Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/390

 32! Outlines of E?^ rope an Histor)' Extent of The Frankish kings who followed Clovis succeeded in ex- realmsbout tending their power over pretty nearly all the territory that is 5^° included to-day in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, as well as over a goodly portion of western Germany. Half a century after the death of Clovis, their dominions extended from the Bay of Biscay on the west to a point east of Salzburg. The Dominions of the Franks under the Merovingians This map shows how the Frankish kingdom grew up. Clovis while still a young man defeated the Roman general Syagrius in 486, near Sois- sons, and so added the region around Paris to his possessions. He added Alemannia on the east in 496. In 507 he made Paris his capital and conquered Aquitania, previously held by the West Goths. He also made a beginning in adding the kingdom of the Kurgundians to his realms. He died in 511. His successors in the next half century com- pleted the conquest of liurgundy and added Provincia, Bavaria, and Gascony. There were many divisions of the Frankish realms after the time of Clovis, and the eastern and western portions, called Austrasia and Neustria, were often ruled by different branches of the Merovingians, as Clovis's family was called, from his ancestor Meroveus