Clovis I.

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Baptism of Clovis, miniature from the Vie de saint Denis (around 1250; Bibliothèque nationale de France )

Chlodwig I. (also Chlodowech , from Latin Chlodovechus , Romanized from Old Franconian * Hlūdawīg or * Hlōdowig , composed of West Germanic hlūd "loud, famous" and wīg "fight", thus about "famous warrior"; French and English Clovis ; * 466 ; † November 27, 511 near Paris ) was a Frankish king or rex from the Merovingian dynasty .

He subjugated all other Frankish reges and other Germanic tribes by force. Therefore he is seen as the founder of the Frankish Empire , of which he made Paris the capital . He converted to Christianity after his victory over the Alamanni in the Battle of Zülpich . This step set the course for the further course of medieval history.

As a ruler in a time of upheaval who succeeded in rising from a Frankish mercenary ( foederati ) commanding army king or warlord to a de facto independent ruler, Clovis on the one hand tied to late ancient Roman traditions into which he classified himself, on the other hand he initiated developments that contributed to the development of the early medieval conditions.

Life

Ascent

Gaul shortly before Clovis was raised to the king; his sphere of influence initially included only part of the Franconian territories.

Clovis was a son of the Frankish rex Childerich I and his Thuringian wife Basena (Basina). Childerich had commanded Frankish foederati and at least temporarily served in the Roman Empire. It is often assumed that he had at least partially cooperated with the Roman military commanders Aegidius and Paulus in northern Gaul . The details are, however, unclear and controversial, especially since the few sources also reveal a rivalry between Childerich and Aegidius - who fell out with the Western Roman emperor in 461. In any case, Childerich seems to have established a not insignificant position of power in northern Gaul, which formed the basis for his son Clovis. Clovis probably followed his father in 481/82 as the " small king " of the Salfranken warriors' association . At that time there were other Franconian regna (dominion areas) in this area, for example in Cambrai and near Cologne . At this time, Clovis controlled roughly the area of ​​the (former) western Roman province of Belgica secunda in what is now the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium ( Toxandria around the provincial capital Tournai ). Like his father, he was officially only the "administrator" ( administrator ) of the province; as a military leader or "king" ( rex ), however, he was initially likely to have appeared primarily towards his soldiers. In more recent research, like other contemporary military leaders, Clovis is increasingly seen as a warlord , i.e. as a military leader who, in view of the factual collapse of the Western Rome and after the expiry of the imperial authority in Gaul, had established his own rule, which was initially still in the formally classified the existing political framework of the Roman Empire . Today it is almost certain that his family, the Merovingians, were by no means an old ruling dynasty; The family most likely only achieved their prominent position around the middle of the 5th century.

To 486 defeated Clovis at Soissons despite the lack of support his cousin Chara Rich , but with the help of his relatives Ragnachar , Syagrius , son of Giles and the last Gallo-Roman commander in Gaul. This victory extended his sphere of control to most of the area north of the Loire , but details are not known; It is assumed that the reges or warlords Syagrius and Clovis rivaled primarily for control of the last western Roman army group in northern Gaul, but this cannot be proven. In any case, Clovis was able to considerably expand the power he had taken over from his father in northern Gaul. Syagrius, who initially fled to the Visigothic kingdom , was delivered to Clovis and executed at a time that cannot be precisely dated. It should be noted that Clovis by no means only commanded Frankish fighters, but also soldiers of other origins, including, according to the historian Prokopios of Caesarea , large parts of the former Roman border army of Northern Gaul ( Histories 5,12,12-19).

The report by the historian Gregor von Tours , the most important narrative source regarding Clovis's reign, about the distribution of booty after the victory at Soissons, received much attention in research . According to this, Clovis's men had stolen a large and valuable jug when they sacked a church. The bishop, whose church the jug belonged to, asked Clovis to return it. The king agreed in principle, but pointed out that he could not decide this arbitrarily, since the booty had to be distributed publicly by lot. At the army meeting he asked the assembled warriors to give him the jug, but failed because of the resistance of a single simple warrior who insisted on a raffle and demonstratively smashed the jug. Clovis had to accept this, according to Gregor. Only in the following year did he take revenge, again at an army meeting, by killing the man in front of the assembled army on the pretext that he had neglected his equipment. According to older research, the incident shows that at that time every free Franconian capable of arms could publicly and successfully oppose the king by invoking the law ( right of resistance ). Other historians, on the other hand, are skeptical about the reliability of Gregor's report, and they also point out that Clovis's army was so heterogeneous and Romanized at the time that one cannot simply assume that Frankish-Germanic traditions dominated it.

In 492, Clovis married the Burgundian princess Chrodechild . According to Gregor, she made an early effort to convert her husband to the Roman Catholic Church . According to some researchers, Clovis was at this point may already be a Christian but like most foederati the Arianism adhered.

In the battle of Zülpich in 496 Clovis defeated the Alamanni for the first time, in 506 for the second and decisive time. In addition, he gradually united the Franks and Gallo-Romans under his rule. He eliminated Sigibert of Cologne , his son Chloderich and his relatives Chararich and Ragnachar and eliminated them. The chronology of these events is uncertain.

Christianization

Baptism of Clovis I, partial view of an ivory book cover (9th century)

After winning the Battle of Zülpich (west of Cologne and Euskirchen ) , Clovis converted to Roman Christianity. At Christmas he was baptized by Bishop Remigius in Reims. The year of baptism is controversial in research to this day because the sources are not precise; most likely the years 497, 498, or 499, but 507 has also been considered.

Baptism is mentioned in three sources: in a congratulatory letter from Bishop Avitus of Vienne , in a letter from Bishop Remigius of Reims and in the historical work of Gregory of Tours (which was not written until the end of the 6th century). Two motives for Clovis' conversion to Christianity are mentioned in the sources. One was the Christian idea of ​​kings. The Germanic kings were also legitimized in his office by his supposed descent from the pagan gods. Clovis had to give up this legitimation of descent and thus the connection to his pagan ancestors when he became a Christian. Instead, the king was promised that he would one day rule in heaven with his descendants. This established a Christian kingship, which also included the king's duty of mission. The second motif was that of the stronger god ( victory helper motif ). Confession to Christianity was intended to secure the king's assistance in battle. In this sense, Gregor von Tours reports that Clovis opted for Christianity after the Christian god had given him the help he had asked for in the battle of Zülpich, while he hoped in vain for such assistance from his previous gods. The influence of his second wife Chrodechild, who was attached to the Roman Church, probably also played a role.

Clovis allegedly demanded a price from the Bishop of Rome for his conversion. It is said to have been contractually stipulated that the occupation of all clerical offices should be determined by a Franconian synod under the chairmanship of the king and that the clergy were taxable to the king. It was a church order in the manner of the Germanic independent church system , i.e. a church that was heavily dependent on the will of the king and had a certain independence from Rome. The French kings in the late Middle Ages invoked this tradition when they demanded a special position for the Catholic Church in France in the sense of Gallicanism . Hence, many scholars assume that the alleged agreement between Clovis and the Pope was a later invention in the interests of Gallicanism. Likewise, the anti-Arian attitude of the king described by Gregory of Tours is probably exaggerated. As mentioned, it is even assumed that there was initially a politically motivated Arian phase with Clovis , which was tacitly ignored after his “Catholic” baptism. Clovis cooperated with the Roman bishops of Gaul even before his baptism.

Domestic political considerations also spoke in favor of the conversion, as it reduced tensions between the Christian-Romance majority population and the previously pagan Franks. The baptism of Clovis was also of great importance for the further history of Europe, as the Frankish Empire , from which France and Germany were to emerge centuries later , was Christianized with his conversion. In contrast to Roman antiquity , where baptism meant an individual's turning to Christianity, in the Germanic area and later in the early Middle Ages, baptisms often took place in tribal groups, i.e. collectively. According to Gregory of Tours report, Clovis questioned the great and the people before his baptism. When they agreed, he was baptized with allegedly 3,000 francs. However, the Christianization process of the Franks will actually only have taken place gradually. Numerous pagan customs persisted for a long time; For example, the contemporary Eastern Roman historian Prokopios ( Histories 6.25) reports on pagan human sacrifices by the Franks during a campaign to Italy in 539.

Clovis's decision to adopt Christianity in the “Catholic” doctrine represented by the Roman bishop was also far-reaching : unlike the kings of most of the other Germanic successor empires on the soil of the former Western Roman Empire , especially the Western and Eastern Goths , but also the Burgundians and Vandals Clovis , who had adopted the Christian faith in the form of Arianism , confessed to the imperial church of the Roman Empire, that is, to the athanasian faith of the Roman church , which had rejected the faith of the Arians in the years 325 and 381. This was of crucial importance, since in the Merovingian Empire from then on there was no denominational barrier between the newly baptized Franks and the Gallo-Roman majority of the population, which in the medium term made it possible to mix Francs and Romans. And when the first schism between Constantinople and Rome was settled in 519 , Clovis's heirs were also in communion with the Eastern Roman emperor, which brought considerable foreign policy advantages. In terms of church history, in retrospect, this was the beginning of the end of Arianism in the West. The Arian Visigoth kings converted to Roman Christianity towards the end of the 6th century after the empires of the Arian Vandals and Ostrogoths had perished in the middle of the century in the battle against the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian and the Franks had conquered the Burgundy Empire .

Late period

Campaigns of the Franks in Aquitaine in the years 507–509

Clovis's victory over the Visigoth rex Alaric II of Tolosa ( Toulouse ) in the Battle of Vouillé (507) brought most of Gaul under his rule. His further advance to the Mediterranean, however, was foiled in 508 by the Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great . As a result, today's Provence remained Gothic until the 530s, and Septimania , a coastal strip in southwest France around Narbonne , remained under Gothic rule for even longer. In 509, Clovis conquered the Rhine-Franconian Empire and thus united the largest individual groups of the Franks, which had previously been separate.

Clovis' conquests up to the year 511 (also shown are the Sal Franconian areas in the year 481 and the province of Belgica II)

Clovis attached great importance to the recognition of his position by the Eastern Roman Emperor, who was still considered the nominal overlord of the West. It was granted to him by Emperor Anastasius in 508 , according to Gregor ( Historien 2,38) by being appointed " Consul "; but there is much to suggest that the Francon was in truth elevated to patricius . If this is the case, the Merovingian was placed on an equal footing with the Ostrogothic kings and was given the powers of an imperial deputy. Clovis and his successors consciously took over central elements of the late Roman administration - in the 6th century there was still the Roman office of magister officiorum at the Merovingian court - and representation of power, making use of the old Gallo-Roman elites . They continued to act as representatives of the emperor for a long time to the Romanized population, especially to the aristocrats in southern Gaul, which was conquered in 507. In the more recent research ( Patrick J. Geary , Guy Halsall, etc.) it is even suspected that there was a real fighting alliance between Clovis and Anastasius in 506/7: The Franconian might only have converted to the Roman faith in this connection and in any case had Eastern Roman beliefs Received support in the attack on the Arian Visigoths by an imperial fleet attacking Ostrogoth Italy and thus prevented Theodoric from providing effective support for Alaric II . The sources make it impossible to further substantiate this hypothesis, but that the relations between the Merovingians and Ostrom were very good can hardly be denied. It was only around 540, thirty years after Clovis's death, that people stopped putting the image of the emperor on gold coins, and around 580 the Eastern Roman historian Agathias described the Franks very positively: they would basically only become known through their language and some Distinguish peculiarities of their costume from the Romans ( Historien 1,2,4).

Death and succession

The division of the Frankish Empire after Clovis's death

Clovis died in 511 and was buried in the sacrarium of the Apostle Church in Paris, later the Church of Sainte-Geneviève . After his death, his four sons divided rulership among themselves, as he had decreed, without establishing formally independent empires. They were Theuderich , the son of his first wife, a noble Franconian, and Chlodomer , Childebert and Chlothar , the three sons of Chrodechild. They founded four of their own royal courts in Metz / Reims , Orléans , Paris and Soissons . Recent research ( Patrick J. Geary et al.) Has emphasized that this administrative division of rule over several courts within a formally still undivided empire did not, as one still often reads, tie in with Germanic-Franconian, but rather with late antique Roman models : Since Constantine the Great , emperors who had more than one son proceeded analogously, while the existence of corresponding Germanic traditions is not reliably proven.

reception

Depiction of the baptism of Clovis in a French book illumination; a dove brings the sacred ampoule ( Grandes Chroniques de France , created 1375–1379; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Français 2813, fol 12v).

In the late Middle Ages , Clovis was venerated as a saint ( Saint Clovis ) in some French churches , although an official canonization never took place. At the same time, his military successes were praised and sometimes imaginatively decorated. French historians stressed that he fought for the Christian faith; therefore he achieved his victories with God's help. In the 14th and 15th centuries, French historiography portrayed him as an ideal king and exemplary Christian. He was described as honest, kind and chaste and compared to Charlemagne, who was a second Clovis. The legend that he was the first European king to receive the ruler's anointing was widespread ; the ampoule with the holy anointing oil had been sent down from heaven. Apparently his shield already bore the lilies of the later (Capetian) royal coat of arms. The French kings have climbed a peak of Clodwig worship since the 14th century, when they gave themselves the honorary title “ Most Christian King ” with historical-genealogical reference to Clodwig and his conversion to Catholicism .

Since the Middle Ages, Clovis has been widely regarded in France as an early French king and even as the founder of the French nation. He is traditionally referred to as the first French king of the première race ('first sex'), i.e. the Merovingians. The Carolingians are the second French royal family and the third are the Capetians . What is deliberately overlooked is that France and Germany came into being much later through the separation into the West and East Franconian Empire, that Clovis's mother was of Thuringian descent, an uncle resided in Cologne and he himself spoke a Germanic dialect with West Franconian and probably Latin as well.

In Germany in the first half of the 20th century there was an analogous tendency to make Clovis a German ruler on Gallic soil, which happened in the context of the equation of 'Germanic' with 'German' that was widespread in the 19th century. In 1933, for example, the prominent medievalist Bruno Krusch published a work entitled The first German coronation of the emperors in Tours Christmas 508 , with which he referred to the appointment of Clovis as Roman honorary consul or patricius , which was to be interpreted as conferring a quasi-imperial rank there Gregory of Tours (in the opinion of most contemporary researchers, however, erroneously) claims that the Franconian had allowed himself to be called Augustus since then .

A memorial plaque for Clovis was placed in the Walhalla near Regensburg . The composer Antonio Caldara dedicated the opera La Conversione di Clodoveo, Rè di Francia to Clovis's conversion to Christianity .

swell

Collection:

literature

Overview representations

Biographies

Lexicon articles and biographical sketches

Special literature

  • William M. Daly: Clovis: How Barbaric, How Pagan? In: Speculum 69 (1994) 619-664.
  • Guy Halsall: Childeric's grave, Clovis' succession, and the origins of the Merovingian kingdom. In: Ralph W. Mathisen, Danuta Shanzer (Ed.): Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul. Revisiting the Sources. Ashgate, Aldershot 2001, ISBN 0-7546-0624-4 , pp. 116-133.
  • Ralph Whitney Mathisen: Clovis, Anastasius, and Political Status in 508 CE The Frankish Aftermath of the Battle of Vouillé. In: Ralph Whitney Mathisen (ed.): The Battle of Vouille, 507 CE. Where France began (= Millennium Studies on Culture and History of the First Millennium AD , Vol. 37). De Gruyter, Boston and Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-1-61451-127-4 , pp. 79–110.
  • Wolfram von den Steinen : Clovis' transition to Christianity. A source-critical study In: Communications of the Austrian Institute for Historical Research - Supplementary Volumes 12, 1932, pp. 417–501. Separate print: third unchanged edition, Darmstadt 1969.

Web links

Commons : Clovis I.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ The German name Ludwig and the French Louis are synonymous ; see. the entries * Hlōdowig , Louis and Ludwig in the English Wiktionary.
  2. ↑ So the characterization by Bernhard Jussen : Clovis and the peculiarities of Gaul. A warlord at the right moment. In: Mischa Meier (Ed.): They created Europe. Historical portraits from Constantine to Charlemagne. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-55500-8 , pp. 141-155.
  3. ↑ Werner Hechberger offers a brief overview of research: Adel in the Franconian-German Middle Ages , Ostfildern 2005, p. 115f. See also Heike Grahn-Hoek: The Franconian upper class in the 6th century , Sigmaringen 1976, pp. 141f.
  4. ↑ Friedrich Prinz : Foundations of German History (4th – 8th centuries) . Gebhardt: Handbook of German History . Volume 1, tenth edition, Stuttgart 2001, p. 296; Allain Dierkens: The Baptism of Clovis . In: The Franks - Pioneers in Europe. 1500 years ago: King Clovis and his heirs . Mainz 1996, p. 188. Reinhold Kaiser gives a brief overview of the research : Das Römische Erbe und das Merowingerreich . Munich 2004, p. 89f.
  5. ↑ Cf. Matthias Becher: Chlodwig I. , Munich 2011, p. 236f.
  6. ↑ On the medieval reception of Clovis see Colette Beaune: The Birth of an Ideology , Berkeley 1991, pp. 70–89; Carlrichard Brühl: Germany - France. The birth of two peoples. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1990, ISBN 978-3-412-08295-6 , p. 58.
  7. ^ Carlrichard Brühl: Germany - France. The birth of two peoples , Cologne 1990, p. 18.
  8. ↑ See also Carlrichard Brühl: Germany - France. The birth of two peoples , Cologne 1990, p. 20.
  9. ^ Andreas Thiel: Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum genuinae et quae ad eos scriptae sunt a S. Hilaro usque ad Pelagium II. Part 1. Braunsberg 1868 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Depistolaeromano00unkngoog~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D ).
predecessor Office successor
Childerich I. King in Franconia
482–511 		Division of the kingdom
Childebert I (Paris)
Chlodomer (Orléans)
Chlothar I (Soissons)
Chloderich King of the Rhine Franks (later of Austrasia )
509–511 		Theuderich I.
personal data
SURNAME Clovis I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chlodowech (French); Clovis (English)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Member of the Merovingian dynasty; made Paris the capital of the Frankish Empire
DATE OF BIRTH 466
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 511
Place of death near Paris