Kingdom of the Franks

The Germanic kingdom that inherited Roman Gaul and became the origin of both France and Germany. The Franks were a confederation on the lower Rhine who entered the empire as allies, and Clovis united them around 500, destroying the last Roman command in Gaul and defeating the Visigoths. His decisive act was religious: he converted to Nicene Christianity rather than the Arianism most Germanic kings held, which made him acceptable to the Gallo-Roman bishops and their populations - an alliance with the Church that every later Frankish ruler used. The Merovingian dynasty then governed for two and a half centuries, dividing the realm among sons at each succession in a way that produced continuous civil war. Real power drifted to the mayors of the palace, and Charles Martel stopped an Arab raiding force near Poitiers in 732 before his son Pepin deposed the last Merovingian with papal approval in 751. Salic law, the Frankish legal code, later supplied the argument excluding women from the French throne. The name France comes from them. Frankish became a word for European across the eastern Mediterranean. The kingdom ran from around 481 to 843 under two dynasties. Its heartland was Austrasia and Neustria, roughly the Rhineland and northern France. Tournai and later Paris served as capitals. Merovingian kings were distinguished by uncut hair. Frankish gave Old French several hundred words, including many for war and government. Charles Martel halted an Umayyad raiding force near Poitiers in 732, and his family took the throne outright a generation later.

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