Clovis I
Clovis united the Frankish tribes, conquered most of Gaul, and became Catholic rather than Arian, which decided the shape of western Europe. He succeeded his father as king of the Salian Franks at Tournai in 481 at about fifteen, ruling one group among several with territory in what is now Belgium and northern France. The Roman order in Gaul had not so much fallen as faded: a Roman commander named Syagrius still governed a territory around Soissons with no empire behind it, and Clovis destroyed him in 486. He then beat the Alamanni around 496, the Burgundians, and finally the Visigoths at Vouillé in 507, taking Aquitaine and driving them into Spain. He also removed every rival Frankish king, including several relatives, by murder and by inviting their followers to change sides — a process Gregory of Tours describes with a certain relish. The conversion is the consequential part. The other Germanic kings — Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians — were Arian Christians ruling Catholic populations, which made every one of their kingdoms structurally unstable. Clovis was baptised at Reims by Bishop Remigius, probably in 508 rather than the traditional 496, and became the only Catholic king in the west. That gave him the Gallo-Roman bishops, the aristocracy and the church's administration as allies rather than as subjects. He issued the Salic law, made Paris his capital, and died in 511 leaving the kingdom divided among four sons. Every French king was crowned at Reims until 1825. The name itself survived him in a way he could not have anticipated. Clovis becomes Louis in later French, and eighteen kings of France carried it, which is a reasonable claim to being the founder of the country.
- Lived: 466 CE – 511 CE
- Nationality: Frankish
- Roles: leader, military_leader
