Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/137

 CHAPTER IV

GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN FRANKS

NARRATIVE OF EVENTS

At the accession of Clovis, who succeeded his father Childeric about the year 481, the Salian Franks had advanced as far as the Somme. Between the Somme and the Loire the suzerainty of the Roman Empire was still maintained. The various Gallo-Roman cities preserved a certain independence, while a Roman official, by name Syagrius, exercised a kind of protection over them. Syagrius was the son of Aegidius, the former magister militum, and he held the command by hereditary right. After the fall of the Roman Empire of the West in 476, he maintained an independent position, having no longer any official superior. Failing any regular title, Gregory of Tours designates him Rex Romanorum, and the former Roman official takes on the character of a barbarian king, free from all ties of authority. The seat of his administration was the town of Soissons.

To the south of the Loire began the kingdom of the Visigoths, which reached beyond the Pyrenees and across Spain to the Strait of Gibraltar. The country south of the Durance, that is to say Provence, also formed part of this kingdom. After having long been allies of the Roman Empire the Visigoths had broken the treaties which bound them to Rome; moreover since 476 there was no emperor in Italy, and they occupied these vast territories by right of conquest. Euric, who had been king since 466, had extended his dominions on every side and was quite independent.

In the valley of the Saône and the Rhone, as far as the Durance, the Burgundians had been enlarging their borders. Starting from Savoy, to which Aëtius had confined them, they had extended their possessions little by little, until these now included the town of Langres. In 481 the kingship of Burgundy was shared by two brothers, of whom the elder, Gundobad, had his seat at Vienne, the younger, Godigisel, at Geneva. A third brother, Chilperic, who had reigned at Lyons, had just died. The rumour ran that he had met a violent death, his brothers having had him assassinated in order to seize upon his inheritance.

The Visigoths and Burgundians endeavoured to live at peace with