The Ancients - The Franks

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

How did the Franks rise to power in the fragmented Western Roman Empire?Tristan Hughes explores the dramatic story of the Franks, from their early battles against Romans and Burgundians to their consolidation of power under formidable kings like Clovis.Tristan is joined by Dr Ian Wood, Professor Emeritus of early medieval history at the University of Leeds and discovers the mysterious origins of the Franks, thrilling tales of Clovis's campaigns, and explore how they battled Romans, Burgundians, Visigoths and Alemanni to wrestle control over large parts of modern day France. Expect legends, myths and monsters, this is no ordinary kingdom.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The audio editor and producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.Theme music from Motion Array, all other music from Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes and if you would like the ancient ad free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting HistoryHit.com slash subscribe. It's 486 AD. The Western Roman Empire has completely fragmented. In Gaul, present-day France, the territory is divided up between Visigoths,

Burgundians, Bretons and a Roman rump state known as the Kingdom of Soissons. Ruling this kingdom was a figure called Seagrius. But now Seagrius' rule is under threat. His powerful neighbour to the east has brought him to battle, a new rising king on the European stage. to battle, a new rising king on the European stage, his name was Clovis, King of the Franks and a man who was about to transform Western Europe. It's the Ancients on History hit, I'm Tristan Hughes your host and today we're covering

the story of the Franks, a Germanic people who forged one of the most successful kingdoms in Western Europe following the fall of the Westerns, a Germanic people who forged one of the most successful kingdoms in Western Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Now if someone mentions the Franks, you might immediately think of the titanic name that is Charlemagne and you'd be right. However, he's a bit too medieval for our liking on the ancients. Forget Charlemagne, think earlier Frankish rulers such as Childrich and Clovis. This episode will focus on the rise of the Franks under the so-called Merovingian monarchs. We'll explore how they battled Romans, Burgundians, Visigoths and Alamans to wrestle control over

large parts of modern-day France as Rome's grip over Western Europe faltered. It's quite the story. Now our guest today is the esteemed Dr Ian Wood, Professor Emeritus of Early Medieval History at the University of Leeds and one of the leading experts on the early Franks and their rise to prominence. On my way up north for Christmas a few weeks back, I stopped at Ian's lovely house to record this interview with him in person. It was a brilliant chat and Ian's leading expertise on this field of ancient history really shines through. I hope you enjoy. Ian, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today.

Thank you for inviting me. Well, thank you for inviting me to your house just outside of Leeds. It's wonderful to be up here. And of course, we're talking about the topic that you spent so many years researching, the Franks. Now, big question first of all, of all the barbarian peoples to establish kingdoms following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, could we say that the Franks are the most successful of all of those groups? Toby Hanks Yeah, but that is simply a matter of they're

the most long-lasting. If you looked at the picture, shall we say, in 500, the real success story would have been the Ostrogoths or possibly the Vandals. They're in Italy and North Africa. They're in Italy and North Africa. The Ostrogoths get wiped out in the period between the 530s and 560s because the Byzantines come and reconquer Italy. The Vandals are wiped out in the 530s for exactly the same reason. So the Franks are lucky that they're not sort of in the direct line of Byzantine reconquest. The Visigoths in Spain suffer a little bit, but again they're far enough away not really to be badly hit by the Byzantines, but the coast of Spain is hit. The Franks, who are based way up in

the sort of fringes of modern Belgium and northeastern France, that's the centre of their power, were just too far away for the Byzantines to really bother about. They're really not attacked by any barbarian group until the Arabs in the period after 711. Wow, and that's going a bit further than I think we're going to cover today. So they're a lucky group. They're the most successful because they are the best placed for not being hit by other people. Now you've hinted at that geographical area, northwestern mainland Europe, but the first big question is also, I mean, who were the Franks? What do we know about where they came from? It's not easy because they sort of start to emerge in the sources in the

late third century, early fourth century. They're not like the Ostrogoths, the Vandals, or any of the Goths, or even like the Anglo-Saxons. They do not move, they just appear. The first reference is to the Franks. They appear as maritime people. They're known for water, for swimming and so forth, and they're causing trouble in the channel. After that, you start to hear Franks and Saxons causing problems in the channel. You then hear about Saxons and Franks, so the order is reversed. And then the Franks tend to be linked to the south coast of the channel, not the north coast.

They cease to be active in the water after about 300. So the south coast of the channel, so that's one day northern France, we talk about Normandy, that area. Or rather than Normandy, really Picardy and Artois. We're really dealing much more with Belgium than we are with France initially. Interesting. Belgium, do we think that's the heart place, that's the central focus? They're on either side of the channel, of the River Rhine. Some peoples who are Roman sources are outside the Roman Empire like the

Chatti, the Chattowari, the Sicambri. They're on the far side of the Rhine. They seem to become part of the Franks, though it's very rare that you get a clear statement. I mean, you do have a statement in the early 6th century that Clovis is a member of the Sicambri, so that we can say that the Franks incorporate the Sicambri. Mason, So it's a confederation. Is that one of the ideas? A Germanic confederation? Pesci, Confederation. And the name, what does it mean? It might mean free people, it might mean fierce people, but it's a confederate name. And in this confederation, obviously there are tribal groups, but it's pretty clear that a whole lot of the Franks from

those Franks who are inside the area of the Roman Empire are actually sort of people who would have been called Romans or Roman troops, particularly federate troops in the third and fourth centuries. So we can't actually distinguish between the Rhineland troops of Rome and the early Frankish. Mason- Before we delve into their relations with the Western Roman Empire serving as troops and so on, I must ask, so that's the origins that we believe with these other Germanic peoples in the area of modern day Belgium. As the Franks become very successful later on, do they also start to apply their own beliefs as to their origins, almost mythical origins too?

There are mythical origins. They only appear in one or two sources. So, I mean, the famous story basically comes in a source which we know as Fredegar. Fredegar is a name that was associated with a compilation of chronicles which is made around 660. Whether the person who made it was actually called Fredegar, we don't know. But in that, you have a story about the origins of the Frankish ruling family. And a princess goes swimming and she has an encounter with a sea monster. And when she comes back on land, she has a baby who is called Merovec. This seems to be a legend, which is perhaps a joke about the name. The name Merovac might mean seaborne, it might mean sea cow,

but the origin legend seems to be some sort of joke. Whether anybody believed it, we don't know. Fredegar, who tells that story, also tells another story about Childrich who marries a woman called Besina. She had been the queen of the Thuringians, so further east, and she likes the look of Childrich. So she goes off and follows him. Well, they get together and he says,

"'Okay, dear, let's have sex." And she says, "'Not now, dear.'" And this goes on for several days. And then in the end, they's have sex. And she says, not now, dear, and this goes on for several days. And then in the end, they do have sex, but she predicts that their offspring will be, first of all, lions and leopards, and then goes on down to dogs. And when you calculate the generations, it works out that the generation of dogs is the generation of Merovingian rulers who are alive at the time that the Fredagard compilation is made. So whether this was in any sense a broadly known story or whether it's just a scurrilous tale to say, look,

the Merovingian rulers at the moment are no better than dogs, we don't know. So yeah, there are these legends, we have no idea whether they have any currency outside a handful of sources. You also get a legend that the Franks came from Pannonia, that's the area more or less where the Hungarian-Austrian border, they almost certainly don't come from there, but their patron saint, Saint Martin, came from there. So they probably claim to be Pannonians because their patron saint came from there. So the origin legends are really just stories which are making very, very precise points, often political points. And we have no idea whether they're broadly known about, whether it's a very small clique of people

who are telling them and laughing about them. We just don't know. It's interesting you mentioned, so you had that historian, is it Fredegar? Fredegar. Fredegar. And it was interesting having talked to Dr David Gwynn about the Goths earlier this year, he mentioned how the Goths, one of the key sources of information for learning about their early history is their Gothic historian who wrote Jordanes, isn't it? Who wrote a lot of that down. Is there any equivalent for the early Franks that we have surviving? I mean, what are our main, are they mainly Roman sources that we have for the early Franks that we have surviving? I mean, are they mainly Roman sources that we have for the early Franks? ALHELM ALIAS Almost all our sources are Gregory of Tours' histories. It's sometimes called

the history of the Franks. RAOUL PALERM And who is he? Who is he? ALHELM ALIAS Gregory is Bishop of Tours, 560s through to 594. He writes something that he calls either the histories or the 10 books of histories. In modern tradition, it's called the history of the Franks. That is not the name he gave it. He does have a lot to say about the Franks because as Bishop of Tours, he's a bishop within the Frankish kingdom.

And so as he gets to sort of into the sixth century, he mainly concentrates on the Franks. But he is not telling a story about the sixth century, he mainly concentrates on the Franks, but he is not telling a story about the Franks particularly, he's telling a story about the working out of God's plan, which just happens to end up more or less in the city of Tor. Everything before Gregory is really only one of references in Roman sources. I'm saying that the Franks raided here. Yeah, that's right. So Gregory is the first person who gives us a Frankish story and he doesn't really know very much about them. He has access to two historians, Renatus Profitorus Frigeridus

and Sopisius Alexander, neither of whose works had survived. They seem to have been writing in the mid fifth century, so a century and a half, a century and a quarter before Gregory, and they clearly mentioned the Franks. So Gregory picks up, he extracts the passages from their histories on the Franks, but basically they just sort of say the Franks are where we know they are. is on the Franks, but basically they just sort of say the Franks are where we know they are. And then there are one or two references in a writer called Sidonius Apollinaris who is a senator and bishop of Clermont in the 460s and he mentions the Franks a couple of times, but basically for a story of the Franks you have to wait until Gregory. for a story of the Franks, you have to wait until Gregory. Gregory tells us more or less everything we know about Childeric, who is the first ruler

for whom we have anything certain. He's supposedly the son of Merovac. And we don't really know very much about Childeric except a few wars and we have his tomb. We have some interesting archaeology as well. We have some very interesting archaeology. The tomb of Childrick, which was found in 1653. Wow, that's early. It's a major discovery by Chakochifle, who did an amazing job and who published it. That's a very interesting tomb. It has a vast hoard of what it had, not very little of it survives. A lot of it was plundered already at the time it was dug up. And then what wasn't originally was part of the Low Countries,

so part of the Habsburg treasure. And then it gets to Louis XIV and it gets into the Cabinet des Medailles. And then in the 1830s, somebody puts a brick through the glass of the Cabinet de Midi and steals a whole lot of it and melts it down. Though fortunately a lot of it had actually been copied. In fact, we know that there was a copy in gold of the whole treasure made at the time and we don't know where it is. So somebody may actually one day find this copy. But that was really interesting because it's got some very, very fine or had some very, very fine jewelry, very fine buckle, a load of Byzantine coins, and then a signet ring. And it was the signet ring which allowed us to say that this was Childrich's tomb.

If you Wikipedia or just Google in Childrich, that's one of the first things that comes up, that image of the ring of Childrich. And I think we'll get to that. I mean, to do it chronologically, shall we now go from the earliest stories of the Franks, so you're saying settled near the Rhine, this kind of confederation of Germanic peoples and names that I'd recognized from centuries earlier with Arminius, the Brugterre and so on. So what do we know about the Franks and their relations with the Roman Empire before the time of the Western Roman Empire's fall, before the time of Childrich? What do we know about the relationship between the Franks and the Romans? Well, the earliest references I've already mentioned are to them as people causing trouble in the channel.

And presumably those Franks were Franks who were just to the east of the Rhine mouth. So although most of the Franks that we know about will be to the west of the Rhine mouth, the earliest ones are presumably just to the east of the Rhine mouth, and they're indistinguishable from the Saxons. When you next sort of, when they start to be firmly apparent in the sources, after that, you start to hear about them on the continent, and particularly they're fighting in one or two episodes in the 460s. Particularly there's an attack on the Franks, the place called the Vicus Helena, we don't know where it is, which is about 460.

An attack on the Franks by the Romans? Yeah, and this Vicus Helena must be in Artois. This is a battle, but how big it is, we don't know. And this is, because that's very late, that's post Attila, Aetius, and all of that stuff is because that's very late. That's post Attila, Aetius and all of that stuff. That's very late. Yes. I mean, the Franks are not big players of the Battle of the Catalonian Plains.

That doesn't mean that they weren't. That's Attila's battle against the Aetians. In the vast Confederacy, which is fighting against Attila, there may have been some Franks, but no, I mean, we really don't hear about them except for the Vickers-Helene and then there's one reference to a Frank at Angers. There are two references on the Franks being active before we get to Childrich. Mason Hickman Well, let's go to Childrich then. This feels like the first major player in the story of

the Franks, isn't it? So what's the story with Childrich and how he really emerges onto the scene? Well, Childrich is supposedly the son of Merovac. He comes to the fore as a warlord. He falls foul of the aristocracy, apparently having sex with too many of the aristocracy wives. Classic tale, yeah. It's standard almost, sort of Roman luxuria, a luxuria story. And theoretically, he goes off into exile in Constantinople and then comes back. That story is told by Fredikar and Fredikar says

that when he's exiled, he makes an arrangement with a chap called Weimad who's a Frank and they cut a coin in half. And Weimad says, when you get the other half of the coin and put them together, you can come back. So there seems to be some possibility that he really was driven out. And the fact of all the Byzantine coins in the tomb suggests that there is very strong Byzantine relations. Some of the objects in the tomb, some of the

garnet work look a little bit like East Germanic material. So that might go with the fact that he marries a Thuringian. But really we know very, very little about him, apart from the fact that he supposedly sets himself up. He is a rival to a chap called Eugidius, who's a Roman general in the Noir Valley. And then when he dies, he is buried in Tournai. That's interesting. So there are not many major events or battles that we know of during his reign, but he's still an important figure. But it's interesting that you highlight that

Roman general there. So for the context, as the Frankish kingdom is there and Childeric is there, and it's a strong entity it feels like at this stage. The Roman what was Gaul, it is crumbling, it seems to be being divided up between these various, dare we say warlords almost, kind of creating their own little kingdoms in what was once Roman Gaul. Richard There's an interesting issue here because at some point these people, most of whom would have seen themselves as very, very Roman, we would classify as warlords. But the Burgundians, well, the ruler of the Burgundians

goes to go and call himself Magistre Militum through until 522. They receive the office of Magistre Militum from the East Roman Empire. They are straightforward Roman agents. So if you read a modern history book, they will say the kings of the Burgundians. That's not what they saw. They saw something much closer to what we would regard as the British Commonwealth now. Just as places in the Commonwealth are going their own way,

but they liked Queen Elizabeth, even if they don't necessarily like King Charles. This is a world where people still thought they had Roman office. So it was like Oduaka as well when he topples the last emperor? Oduaka and he is exactly the same. He sees himself as a patrician of the Roman Empire. He governs for the emperor. It's not until the empire attacks empire. He governs for the emperor. It's not until the empire attacks Oduaca that he actually starts to claim independence in coinage and stuff. It's exactly the same with the Ostrogoths and with the Vandals. They see themselves as agents of the Roman state until Justinian messes it all up. I mean, it's the Byzantines who destroy the sort of sub-Roman Commonwealth

of the West. It's not the barbarians. Masonic It is interesting. And until here also Childrich, as you say, with that influence from his time in Byzantine Constantinople too. Dr Alonso D'Alessandro And he's presumably in some sense a Roman general. I mean, we just don't know enough about the transformation of the frontier troops, because what you have to remember is that after Constantine, the Roman army is divided into the limita ne, who are the frontier troops, the comitatenses, who are the crack troops who are moved back from the frontier but who are moved around. Now when the comitatensis get moved to deal with a crisis in Italy above all, the limitanei stay where they are. The same is true as far as we

can see of the Franks. Childerich is the chap who is a general whose main power block must have been people who had once been Roman troops. Mason This is so interesting and we actually mentioned this, the military question next before we go on to Clovis, right at the start of our chat. Now if anyone's played a Rome Total War when growing up you'll see the Franks, one of their special units is these axe throwers and this idea that the axe is this really big weapon for the Franks. But is that actually the case? Part of that is because the axe is called in Latin a franciscan and so everybody thought that that went with Franks just as there's a type of sword called a sax and so everybody thought it went with Saxons. Well actually if you look at the

distribution of Franciscas and Saxons they don't simply map onto Franks and Saxons. There are weapon burials, you get Franks being buried with, sometimes with Franciscas, certainly sometimes with Saxons with swords, but above all they're buried with spears. sometimes with saxes, with swords, but above all they're buried with spears. Your standard barbarian weapon in a grave, and of course that doesn't necessarily tell you how they were fighting, but in a grave will be a spear. Tobyus Spear is a big weapon in Germania, isn't it? Well, let's move on then from Childeric. So Childeric dies? When abouts are we talking? Late 5th century at that time? He dies as far as we can see in 481. 481. And so who is this big figure who succeeds Childerick? So Childerick's son is called Clovis. And for Clovis, we are almost entirely dependent

on Gregory of Tours. Interesting. entirely dependent on Gregory of Tours. There are one or two things in Fredegar which add to the picture and make it very much more complicated. And there are one or two things in contemporary writers. There's a bishop called Evitis of Vienne who writes to Clovis. And there is a figure in Austro-Gothic Italy, Cassiodorus, who writes to Clovis. But the sources for Clovis are primarily Gregory. Now, that causes a huge problem because Gregory's Clovis is a construct. Because Gregory is a Catholic bishop and because according to Gregory, the Franks do well basically because they're the first Catholic people and because Clovis is the first Catholic ruler, Gregory constructs a history of Clovis as a convert who wins all his battles after his

conversion. Mason, Is it almost like, is it Eusebius with Constantine the Great and the idea of him seeing the sign? Well, it's a lot more suspect than that. Oh, okay. I mean, what Gregory does is he gives Clovis a 30-year reign, and he divides that reign up into five-year blocks. So Clovis supposedly comes to the throne in 481. He has his first major victory in 486 against Seagrius, the son of Egidius, the Roman general. Then supposedly in 501 Clovis defeats the Burgundians.

506 he defeats the Alemanni, 511 he dies. That's Gregory's scheme. And because he wants all the victories basically to come after Clovis' conversion, he puts the conversion in 496 when Clovis is fighting the Alemanni. Now, there's a big problem with that story about Clovis fighting the Alemanni because, according to Gregory, this is the great victory over the Alemanni. Unfortunately, Cassiodorus provides us with evidence to show that the Franks had a victory over the Alemanni in 506, not 496. So, what do you do? Do you say there are two victories? Do you say that the first one didn't exist? And what do you do also? Do you shift the baptism late or do you leave the baptism early? In my view, and I mean, there's a big debate about this, the baptism

big debate about this, the baptism can't be earlier than 508. That doesn't however mean that Clovis was converted in 508. Whereas most people who know about Constantine do know that he gets converted a long time before his baptism, which is on his deathbed. Almost all Frankish historians assume that Clovis is converted immediately before the baptism. Well, it's probably not the case. And there's an annoying little passage in Fredegar, which causes complete havoc, which no historian is prepared to talk about. Because Fredegar And Fredegar says that the godfather of Clovis was Alaric II, who happens to be the Arian king of the Visigoths. Right, yes, so that's not the Alaric I, the famous one who sacks Rome in 410. No, no, no, this is his son who will be killed by Clovis in 507. So if you accept Fredegar, and there are hints in the sources that actually Clovis did have

an Arian period before his Catholic baptism. As Arian, so that's another form of Christianity. This is the form of Christianity that basically the Goths follow, and then later the Lombards will follow. And the only real distinction is in the Trinity, where the Orthodox say that the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are all equal. The Aryans say Father is superior to the Son, the Son is superior to the Holy Ghost. And the basic argument is Father is obviously older than the son, so because we're told that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the father and the son, the Holy Ghost must come after the other two.

But anyway, basically, that's what the Goths are following. I mean, my view is, yes, it's almost certain that Clovis has an air-in period, but that Gregory of Tor writes it out of the history because he wants this ideal model that Clovis, and he actually describes Clovis as a new Constantine. Clovis has his experience in battle when he converts, like Constantine converts in the Milvian Bridge and all the victories follow from that. So basically Gregory's Clovis is a construct. We don't know how much of it's a construct. Is it only the baptism? The only three things in Clovis' reign that we can be sure about outside Gregory is the war against the Burgundians in 500 rather than 501. The victory against the Alamans in 506, sorry, four things, in 506, which is recorded in Cassiodorus. The

victory against the Visigoths in 507 when Clovis defeats Alaric II. And they're based in, they're southwestern France. They're southwestern, they're in Aquitaine. Aquitaine. Aquitaine, yeah. And then the summoning of the Council of Orléans in 511. So everything else, we're dependent on Gregory. And then there's a nasty little, one other nasty little thing in the Libre Pontificalis,

which says that- Is that another source? This is the history of the popes. Right. Written at some point after the 530s, I would push it closer to the 560s, but most people would say 530s. There's a nasty little statement that Clovis sent a votive crown to a pope who wasn't pope

at the time of Clovis' death. Ah, cheeky, right. So do we have to move Clovis' death date later? I think not because that would cause so much internal problem for how you recalibrate the whole of the rest of Frankish history. But I mean, basically Clovis is a construct of Gregory of Tor, and historians have to work with that. Now I don't think we have time to go through absolutely every battle. There are quite a few, but let's do the first one because this is interesting. You mentioned Seagrius and I got my nose swassons and this is before we've conversed as well.

This is interesting. So what is this early story pre-conversion, which really kind of sets Clovis on the map, expanding Frankish power right at the beginning. Richard Paxson Okay, so Seagrius is the son of Eurydice. Eurydice has a very complicated history back in the 460s, 470s. And when Eurydice dies, his son Seagrius takes over. Historians attributed Seagrius what they called a kingdom of Swasson. Well, he's defeated at Swasson by Clovis according to Gregory, so we can probably link him with Swasson. Whether there's a real kingdom there or not, we don't know.

Ed James magnificently debunked the whole issue of the Kingdom of Swassaw. We simply do not know how big Seagrius' area is. And that has an impact on the expansion of Clovis because if Seagrius has somewhere which is sort of spreads from the Silver Carbonaria, the forest which runs basically down from Brussels down to Tornay and Childrich is buried in Tornay which is right on the edge of the Silver Carbonaria. Most people would say that the Silver Carbonaria is an early frontier for the Franks. If Seagrius has the land from there all the way over to Brittany, he's got a big kingdom. If he's just a warlord in Soissons, he's got a small kingdom. And so depending on how big you make Seagrius's power affects how big you make Clovis's early expansion. Because if Clovis beats up somebody who is just in Soissons and sort of acreage outside, that's no big deal. If he gets everything right the way over to Rennes and Angers, then that is a big deal. And we don't know the answer to that. Mason- Should we be imagining a very Roman-styled army,

with the largest spears fighting against other Roman-styled armies at that time? Or do we know what we should be envisaging with these types of clashes? Dr Mabry- That is the big question that military historians refuse to look at. There's a transition going on. There's a transition going on in the sense that anybody who knows anything about the Roman army knows that it's a standing army, that it's being paid, and that, what is it? John Lydas talks about something in the region of 400,000 Roman troops in the whole of the Roman world in the time of Diocletian constant time. Obviously that divides into East and West

and obviously it divides into Cometartenses and Limitane, but anyway, there's a standing army. By the 40s, 450s, Valentini and the third is having problems paying that army. One of the problems with the barbarian settlement, and I mean I'm one of the people who doesn't think that the barbarians overthrow the Roman Empire, they settle, but one of the troubles with their settlement is they deprive the empire of tax revenue. And once the empire loses tax revenue, it loses the ability to pay troops. So basically speaking, troops are ceasing to be paid.

Now, at what moment these Magistri Militum figures are no longer paying their troops? We don't know. It does Gundabad, the Magistri Militum among the Burgundians who is there as magister militum up to 516. Is he paying his troops or not? Is Seagrius paying his troops or not? Is Childric paying his troops? Because if he's got some sort of Roman command, he may well be. By the time we get to around 600, which is when we start to have statements about the

army in Frankish law, legal material, well it's really seventh century rather than 600. The army is an army of obligation. Now army of obligation means that any male can be called up. Now that's led historians to assume that there were vast great barbarian armies rampaging all over the place. Well, that's problematic. By definition, I think in the Bavarian law code, I think an army is 32 men. It's a really small number. It's the same in Anglo-Saxon England. An army is a very, very small group. Now of course, some armies are bigger than that.

Yes, I'm not imagining Clovis conquering France with 32 men. That's right. But I mean, we're dealing with a transition. I think Clovis probably still has quite big armies. After Clovis, well, one of the things about the period after Clovis's sons is that the Franks don't really have any major campaigns. There's one or two campaigns into Italy,

one or two campaigns into Saxony, but they don't have really very much in the way of major campaigns. So they don't need to call an army. Now there are some Frankish civil wars in the 570s and 610s and Gregory of Tours thinks that these involve lots of people. I think he's telling a whopper because I think that he, Tours is one of the places that suffers. But even in Gregory of Tours, the armies are, and by this time,

they're armies of obligation and they're armies that are summoned according to the city, according to the civitas. So the comes, the secular leader of the city, according to the civitas. So the comes, the secular leader of the city, because basically all these areas are civitas, these city units, which also become diocese, the comes will call an army when necessary. Now, most Merovingian cities are reckoned nowadays

to have populations, or at least the urban centres to have populations between about 10,000 and 20,000. Now they've got the peripheral area as well, but if you're talking about 10,000, 20,000, how many troops can you actually summon from a city? And usually in the Merovingian period when we're hearing about armies being mustered, we're dealing with three or four cities. So I think we're dealing with something which might just hit a thousand. But you know, you've got to come right the way down from your Roman numbers. You can trace this back to the problems of the barbarian settlements. The barbarians are not huge numbers. By the time we get to the end of Clovis' reign, so defeating Seagrius, then beating the Alamuns, the Visigoths, the Burgundians, how large a territory now is the Frankish kingdom? Well, at the moment of Clovis's death, it's basically the whole of modern northern France,

but not including Brittany. It's Belgium. He doesn't rule over Burgundy. So the Burgundians are still independent, but they are paying some sort of... The clients, the clients were always connecting with... He controls the area of Aquitaine down as far as what is called Septimania. So he doesn't really control the area south of Toulouse. But as soon as he dies, the whole of that block collapses.

Oh goodness, right. So when Clovis dies, the whole of that block collapses. Oh goodness, right. So when Clovis dies, he leaves four sons. One of them is adult and capable, but he was the son of a, Gregory says, concubine, but Gregory clearly doesn't like Futuric's mother. Gregory likes the mother of the other three sons who Clovis had probably only married at some point after 500. So those kids, those three kids are less than 10 years old when Clovis dies. Now, in any sensible kingdom, Pheuderic would have taken over the whole of the power block. But Crotochildis, Clovis's widow, arranges for the kingdom to be divided into four. Now,

if you looked at any of the standard histories before 1977, they will say that the division of the kingdom was Frankish tradition. That's absolute rubbish. There is no evidence for any Frank ever dividing his kingdom before Clovis' death. The likelihood is that Crotokildis arranges the division to ensure the survival of her three children. And the likelihood is that she does it with the Roman aristocracy because the kingdom is divided into what we call tile-reicher divided kingdoms, four of them, and the division was made according to the city units. And Pheuderic gets the biggest and the best and the ancestral one that is the Eastern Kingdom. So that would be the Belgium area.

Belgium and looking east and it also means that he's got the area that can expand. The others get Orléans, Paris and Soissons. They're too weak to control Aquitaine, so the Goths of this moment after 508, the Visigoths are being protected by the Ostrogoths, so Theodoric the Great sends an army to protect his nephew and the Ostrogoths recreate Visogothic aquitaine. So for the next 30 years the Franks are actually on the back foot and you have to wait until the 540s before the expansion starts again, well except in Burgundy in the 530s but elsewhere the expansion starts in the 540s. I mean there's still so much more we can talk about. I've only got a couple more questions, but I will ask, because you did mention there, Paris. But is it around this time with the

Franks that Paris really starts becoming more significant? Is it already important or does it become more important later? I mean, it's not a really major Roman centre. It's not a provincial capital. Julian had been there, the Emperor Julian had been there. So it was a place that had attracted an emperor and clearly, you know, the Ile de la Cite, the little island in the middle of the Seine was an attractive, defensible place and so forth. But basically speaking,

Paris isn't one of the great cities. We wouldn't even think that it was great in Clovis's lifetime because it's not a place that he does anything in his lifetime, but it's where he dies. And it's where his widow, Crotochildis, has him buried. And so Paris becomes one of the capitals of the Merovingians because it's where Clovis had been buried and it's then where two of the great saints of the Frankish world are associated. One, the legendary martyr, St. Denis, who is up at Saint Denis, and the other, St. Genevieve, who is buried more or less next to Clovis, just next to the Sorbonne by the Pontian. Have their tombs been found?

We know what church it ought to be, but it was pulled down in the revolution. There have been some attempts at the excavation. There was nothing special in the crypt there. Of course, everything was dispersed in the revolution, but people tried to collect Genevieve and reposition her, and she's up there. But it's that that makes Paris special, and from then on, Paris will either be a Merovingian royal capital where there will be a king there or sometimes it is a place that if there's say three Merovingian kings, they might agree for Paris to be a mutual centre for all three of them. So it is actually sort of outside the standard division. You mentioned just a bit earlier how that expansion begins again, or there's a bit of

difficulty when it's divided up, but then with the Visigoths and everything. But what is the spark that ultimately leads once again to the Franks rising to the fore? I know ultimately you get the likes of Charlemagne and it feels like a bit too much history for us to cover today. But what happens as the sixth century progresses and you really get this zenith of the Merovingians? First of all, Fudorik, the eldest son of Clovis, he's very competent. He has an even more competent son, Fudiburt, and he has a competent son, Fudibald. They are very, very successful. What a trio, by the way. Fudorik, Fudiburt, Fudibald, and they are very, very successful. What a trio, by the way. Pheuderic, Pheudiburd, Pheudibald.

Yeah, they're very successful and they have some major entries actually even into Italy. They actually control Venice for a while. So they're successful in the East. Of the other three sons of Clovis, one of them, Clodema, is killed in battle against the Burgundians. But the other two last long enough to start being highly competent, and they start the expansion again once you get into the 540s. So in a sense, in terms of the uninterrupted expansion, it's Clovis' sons and particularly younger sons, it's the ones you have to wait until they come of age, which means the 540s and not the 510s or 520s.

Mason- I must admit, as a Joe blogs looking at this from the outside, if someone had mentioned the Franks, my mind might immediately go to that very much medieval period, and that is probably correct, but then names like Charlemagne and the Carolingians. But we haven't even reached Charlemagne at the moment and learning more about figures like Childrich and Clovis and that immediate aftermath of the Roman Empire in the West, but also their involvement with those other people, those successors of the Romans. It's really interesting. This is a fascinating period. The story of almost the rise of the Franks, the early Franks, the figures like the Merovingians. It's a fascinating story, the literature, knowing the biases for the literary sources

that we have surviving and these incredible archaeology that we have surviving too. What an area to study. Yeah. I mean, let me just sort of throw a spanner in the works just to end, so to speak. I think even more important than that is what happens in the church. In my reading, the church is basically established, not in the fourth century, even in the early fifth. It's the late sixth and seventh.

And in Western Europe, the church gets massive amounts of land and that, by my estimate, is about a third of the land of Western Europe. And kings weren't bothered about it. And they weren't bothered about the church actually having to pay taxes, because they're not fighting and they're not having to pay troops.

Changes when Islam comes in, they suddenly have to find having to pay troops. It changes when Islam comes in. They suddenly have to find ways of creating troops, but the church gets all this land. And what you essentially get in the late sixth, early seventh century is the mirror image of what happens in the Renaissance and Reformation. The disestablishment of the church of the 16th century is exactly the reverse of the landed establishment of the church for 6th and 7th centuries. And so if you're thinking about what makes Europe, it's actually the establishment of the church in the late 6th and 7th centuries, rather than the barbarians.

And are the Frankish monarchs, are they key in that creation? They're allowing it. They're perfectly happy with it because they're not fighting anybody. Then they occasionally fight each other. They're not having any problem about it. And so when you get to the Carolingians, look back and say, oh, the Carolingians are all weedy and so forth. Well, yeah, they could afford to be weedy because until the forces of Islam crossed the Pyrenees, there was nobody to fight. And so they can afford to be a holy dynasty which backs holiness. So much to talk about. We've given us a fascinating introduction, overview of the Franks and how they emerge onto the stage with figures like Childerick, Clovis,

and his many sons. This has been fantastic. You have in front of you a couple of your books that you've written on the topic. I feel it would be a miss if we don't mention them. So what are these two books we have here? Okay, I wrote The Merovingian Kingdoms back in 1984. It's probably still the biggest of the books in English on the Merovingians. One or two good books have come out since, but it was really the sort of first book in English that tried to offer a thorough narrative right the way through the Merovingian period. The other one I've got here is a much more recent, it's a teeny little book. It's called The Transformation of the Roman West, it's 2018, and it's really the book which sets out the whole issue of the endowment of the church,

and it goes through all the statistics and how we know the scale of church and nation, and also goes through statistics for the Roman army and the barbarians and so forth. Well, there must have books for anyone wanting to learn more about post-Western Roman Empire, the Franks, the Merovingian kingdoms and so on. Ian, this has been absolutely brilliant chat. Once again, thank you so much for inviting me here to your living room in your house. And it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come in the next episode.