgundian Kingdom 117
him—" like another Absalom," says Gregory of Tours. Chlotar had
him shut up in a hut with his wife and children, and caused it to be
set on fire. Afterwards, however, he was overwhelmed with remorse.
In vain he sought peace for his soul at the tomb of St Martin of Tours.
Struck down by disease he died at his palace of Compiegne, his last
words being: "What think ye of the King of Heaven who thus overthrows
the kings of earth? " His surviving sons buried him with great pomp
in the basilica of St Medard at Soissons (561).
In spite of the fact that during the greater part of this period the
kingdom was divided into four parts, it was still regarded as a unity:
there was only one Frankish kingdom, regnum Francorum. The sons
of Clovis had a common task to accomplish in the carrying on of their
father's work and the completion of the conquest of Gaul. In this they
did not fail. Clovis1 expedition against the Burgundians in 500 had
miscarried; his sons subjugated that kingdom. Sigismund the son of
Gundobad had been converted to the orthodox faith; he restored the
great monastery of Agaunum in the Valais, on the spot where St Maurice
and his comrades of the Theban legion were slain. He reformed the
Church at the great Council of Epaone in 517, where very severe
measures were adopted against the Arian heresy. But it was now too
late. Sigismund failed to win over the orthodox and he provoked a
lively discontent among the Burgundian warriors. The sons of Clovis
were not slow to profit by this. Clodomir, Childebert and Chlotar
invaded Burgundy in 523, defeated Sigismund in a pitched battle and
took him prisoner. He was handed over, with his wife and children,
to Clodomir, who had them thrown into a well at St Peravy-la-
Colombe near Orleans. And while the Franks were invading the
kingdom of Burgundy from the north, Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths,
resenting Sigismund's zeal against Arianism, had sent troops from
Provence and captured several strong-places to the north of the
Durance: Avignon, Cavaillon, Carpentras, Orange and Vaison. Bur-
gundy however regained some strength under the rule of a brother
of Sigismund named Godomar, who defeated and slew Clodomir on
25 June 524, at Vezeronce near Vienne. He endeavoured to re-
establish some order in his dominions at the assembly of Amberieux,
and his kingdom was thus enabled to prolong its existence until the year
534. At that date Childebert, Chlotar and Theudibert seized Burgundy
and divided it between them, each one taking a portion of the country
and adding it to his dominions. The kingdom of the Burgundians
had existed for nearly a century, not without a certain brilliance. A
great legislative work had been accomplished, and among them we
find a historian in Marius of Aventicum and a poet in Avitus, whom
Milton was to recall in his Paradise Lost1. For long Burgundy formed
1 Guizot in his Hittoire de la Civilisation en France, Vol. II. led. xviii. , cites some
parallels tending to shew that Milton was acquainted with the poem of Avitus on
## p. 118 (#150) ############################################
118 Conquest of Provence [536
a separate division of the Frankish kingdom, and perhaps even to-day it
is possible to recognise among the dwellers on the banks of the Saone
and the Rhone certain moral and physical characteristics of the ancient
Burgundians seven and a half feet in height, hard-workers but loving
pleasure and good wine, and fond of letting their tongues run freely and
without reserve.
The sons of Clovis also annexed Provence and the cities to the north
of the Durance which the Ostrogoths had occupied. Witigis, who was
defending himself with difficulty against the Byzantines, offered them
these territories as the price of their neutrality, if thev would refrain
from siding with Justinian. The Frankish kings divided up Provence
(536) as they had divided up Burgundy. They were now masters of the
ancient Phocaean colony of Marseilles, with the whole coast-line; at
Aries, the old Roman capital of Gaul, they presided over the games in the
amphitheatre. Along with Provence, Witigis transferred to the Franks
the suzerainty over the Alemans who in 506 had taken refuge in
Rhaetia. From this time forward the Franks were masters of the whole
of ancient Gaul, with the exception of Septimania which continued to
be held by the Visigoths. Time after time did the sons of Clovis
attempt to wrest this country from them, but all their expeditions
failed for one reason or another. Septimania continued to be united to
Spain and shared the fortunes of that country, passing along with it
under the domination of the Arabs. It was not until the reign of Pepin
that this fair region was incorporated with France.
But if the kingdom of the Franks had on the whole been greatly
extended, in one quarter the limits of their dominion had been curtailed.
In the course of the sixth century some of the Kelts, driven out of Great
Britain by the Anglo-Saxon invasions, themselves invaded the Armorican
peninsula, which like the rest of Gaul had been completely Romanised.
"They embarked with loud lamentations, and, as the wind swelled their
sails, they cried with the Psalmist 'Lord, Thou hast delivered us like
sheep to the slaughter, and hast scattered us among the nations. '"
Arriving in small separate companies they gained a foothold at the
western extremity of the peninsula. Gradually establishing themselves
among the original population, before long they ousted it, pushin.
further towards the east. The aspect of the Armorican pen
underwent a rapid change; it lost its earlier name and became
as Brittany, after its new inhabitants. In the western districts
Romanic language disappeared entirely and Keltic took its place; an
special saints with unfamiliar names were there held in honour, St Brieuc,
St Tutwal, St Malo, St Judicael. The Britons were divided into three
groups, of which each one had its own chief; round about Vannes was
the early ages of the world, of which the first three books, De Origine Mundi,
De Peceato Original* and De Sententia Dei, form, as he says, a kind of Paradise
Lott.
## p. 119 (#151) ############################################
53i-66i] Further Frankisk Conquests 119
the Bro-Waroch, so called from the name of one of the chiefs; the
group of Comovii, coming from Cornwall, established itself in the
east; to the north, from Brest harbour to the river Couesnon extended
the Domnonee, the inhabitants of which were natives of Devon. No
doubt these various chiefs recognised in theory the suzerainty of the
Frankish kings, but they were not appointed by the latter, and were
in fact independent. The western extremity of France, the ancient
Armorica, was thus separate from the rest of the country; and similarly,
between the Gironde and the Pyrenees, the Basques, who belonged to a
distinct race and spoke a peculiar dialect, maintained their independence
under the rule of their dukes.
Such was the state of the Frankish kingdom proper; but, under the
sons of Clovis, Frankish influence extended even over the neighbouring
countries. They came in contact with various Germanic peoples and
imposed their suzerainty on some of them. Clovis himself had subjugated
the Alemans; Theodebald his great-grandson entered into relations with
the Bavarians beyond the Lech. Theodoric (Thierry) and Chlotar made
war on the Thuringians and destroyed their independence (581). It was
from Thuringia that Chlotar took his wife, Radegund, who left him in
order to found the famous convent of Ste Croix, at Poitiers. Chlotar
even made war upon the Saxons, who inhabited the great plain of northern
Germany, and imposed upon them a yearly tribute of 500 cows. Spain
and Italy, too, witnessed the warlike exploits of these Frankish princes.
From an expedition against Saragossa in 542 Childebert brought back
the tunic of St Vincent, and in honour of this relic he founded at the
gates of Paris the monastery of St Vincent, later known as St Germain-
des-Pres. Theudibert made several incursions into Italy. Sometimes
posing as a friend of the Ostrogoths, at others as a friend of the
Byzantines, he plundered some of the wealthy cities and amassed large
spoils. He even made himself master for a time of Liguria, Emilia and
Venetia, and had coins minted at Bologna. Indignant because the
Emperor added to his titles that of Francicus, he even thought of
penetrating by way of the valley of the Danube into Thrace, and of
appearing in arms before Constantinople. He addressed to Justinian a
JBtoghty letter, which has come down to us. So far these sons of Clovis
|fl kbear themselves like kings. They had achieved the conquest of
Bup to the frontiers assigned by nature to that country; they had also
MrTied their arms against Germany, the country of their origin, and had
^^opened up in that direction the pathway of civilisation. Like the ancient
Gauls whom they supplanted, they had descended upon Italy, where their
incursions created widespread consternation.
To all this the epoch of the grandsons of Clovis presents a striking
contrast. The vigorous expansion of the Franks was checked. They
failed to wrest Septimania from the Visigoths and make Gaul a united
whole. No doubt they made several expeditions against the Lombards
CH. IV.
## p. 120 (#152) ############################################
120 The Grandsons of Clovis [561-575
of Italy, but these were merely plundering-raids; there were no further
conquests. The Merovingians began to turn their warlike ardour against
each other; there follows a miserable period of civil war.
Of the four sons of Chlotar I—Charibert, Guntram, Sigebert and
Chilperic—who divided their father's kingdom in 561, Charibert the
king of Paris early disappeared from the scene, dying in 567. Sigebert
king of Metz and Chilperic king of Soissons were bitterly jealous of
one another, each constantly endeavouring to filch some fragment of
the other's territory. Between these two Guntram king of Orleans
and Burgundy adopted a waiting attitude, in order to maintain the
balance of power, and giving his aid at the opportune moment to the
weaker side to prevent it from being crushed. The rivalry of the two
brothers was intensified by that of their wives, which gives to these
struggles a peculiarly ruthless character. Sigebert, whose morals were
more respectable than those of his brothers, had sent an embassy to
Toledo to the king of the Visigoths, Athanagild, to ask the hand of
his daughter Brunhild (Brunehaut) in marriage. Brunhild renounced
Arianism, professed the Trinitarian faith, and brought to her husband
a very large dowry. The marriage was celebrated at Metz with great
magnificence. The young poet Fortunatus also, who had just left his
home at Treviso, indited an epithalamium in grandiloquent lines into
which he dragged all the divinities of Olympus. The new queen was
perhaps the only person present who understood these eulogies, for she
had been brilliantly educated and spoke Latin excellently. At the half-
barbarous court of Sigebert she made a profound impression. The news
of this marriage fired Chilperic with envy. He had espoused a somewhat
insignificant woman named Audovera, and had afterwards repudiated her
in order to live in low debauchery with a serving-woman named Fredegund.
But after the marriage of Sigebert, he asked of Athanagild the hand of
the latter's eldest daughter, Galswintha. The king of the Visigoths did
not dare to refuse. Galswintha came to Soissons, and at first her husband
loved her much "because she had brought great treasures. " Before long
however he went back to his mistress, and one morning Galswintha was
found strangled in her bed. Very shortly afterwards the king married
Fredegund, and ordered the execution of his first wife Audovera. In
this way arose a bitter quarrel between Fredegund and Brunhild, the
latter burning to avenge her sister; and it may well be conceived that a
peculiarly vindictive and relentless character was thus imparted to the
civil war. Almost at the beginning of the struggle Sigebert met his
death. He had defeated Chilperic, had conquered the greater part of
his kingdom and compelled him to shut himself up in Toumai; he was
about to be raised on the shield and proclaimed king at Vitry not far
from Arras, when two slaves sent by Fredegund struck him down with
poisoned daggers (scramasaon) (575).
The actors left upon the scene, from that time forward, were Chilperic
## p. 121 (#153) ############################################
561-584] Chilperic 121
who was now to get back his kingdom, and Brunhild who, after being
held prisoner for a time, succeeded after the most romantic adventures in
escaping from Rouen and reaching Austrasia, where her son, Childebert II
(still a child), had been proclaimed king.
Chilperic is the very type of a Merovingian despot. He had two
dominant passions, ambition and greed of gold. He desired to extend his
kingdom, he wished to accumulate treasure. He ground down his people
with taxes and caused a new assessment to be made. Many of his subjects
refused to submit to this increase of taxation, preferring to leave the
country and seek an easier life elsewhere. In his capacity as judge he
imposed especially heavy fines upon the rich as a means of confiscating
their property. He was envious of the great possessions of the Church,
complaining that "Our treasury is empty, all our wealth has passed over
to the churches; the bishops alone reign, our power is gone, it has been
transferred to the bishops of the cities. '1 He therefore pronounced void
all wills made in favour of the churches, he even revoked the gifts which
his father had left to them. He sold the bishoprics to the highest bidder,
and in his reign very few of the clergy attained to the episcopate; rich
laymen purchased the priestly office and passed in one day through the
various grades of orders. He was at once avaricious and debauched,
gourmand and cruel. He delighted in low amours and he made a god
of his belly. At the foot of his edicts he inscribes this formula:
"Whosoever sets at nought our order shall have his eyes put out. "
But with all this he was a man of original ideas. He desired that,
contrary to the strict provisions of the Salic law, women should in
certain cases be allowed to inherit land. He was no less ready to
attack religious dogma than ancient custom. He did not believe that
it is necessary to distinguish three Persons in God; he scoffed at the
anthropomorphic designations, the Father and the Son, as applied to the
Deity. He issued an edict forbidding the Trinity to be named in
prayer—the name God was alone to be used. Orthography as well as
dogma must bow to his decree. He added to the alphabet four letters,
borrowed from the Greek, to represent the long o, the "voiceless" th,
the as and the w. It was not the Germanic sounds which he wished to
represent more exactly: Chilperic despised the Germanic tongue, and
his reform was intended to apply to the Latin. He directed that children
were to be taught by the new methods; in ancient manuscripts the
writing was to be erased and reinserted with the additional letters. This
barbarian king was a devoted admirer of the Roman civilisation; he com-
posed poems in the manner of Sedulius, and wrote hymns which he also
set to music. His scepticism regarding the Trinity did not prevent him
from being superstitious: he believed in portents, in relics, in sorcerers.
He fancied himself able to outwit the Deity. Having sworn, for instance,
not to enter Paris without the consent of his brothers, he broke the
compact, but to avert misfortune he had a number of the bones of various
## p. 122 (#154) ############################################
122 Brunhild in Australia [576-487
saints carried in front of his troops. He was a fantastical and violent
man, of a strange and complex character; and it is no very flagrant
calumny when Gregory of Tours calls him the Nero and the Herod of
his time. From all these characteristics it can well be imagined that the
struggle which he carried on against Brunhild and her son was fierce
and merciless.
He wrested from them a number of towns, among them Poitiers
and Tours, and it was thus that Gregory became, to his intense
disgust, the subject of this debauched monarch, with whom he was
constantly at odds. It may well be supposed that Chilperic had stirred
up much wrath and many enmities and it is not surprising that he
died by violence. One day as he was returning from Chelles where he
had been hunting, a man came close to him and stabbed him twice with
a dagger (584). Who his assassin actually was, remained unknown.
While Chilperic succeeded in imposing his authority upon the
western Franks in the territories which formed the most recent
Frankish conquests—known a little later as Neustria, from the word
niugt "the newest"—Brunhild made strenuous efforts to preserve intact
all the prerogatives of the royal power in the eastern region, Austrasia.
Exceedingly ambitious, eager to secure her authority by every possible
means, it was she who in the name of her son Childebert II (575-596)
actually held the reins of power. The great men of the kingdom
threw themselves into an embittered struggle against her. Supported
by Chilperic and Neustria they refused to give obedience to a woman
and a foreigner. Ursio, Bertefried, Guntram-Boso and duke Rauching
placed themselves at their head and attacked the adherents of the royal
house, chief among whom was Lupus of Champagne. Brunhild tried in
vain to separate the combatants; the rebels answered brutally, "Woman,
get you gone, let it suffice you to have ruled during your husband's life-
time; now it is your son who reigns and it is not under your protection
but under ours that the kingdom is placed. Get you hence, or we shall
trample you under the hoofs of our horses.
