Powerpoint and activities covering the legacy and importance of Clovis 1st

1. Who was Clovis I ?
Aixa B. Rodriguez
ESL teacher
Global Studies/World History w/ Embedded vocabulary, art and activities
François-Louis Dejuinne (1786-1844) - Clovis roi des Francs (465-511)

2. Who was Clovis I?
• Clovis was the first king of the Franks.
• United all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler,
• Changed the form of leadership from a group of royal
chieftains to rule by a single king .
• Ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs.
This is called hereditary monarchy.
• Founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled for
the next two centuries. chief·tain ˈCHēftən/ noun
the leader of a people or clan.
Mer·o·vin·gi·an ˌmerəˈvinjēən/ Adjective
of or relating to the Frankish dynasty founded
by Clovis and reigning in Gaul and
Germany circa 500–750.
A hereditary monarchy is a type of government where
a monarch(usually a king or queen) becomes
the monarch because he or she is related to the last monarch.

3. What do we know about Clovis I?
• son of Childeric I, king of the Salian Franks,
and Basina, Queen of Thuringia,
• Succeeded his father in 481, at the age of
fifteen.
• Conquered the remaining Western Roman
Empire at the Battle of Soissons (486),
• by his death in 511 he had conquered parts of
what had formerly been Roman Gaul.
• "the first king of what would become France".
• conversion to Christianity in 496, led to
widespread conversion ,religious unification,
the birth of the early Holy Roman Empire.

4. How did Clovis come to power?
• Numerous small Frankish kingdoms existed during the 5th century.
• The Salian Franks occupied the area in what is now the Netherlands
and Belgium.
• Childeric I, became king in 457 upon the death of Merovech, ruling
over lands he had received as a foederatus of the Romans.
• In 463 he fought in conjunction with Aegidius defeated
the Visigoths in Orléans.
• Childeric died; Clovis succeeded him as king.
Merovech- father
of Childeric I,
grandfather of
Clovis I
Childeric I-
father of
Clovis
Clovis I
grandson of
Merovech
Aegidius-
magister
militum of
northern
Gaul
Foederatus (/ˌfɛdəˈreɪtəs/ in
English; pl. foederati
/ˌfɛdəˈreɪtaɪ/) was any one of
several outlying nations to
which ancient Rome provided
benefits in exchange for
military assistance.

5. How did Clovis consolidate the Franks?
• secured an alliance with the Ostrogoths through the
marriage of his sister Audofleda to their
king, Theodoric the Great.
• With other Frankish sub-kings, he defeated
the Alamanni in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496.
• gradually eliminated the other kings who had
previously been his allies,
• turned against the Roman commanders,
• had the Frankish king Chararic imprisoned and
executed,
• killed Ragnachar, the Frankish king of Cambrai,
along with his brothers.
• conquered all the Frankish kingdoms to the west
of the River Maas, except for the Ripuarian Franks.

6. How did Clovis consolidate the Franks?
• Clovis continued his war with the
Visigoths with support of his people and
the church,
• Defeating them at the Battle of Vouille in 507 CE killed their king,
Alaric II.
• The Ostrogothic king of Italy, Theodoric, Alaric's ally, was
prevented from helping Alaric by the Byzantine emperor Anatasius
to whom Theodoric owed his allegiance , and was married to
Clovis’s sister, but had sent a daughter in marriage to Alaric II.
• With his realm secure, Clovis elected to
rule his united empire from Paris.
• Theodoric would prevent Clovis’s attempts
to expand his domain and secured the
former Visigothic lands for himself.
Alaric II

7. TIME LINE OF THE LIFE OF CLOVIS I Activity
What information can you infer from the dates given on the slide? When did Clovis take over for his
father? How old was he? Using this date, can you figure out when he was born? When were particular
battles fought? When did he convert to Catholicism? When did he unite the Franks? What information can
you find about his father and sons to add to the timeline? Include dates and explanations.

8. Conquests of Clovis
between 481 and 511
Turn and Talk: Which groups
are represented on this map?
Which countries do you
recognize by shape? Which
cities can you find?
Activity: Working with a
partner, create a “legend” for
this map using colored pencils.

9. How did Clovis eventually convert?
• Clovis was at a disadvantage in his fight against the
Alamans and sought the aid of the God of his Christian
wife Clotilde, a Burgundian princess who was a Catholic
in spite of the Arianism that surrounded her at court,
promising that if he were given victory he would become
a Christian.
• In 506 he wins at Battle of Tolbiac, then adopted Christianity
• This won the support of the Gallo-Roman bishops who
controlled wealth of Gaul and were influential with the
population.
• conversion made Clovis's wars into holy wars against heretics
and nonbelievers.
Clovis and his wife were buried in the Saint-Denis
Département de Seine-Saint-Denis
Île-de-France, France

10. Battle of Tolbiac
Clovis I leading the
Franks to victory in
the Battle of Tolbiac,
in Ary Scheffer's 19th-
century painting

11. Battle of Tolbiac. Fresco
at the Panthéon (Paris)
by Joseph Blanc, circa
1881.
Annotate the image for objects, action, symbols
and story telling elements.
What does this painting depict?
Compare this image to the other painting of the
Battle of Tolbiac. What is the same? What is
different?

12. The Baptism of Clovis by Saint Remigius
• converted to Christianity
• was baptized on Christmas
Day, 496,
• a statue of him being baptized
by Saint Remigius can still be
seen there.
• Event important as he is seen
as the last of the pagan kings

13. The Baptism of Clovis by Saint Remigius

14. What is the difference between Arian Christianity and
Chalcedonian Christianity?
• The terms Trinitarian, Nicean and Chalcedonian are used to describe the type of
Christianity that believes that God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three
persons of one being (consubstantiality).
• Arian Christianity, whose followers believed that Jesus, as a distinct and separate
being, was both subordinate to and created by God.
• theology of the Arians was declared a heresy at the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD,
• the missionary work of the bishop Ulfilas converted the pagan Goths to Arian Christianity in the 4th
century.
• By the time of the ascension of Clovis, Gothic Arians dominated Christian Gaul, and Catholics were
the minority. The king's Catholic baptism was of immense importance in the subsequent history of
Western and Central Europe in general, for Clovis expanded his dominion over almost all of Gaul.
Consubstantiality [kon-suh b-stan-shuh l]
adjective 1.of one and the same substance, essence, or nature.

15. What were the Advantages to Catholicism?
•Catholicism did offer certain advantages
• set him apart from the other Germanic kings of his time,
• gained him the support of the Catholic Gallo-Roman
aristocracy against the Visigoths,
•Politically shrewd move?
•Legendary conversion moment – looking up to
the sky and promising to become Christian if he
won.

16. Tomb of Clovis I
Tomb of Clovis I
at the Basilica of
St Denis in Saint
Denis

17. How did Clovis’ death impact the development of
European states and identity?
• RELIGION/SOCIAL ORDER- Clovis called a synod of Gallic bishops to
meet in Orléans to reform the Church
• create a strong link between the Crown and the Catholic episcopate at the First
Council of Orleans.
• Thirty-three bishops assisted and passed 31 decrees on the duties and obligations of individuals, the
right of sanctuary, and ecclesiastical discipline. These decrees, equally applicable to Franks and
Romans, first established equality between conquerors and conquered.
• COUNTRY BOUNDARIES- When Clovis died, his kingdom was
partitioned among his four sons, Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert,
and Clotaire.
• created the new political units of the Kingdoms of Rheims, Orléans, Paris
and Soissons, and was repeated in subsequent partitions.
• These political, linguistic, and cultural entities became the Kingdom of France, the
myriad German States, and the semi-autonomous kingdoms
of Burgundy and Lotharingia.

18. Frankish territories at the
time of Clovis' death
After his death, his sons
divided the kingdom among
themselves.
This led to the different
sections and cultures and
identities, and also disunity.

19. What is the Legacy of Clovis I ?
• Clovis’s kingdom included Roman Gaul and parts of western Germany
influencing country borders
• The French consider him the founder of France.
• History would Latinize his name to Louis; and remain popular in French
culture to the present.
• Kingdom that was a blend Roman and Germanic cultures: language, worship,
and law.
• His conversion to Christianity made him
• the ally of the papacy and its protector

20. How did Roman Law survive under Clovis?
•Under Clovis, the first codification of the Salian
Frank law took place.
• The Roman Law was written with the assistance of
Gallo-Romans to reflect the Salic legal tradition and
Christianity, while containing much from Roman
tradition.
• The Roman Law lists various crimes as well as the
fines associated with them.

21. How can I learn more?
• Further Reading
• The most important source for the life of Clovis and the character of Merovingian Gaul is the History of the Franks by
Gregory of Tours, written between 575 and 585 and available in several English translations. The best modern descriptions
of the life and times of Clovis are The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3 (1913), and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-
Haired Kings (1962). □
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Bishop, M, The Middle Ages - The American Heritage Library (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985).
• Boak, A.E.R, History of Rome to 565 A.D. (Collier Macmillan Ltd, 1965).
• Collins, R, Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
• Deanesly, M, A History of Early Medieval Europe From 476 to 911 (Methuen, 1963).
• Gibbon, E, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Everyman's Library, 1994).
• Gregory of Tours, A History of the Franks (Penguin Classics, 1976).
• James, E, Europe's Barbarians AD 200-600 (Routledge, 2009).
• James, E, The Franks (Blackwell Publishers, 1988).
• John Currier, "Article," Military History 22.7: 10-14.

22. References
• Clovis I. (2016, March 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 15:53, April 15, 2016,
from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clovis_I&oldid=
711050061
• "Clovis I." Encyclopedia of World Biography.
2004. Encyclopedia.com. 15 Apr.
2016<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
• Donald L. Wasson. “Clovis I,” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last
modified November 10, 2014. http://www.ancient.eu /Clovis_I/.