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G A Franks Biography & Facts

The Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum; German: Franken; French: Francs) were a western European people during the Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages. They began as a Germanic people who lived near the Lower Rhine, on the northern continental frontier of the empire. They subsequently expanded their power and influence during the Middle Ages, until much of the population of western Europe, particularly in and near France, were commonly described as Franks, for example in the context of their joint efforts during the Crusades starting in the 11th century. This expansion came about because the romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire first became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine, and then subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire. Although the Frankish name does not appear until the 3rd century, at least some of the original Frankish tribes had long been known to the Romans under their own names, both as allies providing soldiers, and as enemies. The term is first used to describe the tribes working together to raid Roman territory. Frankish peoples subsequently living inside Rome's frontier on the Rhine river are often divided by historians into two groups – the Salian Franks to the west, who came south via the Rhine delta; and the Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks to the east, who eventually conquered the Roman frontier city of Cologne and took control of the left bank of the Lower Rhine in that region. In the middle of the 5th century, Childeric I, a Salian Frankish king, was one of several military leaders commanding Roman forces with various ethnic affiliations in the northern part of what is now France. He and his son Clovis I founded the Merovingian dynasty which succeeded in unifying most of Gaul under its rule during the 6th century following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, as well as establishing leadership over all the Frankish kingdoms on or near the Rhine frontier. The dynasty subsequently gained control over a significant part of what is now western and southern Germany. It was by building upon the basis of this Merovingian empire that the subsequent dynasty, the Carolingians, eventually came to be seen as the new emperors of Western Europe in 800, when Charlemagne was crowned by the pope. In 870 the Frankish realm came to be permanently divided between western and eastern kingdoms, which were the predecessors of the future Kingdom of France and Holy Roman Empire respectively. It is the western kingdom whose inhabitants eventually came to be known as "the French" (French: Les Français, German: Die Franzosen, Dutch: De Fransen, etc.) and this kingdom is the forerunner of the nation state of France. However, in various historical contexts, such as during the medieval crusades, not only the French, but also people from neighbouring regions in Western Europe, continued to be referred to collectively as Franks. The crusaders in particular had a lasting impact on the use of Frank-related names for Western Europeans in many non-European languages. Etymology The name Franci was not a tribal name, but within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the original peoples who constituted the Frankish population. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the English adjective frank, originally meaning "free". There have also been proposals that Frank comes from the Germanic word for "javelin" (such as in Old English franca or Old Norse frakka). Words in other Germanic languages meaning "fierce", "bold" or "insolent" (German frech, Middle Dutch vrac, Old English frǣc and Old Norwegian frakkr), may also be significant. Eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures: Ubi nunc est illa ferocia? Ubi semper infida mobilitas? ("Where now is that ferocity of yours? Where is that ever untrustworthy fickleness?"). Latin feroces was used often to describe the Franks. Contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. The formulary of Marculf written about 700 AD described a continuation of national identities within a mixed population when it stated that "all the peoples who dwell (in the official's province), Franks, Romans, Burgundians and those of other nations, live ... according to their law and their custom." Writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that "the word 'Frankish' quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have been considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest (except Bretons); Romani (Romans) were essentially the inhabitants of Aquitaine after that". Mythological origins Apart from the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, two early sources relate the mythological origin of the Franks: a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar and the anonymous Liber Historiae Francorum, written a century later. Many say that the Franks originally came from Pannonia and first inhabited the banks of the Rhine. Then they crossed the river, marched through Thuringia, and set up in each county district [pagus] and each city [civitas] longhaired kings chosen from their foremost and most noble family. The author of the Chronicle of Fredegar claimed that the Franks came originally from Troy and quoted the works of Virgil and Hieronymus: Blessed Jerome has written about the ancient kings of the Franks, whose story was first told by the poet Virgil: their first king was Priam and, after Troy was captured by trickery, they departed. Afterwards they had as king Friga, then they split into two parts, the first going into Macedonia, the second group, which left Asia with Friga were called the Frigii, settled on the banks of the Danube and the Ocean Sea. Again splitting into, two groups, half of them entered Europe with their king Francio. After crossing Europe with their wives and children they occupied the banks of the Rhine and not far from the Rhine began to build the city of "Troy" (Colonia Traiana-Xanten). According to historian Patrick J. Geary, those two stories are "alike in betraying both the fact that the Franks knew little about their background and that they may have felt some inferiority in comparison with other peoples of antiquity who possessed an ancient name and glorious tradition. [...] Both legends are of course equally fabulous for, even more than most barbarian peoples, the Franks possessed no common history, ancestry, or tradition of a heroic age of migration. Like their Alemannic neighbours, they were by the sixth century a fairly recent creation, a coalition of Rhenish tribal groups who long maintained separate identities and institutions." The other work, the Liber Historiae Francorum, previously known as Gesta re.... Discover the G A Franks popular books. 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