Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/389

 The German Invasions 327 Clovis next enlarged his empire on the east by the conquest of the Alemanni, a German people living in the region of the Black Forest. The battle in which the Alemanni were defeated (496) is in Conversion one respect important above all the other battles of Clovis. ° 0^15,49 Although still a pagan himself, his wife had been converted to Christianity. In the midst of the battle, seeing his troops giving way, he called upon Jesus Christ and pledged himself to be baptized in his name if he would help the Franks to victory over their enemies. When he won the battle he kept his word and was baptized, together with three thousand of his warriors. It is from Bishop Gregory of Tours, mentioned above, that most of our knowledge of Clovis and his successors is derived. In Gregory's famous History of the Fi'aiiks the cruel and unscrupu- lous Clovis appears as God's chosen instrument for the support of the Christian faith.^ Certainly Clovis quickly learned to com- bine his own interests with those of the Church, and, later, an alliance between the Pope and the Frankish kings was destined to have a great influence upon the history of western Europe. To the south of Clovis's new possessions in Gaul lay the Conquests of kingdom of the West Goths ; to the southeast that of another German people, the Burgundians. Clovis speedily extended his power to the Pyrenees, and forced the West Goths to confine themselves to the Spanish portion of their realm, while the Bur- gundians soon fell completely under the rule of the Franks. Then Clovis, by a series of murders, brought portions of the Frankish nation itself, which had previously been independent of him, under his scepter. When Clovis died in 511 at Paris, which he had made his Bloody residence, his four sons divided his possessions among them, of Frankish Wars between rival brothers, interspersed with the most horrible murders, fill the annals of the Frankish kingdom for over a hun- dred years after the death of Clovis. Yet the nation continued to develop in spite of the unscrupulous deeds of its rulers. 1 See Readings, chap, iii, for passages from Gregory of Tours. history