Part 206

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Mission to France:

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778, 1778 (FEBRUARY), 1782 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Framing of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.

FRANKLIN, The ephemeral state of.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785; and 1785-1796.

FRANKLIN, Tennessee, Battles at and near.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE), and 1864 (NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).

FRANKLIN, OR FRANKLEYN, The.

"'There is scarce a small village,' says Sir John Fortescue [15th century] 'in which you may not find a knight, an esquire, or some substantial householder (paterfamilias) commonly called a frankleyn, possessed of considerable estate; besides others who are called freeholders, and many yeomen of estate sufficient to make a substantial jury.' ... By a frankleyn in this place we are to understand what we call a country squire, like the frankleyn of Chaucer; for the word esquire in Fortescue's time was only used in its limited sense, for the sons of peers and knights, or such as had obtained the title by creation or some other legal means."

_H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 8, part 3, with note (volume 3)._

FRANKPLEDGE.

An old English law required all men to combine in associations of ten, and to become standing sureties for one another, --which was called "frankpledge."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5, section 41._

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FRANKS: Origin and earliest history.

"It is well known that the name of 'Frank' is not to be found in the long list of German tribes preserved to us in the 'Germania' of Tacitus. Little or nothing is heard of them before the reign of Gordian III. In A. D. 240 Aurelian, then a tribune of the sixth legion stationed on the Rhine, encountered a body of marauding Franks near Mayence and drove them back into their marshes. The word 'Francia' is also found at a still earlier date, in the old Roman chart called the 'Charta Peutingeria,' and occupies on the map the right bank of the Rhine from opposite Coblentz to the sea. The origin of the Franks has been the subject of frequent debate, to which French patriotism has occasionally lent some asperity. ... At the present day, however, historians of every nation, including the French, are unanimous in considering the Franks as a powerful confederacy of German tribes, who in the time of Tacitus inhabited the north-western parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine. And this theory is so well supported by many scattered notices, slight in themselves, but powerful when combined, that we can only wonder that it should ever have been called in question. Nor was this aggregation of tribes under the new name of Franks a singular instance; the same took place in the case of the Alemanni and Saxons. ... The etymology of the name adopted by the new confederacy is also uncertain. The conjecture which has most probability in its favour is that adopted long ago by Gibbon, and confirmed in recent times by the authority of Grimm, which connects it with the German word Frank (free). ... Tacitus speaks of nearly all the tribes, whose various appellations were afterwards merged in that of Frank, as living in the neighbourhood of the Rhine. Of these the principal were the Sicambri (the chief people of the old Iscævonian tribe), who, as there is reason to believe, were identical with the Salian Franks. The confederation further comprised the Bructeri, the Chamavi, Ansibarii, Tubantes, Marsi, and Chasuarii, of whom the five last had formerly belonged to the celebrated Cheruscan league, which, under the hero Arminius, destroyed three Roman legions in the Teutoburgian Forest. The strongest evidence of the identity of these tribes with the Franks, is the fact that, long after their settlement in Gaul, the distinctive names of the original people were still occasionally used as synonymous with that of the confederation. ... The Franks advanced upon Gaul from two different directions, and under the different names of Salians, and Ripuarians, the former of whom we have reason to connect more particularly with the Sicambrian tribe. The origin of the words Salian and Ripuarian, which are first used respectively by Ammianus Marcellinus and Jornandes, is very obscure, and has served to exercise the ingenuity of ethnographers. There are, however, no sufficient grounds for a decided opinion. At the same time it is by no means improbable that the river Yssel, Isala or Sal (for it has borne all these appellations), may have given its name to that portion of the Franks who lived along its course. With still greater probability may the name Ripuarii, or Riparii, be derived from 'Ripa,' a term used by the Romans to signify the Rhine. These dwellers on 'the Bank' were those that remained in their ancient settlements while their Salian kinsmen were advancing into the heart of Gaul."

_W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 2._

ALSO IN: _P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapters 9 and 11._

_T. Smith, Arminius, part 2, chapter 3._

FRANKS: A. D. 253. First appearance in the Roman world.

"When in the year 253 the different generals of Rome were once more fighting each other for the imperial dignity, and the Rhine-legions marched to Italy to fight out the cause of their emperor Valerianus against ... Aemilianus of the Danube-army, this seems to have been the signal for the Germans pushing forward, especially towards the lower Rhine. These Germans were the Franks, who appear here for the first time, perhaps new opponents only in name; for, although the identification of them, already to be met with in later antiquity, with tribes formerly named on the lower Rhine--partly, the Chamavi settled beside the Bructeri, partly the Sugambri formerly mentioned subject to the Romans--is uncertain and at least inadequate, there is here greater probability than in the case of the Alamanni that the Germans hitherto dependent on Rome, on the right bank of the Rhine, and the Germanic tribes previously dislodged from the Rhine, took at that time--under the collective name of the 'Free'--the offensive in concert against the Romans."

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 4._

FRANKS: A. D. 277. Repulse from Gaul, by Probus.

See GAUL: A. D. 277.

FRANKS: A. D. 279. Escape from Pontus.

See SYRACUSE: A. D. 279.

FRANKS: A. D. 295-297. In Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297.

FRANKS: A. D. 306. Defeat by Constantine.

Constantine the Great, A. D. 306, fought and defeated the Salian Franks in a great battle and "carried off a large number of captives to Treves, the chief residence of the emperor, and a rival of Rome itself in the splendour of its public buildings. It was in the circus of this city, and in the presence of Constantine, that the notorious 'Ludi Francici' were celebrated; at which several thousand Franks, including their kings Regaisus and Ascaricus, were compelled to fight with wild beasts, to the inexpressible delight of the Christian spectators."

_W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 2._

FRANKS: A. D. 355. Settlement in Toxandria.

See GAUL: A. D. 355-361; also, TOXANDRIA.

FRANKS: 5th-10th Centuries. Barbarities of the conquest of Gaul. State of society under the rule of the conquerors. Evolution of Feudalism.

See GAUL: 5TH-8TH, and 5TH-10TH CENTURIES.

FRANKS: A. D. 406-409. Defense of Roman Gaul.

See GAUL: A. D. 406-409.

FRANKS: A. D. 410-420. The Franks join in the attack on Gaul.

After vainly opposing the entrance of Vandals, Burgundians and Sueves into Gaul, A. D. 406, "the Franks, the valiant and faithful allies of the Roman republic, were soon [about A. D. 410-420] tempted to imitate the invaders whom they had so bravely resisted. Treves, the capital of Gaul, was pillaged by their lawless bands; and the humble colony which they so long maintained in the district of Toxandria, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and Scheldt, till their independent power filled the whole extent of the Second, or Lower, Germany. ... The ruin of the opulent provinces of Gaul may be dated from the establishment of these barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous and oppressive, and who were capriciously impelled, by interest or passion, to violate the public peace."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 31._

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"They [the Franks] resisted the great invasion of the Vandals in the time of Stilicho, but did not scruple to take part in the subsequent ravages. Among the confusions of that disastrous period, indeed, it is not improbable that they seized the cities of Spires, Strasburg, Amiens, Arras, Therouane and Tournai, and by their assaults on Trèves compelled the removal of the præfectural government to Arles. Chroniclers who flourished two centuries later refer to the year 418 large and permanent conquests in Gaul by a visionary king called Pharamund, from whom the French monarchy is usually dated. But history seeks in vain for any authentic marks of his performances."

_P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapter 11, section 5._

FRANKS: A. D. 448-456. Origin of the Merovingian dynasty.

The royal dynasty of the kingdom of the Franks as founded by Clovis is called the Merovingian. "It is thought that the kings of the different Frankish people were all of the same family, of which the primitive ancestor was Meroveus (Meer-wig, warrior of the sea). After him those princes were called Merovingians (Meer-wings); they were distinguished by their long hair, which they never cut. A Meroveus, grandfather of Clovis, reigned, it is said, over the Franks between 448 and 456; but only his name remains, in some antient historians, and we know absolutely nothing more either of his family, his power, or of the tribe which obeyed him: so that we see no reason why his descendants had taken his name. ... The Franks appear in history for the first time in the year 241. Some great captain only could, at this period, unite twenty different people in a new confederation; this chief was, apparently, the Meroveus, whose name appeared for such a long time as a title of glory for his descendants, although tradition has not preserved any trace of his victories."

_J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians, chapter 3._

FRANKS: A. D. 451. At the battle of Châlons.

See HUNS: A. D. 451.

FRANKS: A. D. 481-511. The kingdom of Clovis.

"The Salian Franks had ... associated a Roman or a Romanized Gaul, Aegidius, with their native chief in the leadership of the tribe. But, in the year 481, the native leadership passed into the hands of a chief who would not endure a Roman colleague, or the narrow limits within which, in the general turmoil of the world, his tribe was cramped. He is known to history by the name of Clovis, or Chlodvig, which through many transformations, became the later Ludwig and Louis. Clovis soon made himself feared as the most ambitious, the most unscrupulous, and the most energetic of the new Teutonic founders of states. Ten years after the fall of the Western empire [which was in 476], seven years before the rise of the Gothic kingdom of Theoderic, Clovis challenged the Roman patrician, Syagrius of Soissons, who had succeeded to Aegidius, defeated him in a pitched field, at Nogent, near Soissons (486), and finally crushed Latin rivalry in northern Gaul. Ten years later (496), in another famous battle, Tolbiac (Zülpich), near Cologne, he also crushed Teutonic rivalry, and established his supremacy over the kindred Alamanni of the Upper Rhine. Then he turned himself with bitter hostility against the Gothic power in Gaul. The Franks hated the Goths, as the ruder and fiercer of the same stock hate those who are a degree above them in the arts of peace, and are supposed to be below them in courage and the pursuits of war. There was another cause of antipathy. The Goths were zealous Arians; and Clovis, under the influence of his wife Clotildis, the niece of the Burgundian Gundobad, and in consequence, it is said, of a vow made in battle at Tolbiac, had received Catholic baptism from St. Remigius of Rheims.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.

The Frank king threw his sword into the scale against the Arian cause, and became the champion and hope of the Catholic population all over Gaul. Clovis was victorious. He crippled the Burgundian kingdom (500), which was finally destroyed by his sons (534). In a battle near Poitiers, he broke the power of the West Goths in Gaul; he drove them out of Aquitaine, leaving them but a narrow slip of coast, to seek their last settlement and resting-place in Spain; and, when he died, he was recognized by all the world, by Theoderic, by the Eastern emperor, who honoured him with the title of the consulship, as the master of Gaul. Nor was his a temporary conquest. The kingdom of the West Goths and the Burgundians had become the kingdom of the Franks. The invaders had at length arrived who were to remain. It was decided that the Franks, and not the Goths, were to direct the future destinies of Gaul and Germany, and that the Catholic faith, and not Arianism, was to be the religion of these great realms."

_R. W. Church, Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 2._

ALSO IN: _W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 2._

_J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians, translated by Bellingham, chapters 4-5._

See, also, GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-509.

FRANKS: A. D. 481-768. Supremacy in Germany, before Charlemagne.

See GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.

FRANKS: A. D. 496. Conversion to Christianity.

See above: A. D. 481-511; also, ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.

FRANKS: A. D. 496-504. Overthrow of the Alemanni.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504; also, SUEVI: A. D. 460-500.

FRANKS: A. D. 511-752. The house of Clovis. Ascendancy of the Austrasian Mayors of the Palace.

On the death of Clovis, his dominion, or, speaking more strictly, the kingly office in his dominion, was divided among his four sons, who were lads, then, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen. The eldest reigned in Metz, the second at Orleans, the third in Paris, and the youngest at Soissons. These princes extended the conquests of their father, subduing the Thuringians (A. D. 515-528), overthrowing the kingdom of the Burgundians (A. D. 523-534), diminishing the possessions of the Visigoths in Gaul (A. D. 531-532), acquiring Provence from the Ostrogoths of Italy and securing from the Emperor Justinian a clear Roman-imperial title to the whole of Gaul. The last survivor of the four brother-kings, Clotaire I., reunited the whole Frank empire under his own sceptre, and on his death, A. D. 561, it was again divided among his four sons. Six years later, on the death of the elder, it was redivided among the three survivors. Neustria fell to Chilperic, whose capital was at Soissons, Austrasia to Sigebert, who reigned at Metz, and Burgundia to Guntram, who had his seat of government at Orleans. Each of the kings took additionally a third of Aquitaine, and Provence was shared between Sigebert and Guntram. "It was agreed on this occasion that Paris, which was rising into great importance, should be held in common by all, but visited by none of the three kings without the consent of the others." The reign of these three brothers and their sons, from 561 to 613, was one long revolting tragedy of civil war, murder, lust, and treachery, made horribly interesting by the rival careers of the evil Fredegunda and the great unfortunate Brunhilda, queens of Neustria and Austrasia, respectively. {1400} In 613 a second Clotaire surviving his royal kin, united the Frank monarchy once more under a single crown. But power was fast slipping from the hands of the feeble creature who wore the crown, and passing to that one of his ministers who succeeded in making himself the representative of royalty--namely, the Mayor of the Palace. There was a little stir of energy in his son, Dagobert, but from generation to generation, after him, the Merovingian kings sank lower into that character which gave them the name of the fainéant kings ("rois fainéans")--the slothful or lazy kings--while the mayors of the palace ruled vigorously in their name and tumbled them, at last, from the throne. "While the Merovingian race in its decline is notorious in history as having produced an unexampled number of imbecile monarchs, the family which was destined to supplant them was no less wonderfully prolific in warriors and statesmen of the highest class. It is not often that great endowments are transmitted even from father to sou, but the line from which Charlemagne sprang presents to our admiring gaze an almost uninterrupted succession of five remarkable men, within little more than a single century. Of these the first three held the mayoralty of Austrasia [Pepin of Landen, Pepin of Heristal, and Carl, or Charles Martel, the Hammer]; and it was they who prevented the permanent establishment of absolute power on the Roman model, and secured to the German population of Austrasia an abiding victory over that amalgam of degraded Romans and corrupted Gauls which threatened to leaven the European world. To them, under Providence, we owe it that the centre of Europe is at this day German, and not Gallo-Latin." Pepin of Heristal, Mayor in Austrasia, broke the power of a rival Neustrian family in a decisive battle fought near the village of Testri, A. D. 687, and gathered the reins of the three kingdoms (Burgundy included) into his own hands. His still more vigorous son, Charles Martel, won the same ascendancy for himself afresh, after a struggle which was signalized by three sanguinary battles, at Amblève (A. D. 716), at Vinci, near Cambrai (717) and at Soissons (718). When firm in power at home, he turned his arms against the Frisians and the Bavarians, whom he subdued, and against the obstinate Saxons, whose country he harried six times without bringing them to submission. His great exploit in war, however, was the repulse of the invading Arabs and Moors, on the memorable battle-field of Tours (A. D.732), where the wave of Mahommedan invasion was rolled back in western Europe, never to advance beyond the Pyrenees again. Karl died in 741, leaving three sons, among whom his power was, in the Frank fashion, divided. But one of them resigned, in a few years, his sovereignty, to become a monk; another was deposed, and the third, Pepin, surnamed "The Little," or "The Short," became supreme. He contented himself, as his father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather had done, with the title of Mayor of the Palace, until 752, when, with the approval of the Pope and by the act of a great assembly of leudes and bishops at Soissons, he was lifted on the shield and crowned and anointed king of the Franks, while the last of the Merovingians was shorn of his long royal locks and placed in a monastery. The friendliness of the Pope in this matter was the result and the cementation of an alliance which bore important fruits. As the champion of the church, Pepin made war on the Lombards and conquered for the Papacy the first of its temporal dominions in Italy. In his own realm, he completed the expulsion of the Moors from Septimania, crushed an obstinate revolt in Aquitaine, and gave a firm footing to the two thrones which, when he died in 768, he left to his sons, Carl and Carloman, and which became in a few years the single throne of one vast empire, under Carl--Carl the Great-- Charlemagne.

_W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapters 3-6._

ALSO IN: _P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapters 12-15._

J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians, chapters 6-13.

See, also, AUSTRASIA AND NEUSTRIA, and MAYOR OF THE PALACE.

FRANKS: A. D. 528. Conquest of Thuringia.

See THURINGIANS, THE.

FRANKS: A. D. 539-553. Invasion of Italy. Formal relinquishment of Gaul to them.

During the Gothic war in Italy,--when Belisarius was reconquering the cradle of the Roman Empire for the Eastern Empire which still called itself Roman, although its seat was at Constantinople,--both sides solicited the help of the Franks. Theudebert, who reigned at Metz, promised his aid to both, and kept his word. "He advanced [A. D. 539, with 100,000 men] toward Pavia, where the Greeks and Goths were met, about to encounter, and, with an unexpected impartiality, attacked the astonished Goths, whom he drove to Ravenna, and then, while the Greeks were yet rejoicing over his performance, fell upon them with merciless fury, and dispersed them through Tuscany." Theudebert now became fired with an ambition to conquer all Italy; but his savage army destroyed everything in its path so recklessly, and pursued so unbridled a course, that famine and pestilence soon compelled a retreat and only one-third of its original number recrossed the Alps. Notwithstanding, this treachery, the emperor Justinian renewed his offers of alliance with the Franks (A.D. 540), and "pledged to them, as the price of their fidelity to his cause, besides the usual subsidies, the relinquishment of every lingering claim, real or pretended, which the empire might assert to the sovereignty of the Gauls. The Franks accepted the terms, and 'from that time,' say the Byzantine authorities, 'the German chiefs presided at the games of the circus, and struck money no longer, as usual, with the effigy of the emperors, but with their own image and superscription. Theudebert, who was the principal agent of these transactions, if he ratified the provisions of the treaty, did not fulfill them in person, but satisfied himself with sending a few tributaries to the aid of his ally. But his first example proved to be more powerful than his later, and large swarms of Germans took advantage of the troubles in Italy to overrun the country and plunder and slay at will. For twelve years, under various leaders, but chiefly under two brothers of the Alemans, Lutherr and Bukhelin, they continued to harass the unhappy object of all barbaric resentments, till the sword of Narses finally exterminated them [A. D. 553]."

_P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapter 12._

ALSO IN: _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 41._

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FRANKS: A. D. 547. Subjugation of Bavarians and Alemanni.

See BAVARIA: A. D. 547.

FRANKS: A. D. 768-814. Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans.