Week 4 Essay

          This week I learned about many different places in Europe. Justinian and Byzantium and its decline and fall, King Arthur and England, and Clovis and the Franks. In this essay, I will be writing about what I liked learning about the most, Clovis and the Franks.

          Toward the end of Byzantium, or the Eastern Roman Empire, there were many tribes in Gaul, or modern day France called the Franks. Clovis rose up and became the King of one of these tribes, the Salian Franks.

          After reuniting Gaul a little bit, he attacked the Roman governor of Gaul and his small military and pushed Rome out of France. He also married Clotilda, the niece of the King of Burgundy, which helped and further strengthened the kingdom. As you can see so far, Clovis was a very brave and powerful ruler.

          Clotilda was Christian and tried to convert Clovis to her religion, but he wouldn’t until 496 AD, when he was losing a war. He prayed to God asking for victory, and afterwards, won. He was then converted and was baptized in the early Catholic Church.

          It was very important and unusual for him to turn to Christianity, because the Arab religion was the dominant religion at that time. Because it was their king that turned, Christianity became one of the most practiced religions in Gaul. Gaul was changed to France after the Franks too.

          Clovis died in 511 AD, but unlike many other civilizations, France stayed and did not start to decline a little in a long time. After he died, Burgundy finally became a part of the kingdom, leaving Clovis as the first king to unite all of France under one ruler.