(466 – 27 November 511)
Clovis was the son of Childeric I, a Merovingian king of the Salian Franks, and Basina, a Thuringian princess. The dynasty he founded is, however, named after his supposed ancestor, Merovech. Some sources claim that Clovis' grandfather was Chlodio, but his exact relation with Merovech is not known.
Numerous small Frankish petty kingdoms existed during the 5th century. The Salian Franks were the first-known Frankish tribe that settled with official Roman permission within the empire, first in Batavia in the Rhine-Maas delta, and then in 375 in Toxandria, which in the present day consists of the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands and parts of neighbouring provinces of Antwerp and Limburg in Belgium. This put them in the north part of the Roman civitas Tungrorum, with Romanized population still dominant south of the military highway Boulogne-Cologne. Later, Chlodio seems to have attacked westwards from this area to take control of the Roman populations in Tournai, then southwards to Artois, and Cambrai, eventually controlling an area stretching to the Somme river.
Childeric I, Clovis's father, was reputed to be a relative of Chlodio, and was known as the king of the Franks that fought as an army within northern Gaul. In 463 he fought in conjunction with Aegidius, the magister militum of northern Gaul, to defeat the Visigoths in Orléans. Childeric died in 481 and was buried in Tournai; Clovis succeeded him as king, aged just 15. Historians believe that Childeric and Clovis were both commanders of the Roman military in the Province of Belgica Secunda and were subordinate to the magister militum. The Franks of Tournai came to dominate their neighbours, initially aided by the association with Aegidius.
The death of Aetius in 454 led to the decline of imperial power in Gaul; leaving the Visigoths and the Burgundians competing for predominance in the area. The part of Gaul still under Roman control emerged as a kingdom under Syagrius, Aegidius's son.
Though no primary sources expounding on the language spoken by Clovis exist, historical linguists consider it likely that, based on his family history and core territories, he spoke a form of Old Dutch. In this, the early Merovingians can be contrasted with the later Carolingians, such as Charlemagne, of the late 8th century and onward, who probably spoke various forms of Old High German.
Road to Soissons
The ruler of Tournai died in 481 and was succeeded by his young son, Clovis. His band of warriors probably numbered no more than half a thousand. In 486 he began his efforts to expand the realm by allying himself with his relative Ragnachar, king of Cambrai and another Frankish king, Chalaric. These rulers are sometimes referred to as regulus (diminutive of rex). Together the triumvirate marched against Syagrius and met the Gallo-Roman commander at Soissons. During the battle Chalaric betrayed his comrades by refusing to take part in the fighting. Despite the betrayal, the Franks landed a decisive victory, forcing Syagrius to flee to the court of Alaric II. This battle is viewed as bringing about the end of the rump state of the Western Roman Empire outside of Italy. Following the battle, Clovis invaded the traitor Chalaric's territory and was able to imprison him and his son.
Taming Gaul
Prior to the battle, Clovis did not enjoy the support of the Gallo-Roman clergy, so he proceeded to pillage the Roman territory, including the churches. The Bishop of Reims requested Clovis return everything taken from the Church of Reims; the young king aspired to establish cordial relationships with the clergy, so he returned a valuable ewer taken from the church. Despite his position, some Roman cities refused to yield to the Franks, namely Verdun ‒ which surrendered after a brief siege ‒ and Paris, which stubbornly resisted a few years, perhaps as many as five. He made Paris his capital and established an abbey dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul on the south bank of the Seine.
Realizing that he would not be able to rule Gaul without the help of the clergy, Clovis took a Nicene Christian wife to please them. He also integrated many of Syagrius's units into his own army. The Roman kingdom was probably under Clovis's control by 491, because in the same year Clovis successfully moved against a small number of Thuringians in the eastern Gaul, near the Burgundian border.
Barbarian bonding
Around 493 AD, he secured an alliance with the Ostrogoths through the marriage of his sister Audofleda to their king, Theodoric the Great. In the same year, the neighboring King of the Burgundians was slain by his brother, Gundobad; bringing civil strife to that kingdom. Allegedly, Gundobad proceeded to drown his sister-in-law and force his niece, Chrona, into a convent. Another niece, Clotilde, fled to the court of the third brother, Godegisel. Finding himself in a precarious position, Godegisel decided to ally himself to Clovis by marrying his exiled niece to the Frankish king.
Assault of the Alamanni
Business in Burgundy
In 500 or 501, Godegisel began scheming against his brother Gundobad. He promised his brother-in-law territory and annual tribute for defeating his brother. Clovis was eager to subdue the political threat to his realm and crossed into the Burgundian territory. Gundobad then moved against Clovis and called his brother for reinforcements. The three armies met near Dijon, where both the Franks and Godegisel's forces defeated the dumbfounded Gundobad, who escaped to Avignon. Clovis pursued him and laid siege to the city. After some months, Clovis was convinced to abandon the siege and settled for an annual tribute from Gundobad.
Armorici allies
In 501, 502 or 503, Clovis led his troops to Armorica. He had previously restricted his operations to minor raids, but now the goal was subjugation. Clovis failed to complete this objective via military means; therefore, he was constrained to statecraft. This proved fruitful, for the Armonici shared Clovis's disdain for the Arian Visigoths. Armorica and its fighters were thus integrated into the Frankish realm.
Visiting the Visigoths
In 507 Clovis was allowed by the magnates of his realm to invade the remaining threat of the Kingdom of the Visigoths. King Alaric had previously tried to establish a cordial relationship with Clovis by serving him the head of exiled Syagrius on a silver plate in 486 or 487. However, Clovis was no longer able to resist the temptation to move against the Visigoths, for many Nicene Christians under Visigoth yoke were unhappy and implored Clovis to make a move. But just to be absolutely certain about retaining the loyalties of the Nicene Christians under Visigoths, Clovis ordered his troops to omit raiding and plunder, for this was not a foreign invasion, but a liberation.
Armorici assisted him in defeating the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouillé in 507, eliminating Visigothic power in Gaul. The battle added most of Aquitaine to Clovis's kingdom[19] and resulted in the death of the Visigothic king Alaric II.
According to Gregory of Tours, following the battle the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I made Clovis a patrician and honorary consul.
Unifying the Franks
Following the Battle of Vouillé, Clovis eliminated all his possible rivals, including the other Frankish kings that ruled alongside him.
Sometime after 507, Clovis heard about Chararic's plan to escape from his monastic prison and had him murdered. Around the same time, Clovis convinced Prince Chlodoric to murder his father Sigobert, earning him his nickname as "Chlodoric the Parricide". Following the murder, Clovis betrayed Chlodoric and had his envoys strike him down. Sometime later, Clovis visited his old ally Ragnachar in Cambrai. Following his conversion to Christianity in 508, many of Clovis' pagan retainers had defected to Ragnachar's side, making him a political threat. Ragnachar denied Clovis's entry, prompting Clovis to make a move against him. He bribed Ragnachar's retainers and executed him alongside his brother Ricchar.
Death
Shortly before his death, Clovis called a synod of Gallic bishops to meet in Orléans to reform the Church and create a strong link between the Crown and the Nicene Christian episcopate. This was the First Council of Orléans. Thirty-three bishops assisted and passed 31 decrees on the duties and obligations of individuals, the right of sanctuary, and ecclesiastical discipline. These decrees, equally applicable to Franks and Romans, first established equality between conquerors and conquered. After his death, Clovis was laid to rest in the Abbey of St Genevieve in Paris.
His remains were relocated to Saint Denis Basilica in the mid- to late 18th century. When Clovis died, his kingdom was partitioned among his four sons, Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert and Clotaire. This partition created the new political units of the Kingdoms of Rheims, Orléans, Paris and Soissons, and inaugurated a tradition that would lead to disunity lasting until the end of the Merovingian dynasty in 751. Clovis had been a king with no fixed capital and no central administration beyond his entourage. By deciding to be interred at Paris, Clovis gave the city symbolic weight. When his grandchildren divided royal power 50 years after his death in 511, Paris was kept as a joint property and a fixed symbol of the dynasty.
The disunity continued under the Carolingians until, after a brief unity under Charlemagne, the Franks splintered into distinct spheres of cultural influence that coalesced around Eastern and Western centers of royal power. These later political, linguistic, and cultural entities became the Kingdom of France, the myriad German States, and the semi-autonomous kingdoms of Burgundy and Lotharingia.
Baptism
Clovis's wife Clotilde, a Burgundian princess, was a Nicene Christian despite the Arianism that surrounded her at court. Her persistence eventually persuaded Clovis to convert to Nicene Christianity, which he initially resisted. Clotilde had wanted her son to be baptized, but Clovis refused, so she had the child baptized without Clovis's knowledge. Shortly after his baptism, their son died, which further strengthened Clovis's resistance to conversion. Clotilde also had their second son baptized without her husband's permission, and this son became ill and nearly died after his baptism. Clovis eventually converted to Nicene Christianity on Christmas Day 508 in a small church in the vicinity of the subsequent Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims; a statue of his baptism by Saint Remigius can still be seen there. The details of this event have been passed down by Gregory of Tours, who recorded them many years later in the 6th century.
The king's Nicene baptism was of immense importance in the subsequent history of Western and Central Europe in general, as Clovis expanded his dominion over almost all of Gaul. Nicene Christianity offered certain advantages to Clovis as he fought to distinguish his rule among many competing power centers in Western Europe. His conversion to the Nicene form of Christianity served to set him apart from most other Germanic kings of his time, such as those of the Visigoths and the Vandals, who had converted from Germanic paganism to Arian Christianity. However, he was not the first germanic king to convert to Nicene Christianity, that distinction belonging to the Suevic king of Gallaecia Rechiar, whose conversion predates Clovis's baptism by half a century. Nevertheless, Clovis's embrace of the Nicene Christian faith may have also gained him the support of the Nicene Christian Gallo-Roman aristocracy in his later campaign against the Visigoths, which drove them from southern Gaul in 507 and resulted in a great many of his people converting to Nicene Christianity as well.
On the other hand, Bernard Bachrach has argued that his conversion from Frankish paganism alienated many of the other Frankish sub-kings and weakened his military position over the next few years. In the interpretatio romana, Saint Gregory of Tours gave the Germanic gods that Clovis abandoned the names of roughly equivalent Roman gods, such as Jupiter and Mercury. William Daly, more directly assessing Clovis's allegedly barbaric and pagan origins, ignored the Gregory of Tours version and based his account on the scant earlier sources, a sixth-century "vita" of Saint Genevieve and letters to or concerning Clovis from bishops (now in the Epistolae Austrasicae) and Theodoric.
Clovis and his wife were buried in the Abbey of St Genevieve (St. Pierre) in Paris; the original name of the church was the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Roman law
Under Clovis, the first codification of the Salian Frank law took place. The Roman Law was written with the assistance of Gallo-Romans to reflect the Salic legal tradition and Christianity, while containing much from Roman tradition. The Roman Law lists various crimes as well as the fines associated with them.
Legacy
Detracting, perhaps, from this legacy, is his aforementioned division of the state. This was done not along national or even largely geographical lines, but primarily to assure equal income amongst his sons after his death. While it may or may not have been his intention, this division was the cause of much internal discord in Gaul. This precedent led in the long run to the fall of his dynasty, for it was a pattern repeated in future reigns. Clovis did bequeath to his heirs the support of both people and Church such that, when the magnates were ready to do away with the royal house, the sanction of the Pope was sought first.
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