Salian Franks

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See also: Salian dynasty

The Salian Franks or Salii were a subgroup of the Franks who originally had been living North of the limes in the coastal area above the Rhine in the northern Netherlands, where today still is a region called Salland. From the 4th century they are attested in the history of Ammianus Marcellinus to have partly migrated to the southern Netherlands, and Belgium. From the 420s they formed a kingdom in that area after a new invasion of their king Clodio and expanded to northern France. This kingdom was later expanded by Childeric and Clovis. They were Salian kings and from Childeric and his son Clovis descended a royal house called Merovingians, named after Childeric's father Merovech whose birth was atttributed with a supernatural elements.

From the early 7th century the Salian Franks are distinguished from the Ripuarian Franks. The name Ripuarian is believed to mean 'river-dwelling'. Therefore the name Salian may refer to salt and, by extension, the sea, i.e. 'sea-dwelling'. Alternatively, it may be derived from the Roman name for a river in the Netherlands: Isala, currently named IJssel in Dutch. Even nowadays, this area is called Salland. In the third century A.D., the Romans may have named the Germanic tribe living in this area after this river. However this is uncertain. In other latin texts the word Salii usualy points to the priests of Mars, and the Salian Franks were known to be a very warlike people.

From the Salland area, the Salian Franks occupied the Rhine delta in the fourth and the fifth centuries and moved further south, with the Belgian city of Tournai becoming the center of their domain. Later still, they again moved south and gained control over Roman Gaul, i.e. France, which bears its current name after them.

The Salian Franks formed the foundation for early Dutch culture and society.

The adjective Salian as applied to the Frankish people is the origin of the name of the Salic Law.

By the 9th century, if not earlier, the division between Salian and Ripuarian Franks had in practice become virtually non-existent, but continued for some time to have implications for the legal system under which a person could go on trial.

In 451, Flavius Aëtius , de facto ruler of the Western Roman Empire, called upon his Germanic allies on Roman soil to help fight off an invasion by Attila's Huns. The Salian Franks answered the call.

In Gaul a fusion of Roman and Germanic societies was occurring. During the period of Merovingian rule, the Franks reluctantly began to adopt Christianity following the baptism of Clovis I, an event that inaugurated the alliance between the Frankish kingdom and the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike their Goth and Lombard counterparts the Salians adopted Catholic Christianity early on; they had an intimate relationship with their ecclesiastical hierarchy, subjects, and conquered territories.

Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, became the absolute ruler of a Germanic kingdom of mixed Roman-Germanic population in 486. He consolidated his rule with victories over the Gallo-Romans and all the other Frankish tribes and established his capital in Paris. After he had beaten the Visigoths and the Alemanni his sons drove the Visigoths to spain and subdued the Burgundians, Alemanni and Thuringians. After 250 years of this dynasty, however, they were marked by internecine struggles and a gradual decline. The position in society of the Merovingians was taken over by Carolingians who again came from a northern area around the river Maas in what is now Belgium and southern Netherlands.

The division of the Frankish kingdom among Clovis’s four sons (511) was a precedent that would influence Frankish history for more than four centuries, and it appears like an exercise in interpretation, rather than simple implementation of a new model of succession. No trace of an established practice of territorial division can in fact be discovered among Germanic peoples other than the Franks.

[edit] References

Area Handbook of the US Library of Congress
Ammianus Marcellinus, History of the later roman empire.
Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum (Ten Books of Histories, better known as the Historia Francorum)
Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms.