Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/157

 THE WEST: FROM CLOVIS TO CHARLEMAGNE 145 Clovis should be called Chlodwig, the name which was after- wards modified into the German Ludwig and the French Louis. In the same way, we have adopted the name of Charlemagne, bestowed in the early French romances on the Emperor Karl or Charles the Great, Carolus Magnus ; and the families of the Merwings and Karlings have become the Merovingians and Carolingians. Towards the end of the fifth century the Visigoths were in possession in South-western Gaul and the Burgundians in the south-east. The Franks had spread over Northern Gaul, while they still held their territories on both banks of the Rhine. Clovis, the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, made friends with the papacy, and brought under his sway the Arian Goths and Burgundians. Perhaps it would be more The correct to say that the Goths migrated to join Merovingians, their brethren in Spain. Clovis was the only great man of his line. Nevertheless, for two and a half centuries the Franks continued to acknowledge the Merovingian kings. Sometimes the dominion was divided among brothers; but as a general rule, when there were brothers, there was one who succeeded in getting rid of the rest. The records of the Merovingian kings are mainly a chronicle of particularly ugly crimes; notably, those due to the rivalry of the two famous and wicked queens, Fredegonde and Brunhilde. But in the second century after Clovis, that is in between 600 and 700 a.d., the kings ceased to be persons of importance; the rulership passed into the hands of a great noble with the title of Major Domus, Mayor of the Palace, who was the nominee sometimes of the nobles in general, sometimes of the king. We must remark that the main Frankish dominion fell into two divisions : the eastern comprising what may be called the Rhine provinces, known as Austrasia, and the Austrasia western known as Neustria, a name of obscure and Neustria. origin. The Neustrian Franks became Latinised ; the Aus- trasians remained almost entirely German, the more so because they were in constant contact with the entirely German tribes beyond the Rhine. There was a strong rivalry especially during the seventh century between Austrasia and Neustria