Franks

By the late fifth century, there were two primary barbarian powers in Gaul, the Visigoths and the Franks. Both were enlarging their territories in the wake of the final precipitous decline of Roman authority during the 470s. The expansion achieved by the Frankish king Clovis I inevitably brought him into conflict with the Visigothic king Alaric II. During the 490s, the Franks made several unsuccessful forays into Brittany and south of the Loire. Subsequently, both sides did their best to consolidate their resources. Attempts by the Os trogothic king Theoderic to avoid direct conflict failed, and war began in earnest in 507, when Clovis made a massive attack on the Visigothic kingdom. The decisive Frankish vic tory at Vouillé determined the map of sixth-century western Europe: the Franks gained control of most of Gaul, and the Visigoths consolidated their holdings in Spain.

The Catalaunian Fields is a battle well known for the role of terrain in the battle, with Jordanes' description of the engagement focusing almost in its entirety on the hill. With the location of the battlefield now known and new research having recently come to light, the role of terrain on the battle can now be accurately assessed and used as an example to show the importance of terrain in battles as a whole. Ancient Warfare 13.2, October 2019.

This three-part analysis of modernity assesses the impact that Western thought and philosophy has had on today's world. Making use of neglected research from the fringes of academia, "Anatomyzing Divinity" traces the circuitous path of occult wisdom from China, India, Egypt and the Hellenistic world to Byzantium and beyond. At the heart of the book is an investigation of the life and thought of G. W. Leibniz, the man who invented calculus and laid the groundwork for binary code, which in turn made computers possible. Leibniz's roots, Kelley shows, lay in the Frankish metaphysical tradition, and thus have little in common with some of his contemporaries' materialism. Along the way, sidelights are turned on 1) the occult basis of Western political systems, as well as 2) the alchemical basis of much Western philosophy and theology.

The Chronology of the life of Clovis and his father Childeric has been an ongoing problem for over a hundred years. In this paper I endeavour to solve some of the problems inherent in a chronology that has been distorted by two separate strands of dating mechanisms within Gregory of Tours' History in Ten Books. The first where Clovis' reign ends in 511 and the second where an effort was made to extend his life and reign to 518. I will propose that seven years were added to Clovis' life and reign by an interpolator to create this 518 extension. This will then show that Clovis was a minor when Childeric, his father died and so Clovis was unable to become king until he became fifteen years of age in 488CE. I will also examine the letters of the bishops Remigius and Avitus and suggest their correct dating and find confirmation that Clovis was baptised as a Catholic in December 496 by revealing who Avitus' Princeps was that had eluded Danuta Shanzer in her 1998 paper-Dating the Baptism of Clovis. Using contemporary and near contemporary evidence and archaeology I will construct a chronology of events that is not far removed from that currently accepted aside from the start of his reign, the length of his reign, his age at death and the chronology of some early events. I will also suggest that Clovis may have become a Christian on marriage to Clotilda, but not choosing which form until baptism, or that his mother was already Arian Christian, explaining his knowledge of Christian ideals and tenets from an early age. Regarding Childeric, I will suggest that his father was Chlodion; the dates that he occupied Paris and the date and place of his battle against the Alamanni. I will also suggest that the last of the Gallo-Romans under Syagrius came to power when the western Gauls revolted; the eastern empire having refused their petitions to rule the west in favour of the barbarian Odoacer; and that they remained in power with Visigothic aid until their defeat by Clovis. An effort will also be made to explain the term Merovingian and how it came about due to the Frankish elite of the sixth and seventh centuries having famous ancestors. In doing so the origin of the mythical sea monster tale regarding the birth of Merovech can be revealed.

Mercenary soldiers were widespread in medieval Europe and the Near East during the Middle Ages. Probably the most famous example of them remains the Varangian Guard, an elite imperial unit that Byzantine Emperor Basil II (976-1025 CE) formed at the end of the 10th century . The “Varangians” was the name given by the Greeks, Rus' people, and others to Vikings, who famously raided many parts of Europe between the 9th and 11th centuries.. According to “Matiane Kartlisa”, the Georgian medieval chronicle, some three thousand Varangian soldiers had been involved in the conflict between the Georgian king Bagrat IV and Liparit IV Baghwashi, the powerful feudal lord of Kldekari (southwest Georgia), in 1042. This account contains many interesting insights into  medieval Georgia as well as the  Viking exploration. Historians continued to debate the ethnicity of these Varangian mercenaries and whether they were a raiding party or a mercenary group employed by either Bagrat IV or Liparit. The size of the Varangian contingent also remains a subject of debate since the medieval chronicle’s claim of 3,000 warriors is clearly dubious and requires more critical analysis.
The present article scrutinizes available historical sources and studies by Georgian and foreign historians about the Varangians in Georgia. It seeks to challenge and dispel some of the persisting myths, including the long-standing claim that Swedish Viking Ingvar the Far-Travelled had been in the Georgian king’s employ. Evidence of use of Frankish mercenaries by King Bagrat IV of Georgia in the 1060s shows that the use of mercenary companies was a common practice in medieval Georgia. Therefore the presence of the Varangians was not unusual.

The Liber historiae Francorum was influenced by different historiographical traditions. In this paper, I pursue two arguments. Firstly, I believe that the author of the Liber historiae Francorum juxtaposes and slightly transforms these traditions for his or her own purpose, which results in creating a new Frankish self-conception in which the Franks have utterly emancipated themselves from the Romans. This in particular can be observed in two previously somewhat neglected examples: the author’s use of the legend of Troy and his or her use of the Bible. Secondly, by doing so, the text responds to other texts within a network and therefore represents a competing model of a Frankish identity.

An Undergraduate thesis (2017) for the degree of Ancient and Modern History at the University of Oxford on Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum, and the perspectives on relations between Lombards, Franks and Avars within it. It explores the contextual events surrounding the interactions between the three people and seeks to understand how Paul's portrayal of each faction may lead to a better understanding of his agenda and aim when writing this work.

La captivité de guerre, bien qu'apparaissant de manière incidente dans de nombreux travaux, n'a jamais fait l'objet d'une recherche en tant qu'objet historique autonome. L'Antiquité tardive offre pour cela un cadre particulièrement fécond, puisqu'elle permet d'observer comment le cadre juridique et conceptuel de la captivité a évolué dans le contexte géopolitique nouveau qui suit l'arrivée des Goths à l'intérieur des frontières de l'Empire et la défaite d'Andrinople en 378. Elle permet aussi l'étude comparative des pratiques barbares et romaines. Sont d'abord envisagés les aspects juridiques, en particulier le postliminium et la notion d'ennemi à partir desquels il est possible de définir la captivité. La captivité présente l'originalité de relever à la fois du ius gentium (par la seruitus hostium) et du ius ciuile par le postliminium et la lex Corneliae qui organise la succession du romain mort en captivité. La condition du captif racheté dans le cadre de la constitutio de redemptis est aussi envisagée. L'étude s'attache ensuite à proposer des typologies de la captivité (circonstances de la capture, victimes, méthodes de coercition) pour aboutir à la conclusion que la captivité touche avant tout les civils dans le cadre de la guerre de prédation. La libération et la fuite posent la question de l'affranchissement et du statut du captif dans la société qui l'a capturé. Le rachat des captifs par les chrétiens se développe au confluent d'une théologie de la Rédemption et de réseaux ecclésiastiques liés à Lérins, Milan ou Carthage. Le travail s'achève sur la question de la mort en captivité.

Nowadays the passages relating to the origins of the Merovingian dynasty interpolated by Pseudo-Fredegar into his version of Gregory of Tours’s Historia Francorum are mostly considered worthless fables. Nevertheless, they are truly interesting, particularly those concerning the legend that links Merovech’s birth to a mysterious bistea Neptuni quinotauri similis, and the puzzling story of Basina, Childerich’s Thuringian wife. The present essay aims at providing a new interpretation of these passages, appreciating them at their true value: as fragments of ancient legendary history, a mosaic, as it were, composed by actual historical records, old myths, and forgotten literature.

Paper details the descent of King Charlemagne from Lucius Calpurnius Piso, whose daughter had married Julius Caesar. This is one of many of my papers that together prove that Western kings & emperors knew their own royal ancestry going back for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Heraclius and Ishōʿyahb II: An Eastern Episode in the ‘Ecumenical’ Project of the Byzantine Emperor

The Age of the Caliphate

The Epistle on the Unity by a Baghdadi Melkite in a Coptic Encyclopaedist’s Arabic Theological Summa

A West-Syrian Clerk from Arfād and the Metropolitan of Jerusalem of the Church of the East: The Book of the Concordance in Faith and Its Recension in Garshūnī

A Nestorian Philosopher in the Copto-Arabic Literature: Ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib Retold by Ibn al-ʿAssāl

Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. “The Most Honorable, the Only One, Knowledgeable, Respectable, Wise Man, Philosopher, and Physician”

A Chronicle or A Historical Romance? The Reign of Zeno and the Events in the East According to The Blessed Compendium of al-Makīn ibn al-ʿAmīd

Interpretations of the Origins of the Designation “Jacobites” by Medieval Egyptian Arabic Authors

Christian Communities in the East as Witnessed to by Leonhart Rauwolf

Ibn Ḥazm on the Incarnation of God and Confessional Divisions in Christianity

Franks to Nubians: Arabic Treatise on Peculiarities of Different Christian Denominations by a Coptic Author (Mingana Chr. Arab. 71)

Bibliography

Index of Personal Names


Summary

By the time of the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, Eastern Christianity had experienced numerous divisions caused by ideological and political confrontations. Controversies over the union of the divinity and the humanity of Christ, perceived as an essential point of Christian doctrine, as well as the Byzantine imperial policy, aiming at strengthening Byzantium’s influence in Syria, Arabia, the Caucasus, and Egypt, had resulted in the separation of the ethno-religious communities of these provinces from Byzantium. The controversies remained unsettled, and the divisions, created by them, continued. To a Muslim observer, Eastern Christianity looked as a hodgepodge of various denominations among which the following three were the most influential: the Syro-Persian Christianity, the Graeco-Roman Orthodoxy, and the anti-Chalcedonian faction, insisting on “one nature” of Christ. Interactions between various communities of Eastern Christianity are witnessed by many sources. The relationships among them were further strengthened in the wake of the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, when the widespread use of Arabic and frequent migrations contributed to the intensification of contacts. When the Franks arrived in the Middle East, they became a part of this extraordinarily diverse milieu and attracted the attention of Eastern Christian communities. The cultural heritage of Middle-Eastern Christianity was so influential in the rest of the Christian world that it frequently attracted the attention of scholars studying particular church traditions. The present book provides a series of interesting examples of how the relationships among various Christian communities developed in the context of Christian-Muslim contacts in the medieval Middle East.

This paper will give a comprehensive overview of how the political collapse of the Visigothic kingdom after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian and southern Gaulish world changed not only the socio-political and religious, but also the cultural agenda of south-western Europe between the eighth and eleventh centuries. After the Frankish-Carolingian "reconquest" of the north-eastern parts of the Visgothic world, i.e. Septimania and the so-called "Spanish March", a new socio-political constellation of powers between 'Gallia' and 'Hispania' and a new Church organisation, the 'ecclesia Narbonensis', became established. The talk will show how early medieval Catalonia's double-face orientation towards the old Hispano-Visigothic cultural traditions and the new Romano-Frankish knowledge transfer has decisively shaped the political, religious, and cultural physiognomy of this emerging middle ground. My paper will tell the story of a political and cultural interruption which finally led to the political and social disruption on both sides and the formation of a new hybrid society of religious, legal, and political institutions of its own.

During the conquest of Lisbon, D. Afonso Henriques received help from various groups of crusaders from northern Europe who were then awarded land in the Lisbon region. One of these groups consisted of Franks, led by D. Alardo. They were given a small territory on the west side of the foothills of the Montejunto Mountain Range, which came to be known as Vila Verde dos Francos.
Ruins of a small castle dating from this period have survived, on an elevation overlooking the road from Aldeia Galega to Cadaval, allowing for a view over much of the old territory. Further down the hill there is a small village where the Frankish Crusaders settled with their families.
At the end of the 14th century the lordship of Vila Verde dos Francos no longer belonged to the descendants of D. Alardo but to Gonçalo Lourenço Gomide, the great-grandfather of D. Afonso de Albuquerque, viceroy of India. In the northern part of the old property, nextto the ruins of D. Afonso de Albuquerque’s palace (which subsequently belonged to the Marquis of Angeja), ten silos were found, and excavated in 2013. The latter were located very close to an old Gothic fountain with an ogival arch which would probably have supplied the ancient settlement and the major at’s palace.
Findings dated from the 13th to the 16th century were recovered during the excavation conducted on the grounds of Vila Verde dos Francos’ school, indicating that this site was used to store cereals for at least three centuries, and was then abandoned and filled with stones and some household rubbish.
The ceramics consisted mostly of plain wares and some glazed wares, predominantly pitchers, pots and lids, revealing a regional production.

In this short piece from 2015, I discussed the "national" identities used by the German court under Frederick Barbarossa (1152 - 1190). Of course, as the paper was a short one, I could not include many of the relevant pieces. I intend to come back to the topic in the form a more serious and detailed publication.

Quand fut frappée la pièce d'or destinée à payer au roi d'Angleterre la rançon du roi de France Jean II le Bon, capturé à l'issue de la bataille de Poitiers, le décret en portant création désigna cette pièce comme « franc à cheval ». Ayant traversé les aléas de l'histoire, le franc survécut jusqu'en 2002, date de son remplacement par l'euro. Cela faisait alors presque huit cents ans que le terme de « France » s'était définitivement imposé pour désigner ce qui était apparu dans l'histoire sous le nom générique de « Gaules ». Tous ces mots empruntaient leur nom à celui du peuple qui prit finalement le contrôle de ces Gaules à partir du V e siècle. Difficile à cerner, ce peuple s'imposa en attachant sa destinée à une dynastie, celle des Mérovingiens, dont les Carolingiens prétendirent prendre la succession légitime. C'est l'histoire des premiers qui suit. QU'EST-CE QU'UN MÉROVINGIEN ? Une lignée aux origines obscures L'incarnation d'un peuple Une certaine image de la France UNE SUCCESSION CHAOTIQUE Une dynastie décimée par les luttes intestines Le partage de 511 Le partage de 561

Original abstract:

This article traces the Frankish legacy in the early years of Frederick Barbarossa's reign, from his coronation to the diet of Roncaglia (1152-1158). I demonstrate that Frederick's ideological system was based on a fluctuating set of German, Frankish, and Roman identities, which constituted an imperial identity. By analysing Frederick's words and deeds as reported by his contemporaries and comparing them to the Cappenberg Head which he commissioned, I conclude that Frederick alternated between these various identities based on his political situation, and that new ideological developments during his reign, such as the introduction of the term sacrum imperium, stemmed directly from the political discernment of Frederick and his court.

14.06.2018.

This paper is now 2 years old, and I would now revise much of what I have written coming out of the MA. While I may not have been utterly wrong, the precision of my work back then is somewhat lacking. There are two points which I would change: 1) the Cappenberg head is not necessarily an imperial monument, and 2) the cult of Saint Charlemagne has to be approached much more carefully. As with my other publications: I intend to address the subject of this work in my PhD.

An early coin issue of Postumus, first Gallic emperor, serves as the the basis for a new hypothesis about the existence of a naval expedition carried out by this usurper at the beginning of his rule against the Frankish pirates who had been harassing Gaulish and British shores. To interpret this expedition, the coins, bearing the image of’ the God Neptunus and the legend NEPTUNO REDVCI in their reverse, are analysed along with the socio-political context, the strategic implications and its consequences for the historical development of the Gallic Empire and the Frankish Confederacy.

In this paper, we introduce the reader to the figure of Bishop Liutprand of Cremona, the 10th century historian and ambassador; in particular, we deal with his account of a diplomatic mission to Costantinople. When Liutprand met the Byzantine Emperor, he was defined as a Lombard and not a Roman, to which he replied he was proud of being so, since the Ancient Romans were a bunch of vicious and treacherous thieves. After analyzing the concept of Italy in the Early Middle Ages (when "Lombardy" was used as a synonimous of "Italy" and Italy was often identified with what are now its northern and central regions), we argue that "Italy" for Liutprand barely meant the geographical region where the Lombard ethnic group was located. We finally speculate that, had the Lombards conquered the whole Italian Peninsula, that "Italy" would have been considered a part of the German world, its national myth would not have included Rome, its capital would have been in Pavia (modern-day Lombardy).

This volume contains the edition and translation of the chapter of al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar dealing with Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Franks, and Goths. This chapter is, for the most part, an almost exact reproduction of Ibn Ḫaldūn’s Kitāb al-ʿIbar, from which al-Maqrīzī derived material from many other sources, including prominent Christian sources such as Kitāb Hurūšiyūš, Ibn al-ʿAmīd’s History, and works by Muslim historians like Ibn al-Aṯīr’s Kāmil. Therefore, this chapter of al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar is a continuation of the previous Arabic historiographical tradition, in which European history is integrated into world history through the combination of Christian and Islamic sources.

The author is concerned with the origin and development of Germanic kingship from the 1st century BC to the 6th century AD. The first mention of Germanic tribes, their social structure and habits is in Caesar's and particularly Tacitus' writings. Although their terminology is different, they described basically the same circumstances. Both of them clearly distinguished between elected war leader, the commander, and chosen judge, the chieftain or king, who descended from respected and noble family. In Tacitus' times the strong military leaders or autocratic kings were disliked by their fellow tribesmen and some of them, like Arminius, Maroboduus or Vannius, were deposed, expelled or even murdered. After two murky centuries, however, Ammianus Marcellinus witnessed high degree of hierarchization within Germanic tribal society and documented king's highest authority. Since that times king held military power of commander as well jurisdiction and sacral functions of chieftain. His office was hereditary and lifelong. Written sources occasionally reveal also some of personal, physical or mental qualities of particular chief. The most notable leaders or kings were described, for example, as young, tall and strong, handsome, bold, intelligent, wise men and especially as capable commanders. Militarily inept or cowardly kings were therefore removed or killed, usually after crushing defeat.

The Baptism at the Savica (in Slovene Krst pri Savici), the poem about the loss of the Slovenian independence, can be understood as Prešeren’s successful attempt to trick the censorship and to express, in a form of a historical narrative written as a metaphor, the very contents which had to be removed from his elegy Dem Andenken des Matthias Čop in
consequence of the censorship interference. With such an approach quite a few apparent contradictions mentioned in the interpretative history of The Baptism can be solved, , such as the problem of Prešeren’s own labelling of the poem in his letter to Čelakovsky, or the problem of Črtomir’s conversion at the end of the third part of the poem. In the 20th century more interpretations arose, explaining Črtomir’s conversion to Christianity as the unavoidable decision of the Slovene nation for their only prospective solution: the stronger western cultural
circle. This way they legitimize Črtomir’s renunciation of the freedom-loving Slovenian identity. This new understanding of the poem perceives two Črtomirs in The Baptism, the hero and the defeated one (the former is the one Prešeren himself would like to be, but it is only his poetic illusion, the latter is the Prešeren true self who the poet completely identifies with) and the final message of the poem as the judgement of the cultural non-equivalence.

Krst pri Savici, pesnitev o izgubi slovenske neodvisnosti, lahko razumemo tudi kot uspešen Prešernov poskus pretentati cenzuro in v obliki zgodovinske zgodbe kot metafore izraziti tisto vsebino, ki jo je zaradi cenzurnega posega moral izpustiti v svoji ele-giji Dem Andenken des Matthias Čop. S takim pristopom lahko razrešimo kar nekaj navide-znih protislovij, izpričanih v interpretativni zgodovini Krsta, npr. problem Prešernove lastne označitve pesnitve v pismu Čelakovskemu ali problem Črtomirove spreobrnitve na koncu tretjega dela pesnitve. V 20. stoletju se je pojavilo več interpretacij, ki razumejo Črtomirovo pokristjanjenje kot neizogibno odločitev Slovencev za močnejši, edino perspektivni zaho-dni kulturni krog, s čimer legitimizirajo Črtomirovo zatajitev svobodoljubnega slovenstva. Novo razumevanje vidi v Krstu pri Savici dva Črtomira, prvega kot junaka in drugega kot poraženca (prvi, kakršen bi sam rad bil, je zgolj Prešernova pesniška utvara, z drugim, kakr-šen sam je, pa se pesnik popolnoma poistoveti), končno sporočilo pesnitve pa kot obsodbo kulturne neenakovrednosti.

Le arti suntuarie dei secoli di passaggio fra l'Antichità e il pieno Medioe-vo sono rappresentate nella collezione Gualino da un piccolo, ma significativo gruppo di oreficerie personali e di complementi di vestiario in metallo prezioso, bronzo, gemme e paste vitree colorate, i cui orizzonti geografico e cronologico si estendono dal bacino del Mediterraneo all'Europa continentale, fra il IV e il VII secolo circa. Questi gioielli furono acquistati in blocco al momento della dispersione dalla prestigiosa collezione romana del conte Grigorij Stroganoff; per nessuno sono noti con sicurezza la provenienza o i precedenti passaggi, ma, seguendo una suddivisione tradizionale, è possibile classificarli come: oreficerie tardoromane e protobizantine (cat. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30); oreficerie romano-germaniche dell'area danubiana (cat. 26); oreficerie dell'Italia ostrogota (cat. 27, 28, 29) e longobarda (cat. 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37); oreficerie del regno franco (cat. 33, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44). Nonostante l'assenza di informazioni sui contesti, le ti-pologie e le datazioni indicano in maniera piuttosto palese nel mercato antiquario italiano e francese (alimentati da rinvenimenti locali, o da reperti provenienti dal Medioriente) i probabili canali che permisero al conte Stroganoff di riunire questi e altri manufatti "barbarici" (cfr. Moretti 2003); alla fine del XIX secolo, il loro commercio si alimentava soprattutto grazie alla scoperta di necropoli tardoantiche e altomedievali, nelle quali la pratica della "sepoltura vestita" dei defunti di rango aveva favorito la concentrazione di preziosi oggetti personali, maschili e femminili (Picard 1992; La Rocca 1997; Effros 2003). L'archeologia tardo ottocentesca, specialmente di matrice tedesca, credeva di poter individuare uno stretto legame fra etnicità e foggia dell'abbigliamento: dif-ferenti complementi di vestiario rinvenuti nei sepolcreti-come fibule, fibbie o guarnizioni di cintura-avrebbero permesso di assegnare gli inumati a una delle popolazioni "barbariche" immigrate nei territori già romani menzionate nelle fon-ti, oppure a gruppi autoctoni di cultura romano-mediterranea (Albertoni 2005; von Rummel 2007, pp. 18-64); inizia in questi decenni il vasto lavoro di classi-ficazione dei materiali del primo Medioevo rinvenuti negli scavi, accompagnato dalle pionieristiche indagini sulle tecniche orafe da parte dello storico dell'arte au-striaco Alois Riegl, e dall'individuazione dei cosiddetti "stili animalistici" ad opera dell'archeologo svedese Bernhard Salin (Roth 1979, pp. 64-78; Elsner 2002). A partire dalla metà del Novecento, l'idea di una "moda etnica" lascia progressiva-mente il posto a un'interpretazione diversa, quella di una "moda aristocratica" diffusa in maniera trasversale fra le élite tardoromane e "barbariche", nei regni successori dell'impero d'Occidente (Kazanski, Mastykova 2003; von Rummel 2007); inoltre, le ricerche degli ultimi decenni hanno messo in luce come i con-fini fra gruppi umani-appunto Bizantini, Goti, Longobardi, Franchi, e così I regni romano-germanici e la prima età di Bisanzio