Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/759

FRANKS 723 tury A.D. as a part of the resistance 01 northern and north western Germany to the ceaseless attempts of Rome. " Francus habet nomen a feritate sua," says Ermoldus Nigellus (i. 344) ; and the word carries the sense of bold ness, defiance, freedom. As it did not lend itself well to Latin verse-endings, and as its origin was late, we find the silver and leaden poets delighting to call the Franks Sicambri, as in the famous speech of St Remi to Hlodowig, " Depone mitis colla, Sicamber," &c. When their history begins, the Franks are in three groups, mostly on the left bank of the Rhine, from Mainz to the sea. It is, however, quite clear that in earlier days they dwelt also on the right or German bank ; for if at first the Romans pressed on them, ere long they began to press on the Romans in return. The oldest Frankish land was then on the Rhine ; some of it lay to the north of the Betuwe (the island between Meuse and Rhine), having the river Yssel as its eastern limit, and a line drawn through Durstede, Utrecht, and Muyden as its western boundary. The Franks of this district, afterwards called Salians (a name derived either from Sala, an inheritance, or from the river Saal, or Yssel), filled the parts called the Veluwe and the territory of the Sicambri; south-east of these was a The Salians and Ripuarians, dr. 400. second group, the Chamavi, Bructeri, Attuarii, also at first on the right bank of the Rhine ; beyond these, a group of Chatti and Suevi, from a little above Cologne to ths Main, filling up all the country between the Taunus hills and the Rhine. It is to this group of tribes, says Watterich (Germanen des Rheins, p. 166), that the title Frank was first given. This view of their geographical distribution is supported by the evidence of Peutinger s Itinerary, which Francia stands on the right bank of the Rhine from just above Nimwegen to a little below Coblentz ; and though this famous map is a road-chart rather than a record of ethnology and tribal distribution, still it may fairly be urged that its author would not have placed the Franks on the very outside of his map had their home been on the left bank of the Rhine. In the middle of the 3d century these Franks began to press into the First and Second Germany, two tracts of land on the left bank of the Rhine from Alsace to the sea. In 240 the Chatti crossed at Mainz ; in 258 Franks are in the army of Postumus as well as opposed to him ; with them he drove their brethren across the Rhine and made Cologne his capital. By degrees they filled the whole district from the Moselle to the Betuwe, occupying the lands of the Ubii and Tungri, that is, from the Ardennes to the Rhine and Meuse. These Franks are known to his tory as the Ripuarians, receiving, as was not unnatural, a partly Latin name (Ripuarii, Riparii, bank-men ; or pos sibly Rip-wehr-ii, bank-defenders). About the same time the Salian Franks also moved southward, crossing the Rhine, which in those days was slow and shallow in its lower course, the main waters having been diverted into the Meuse. They occupied the whole Betuwe, and spread down to the sea, inhabiting the marshy delta of the rivers (" paludicobs Sigambri," or " Franci inviis strati palu- dibus," circa 280 A.D.); and presently (287) they took part in naval expeditions down the coast of Gaul. Then, pass ing the Meuse also, they seized on Toxandria, which was given over to them in 358 by the emperor Julian, who defeated them, and admired their bravery and independ ent spirit. Henceforth we find plenty of Franks taking service under the empire : Frankish chiefs, like Bald, Mellobald, Arbogast, rise to high places in court and army; their names appear even in the Consular Fasti ; they make or unmake emperors. By the end of the 4th century the frontiers of the -empire to the north had permanently receded : Andernach was the outmost Rhine station held by the Romans; Tournay was still theirs; they had a fleet on the Sambre ; all beyond was Frankish land. Before long the Franks advanced again : in 429 we hear (in Gregory of Tours) that the Salians, coming "from Dispargum (Disiburg, the city of the goddesses), in Tor- ingia," won a great battle at Cambrai under Chlodion their king, and penetrated even as far as the Loire. This Toringia is probably a confusion with Tongria, a little district on the Meuse ; the Franks were never in Thuringia, With their two capitals, the Salians at Dispar gum, the Ripuarians at Cologne, the Franks now became the bulwark of the Romans : they resisted the barbarians who crossed the Rhine at Mainz in 406 ; and in 451 again joined the legions to repel at Chalons the hideous invasion of Attila. Thus feeling their strength, it was not long be fore, under their young king Hlodowig, or Clovis, the Salian Franks became masters of northern Gaul, while their brethren the Ripuarians remained for the time near the Rhine. And " as the son of Childerich, following in tho steps of his kinsfolk, pressed southwards, in mid career of victory he met the Christians God. The Disi, the wild goddesses, abandoned him ; he trusted in the god of Hlotehild, and conquered all his foes" (Watterich, Die Germanen des Rheins, p. 238). These Christianized Salians, under the Merwing house, became in time lords of all Gaul, and gave it a new name, Francia Occidentalis, or Interior, or Latina, to distinguish it from the older Francia Orientalis, the Germany of the middle Rhine ; the latter name drifted off towards the east, and has found a home in that central district of Franconia, which lies far away from the true Frankish land. Henceforth the history of the Franks falls under that of France ; while their institutions were mainly those of all Germans* (See FRANCE and GERMANY.) Their physical features were also those of the race in general : the fierce ness of their looks ; the wrinkled scowl about their brows, "torvi Sicambri;" their wild blue eyes; their large limbs, which contrasted with the little stature of the Romans ; their long fair hair, which was a choice commodity at Rome, being bought eagerly by the ladies of fashion in those late imperialist days, all these things had little in them that was specially Frankish. Their weapons were more charac teristic, being their own and connected closely with their name. They fought either with the "framea" (a word which