An ethnonym (from the , ''éthnos'', "nation" and , ''ónoma'', "name") is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (where the name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms or endonyms (self-designation; where the name is created and used by the ethnic group itself).

As an example, the ethnonym for the ethnically dominant group in Germany is the Germans. This ethnonym is an exonym used by the English-speaking world, although the term itself is derived from Latin. Conversely, Germans themselves use the autonym of ''die Deutschen''. Germans are indicated by exonyms in many European languages, such as Italian (tedeschi), French (Allemands), Spanish (Alemanes) and Polish (Niemcy).

Variations

Numerous ethnonyms can apply to the same ethnic or racial group, with various levels of recognition, acceptance and use. The State Library of South Australia contemplated this issue when considering Library of Congress Headings for literature pertaining to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Some 20 different ethnonyms were considered as potential Library of Congress headings, but it was recommended that only a fraction of them be employed for the purposes of cataloguing.

Change over time

Ethnonyms can change in character over time; while originally socially acceptable, they may come to be considered offensive. For instance, the term Gypsy has been used to refer to the Roma. Other examples include Vandal, Bushman, Barbarian, and Philistine.

The ethnonyms applied to African Americans have demonstrated a greater evolution; older terms such as ''colored'' carried negative connotations and have been replaced by modern-day equivalents such as ''black'' or ''African-American''. Other ethnonyms such as ''Negro'' have a different status. The term was considered acceptable in its use by activists such as Martin Luther King in the 1960s, but other activists took a different perspective. In discussing an address in 1960 by Elijah Muhammad, it was stated "to the Muslims, terms like Negro and colored are labels created by white people to negate the past greatness of the black race".

Four decades later, a similar difference of opinion remains. In 2006, one commentator suggested that the term Negro is outdated or offensive in many quarters, although its use remains in organisations such as the United Negro College Fund; similarly, the word "colored" still appears in the name of the NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In this context, an ethnonym has the potential to mimic the phenomenon of the euphemism treadmill.

Linguistics

In English, ethnonyms are generally formulated through suffixation; by applying an -n to people of Austria, their nationality is known as ''Austrian''. In English, in many cases, the word for the dominant language of a group is identical to their English-language ethnonym; the French speak French, the Germans speak German. This is sometimes erroneously overgeneralized; a child may assume that people from India speak "Indian", despite there being no language which is called by that name.

See also

-onym

Diaspora studies

demonym

exonym

Hyphenated American

Statistext

References

* Category:Types of words

ar:اسم قومي be:Этнонім bg:Етноним ca:Etnònim cs:Etnonymum es:Etnónimo eo:Etnonimo et:Etnonüüm fr:Ethnonymie it:Etnonimo lv:Etnonīms lb:Ethnonymie lt:Etnonimas nl:Etnoniem no:Etnonym pl:Etnonim ru:Этноним sv:Etnonym uk:Етнонім

The Franks ( or ''gens Francorum'') were a West Germanic tribal confederation first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the Romans after 357. In the climate of the collapse of imperial authority in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians and conquered all of Gaul except Septimania in the 6th century. The Salian political elite would be one of the most active forces in spreading Christianity over western Europe.

The Merovingian dynasty, descended from the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire from the fifth century. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of western Europe by the end of the eighth century, developing into the Carolingian Empire which dominated most of Western Europe. This empire would gradually evolve into France and the Holy Roman Empire.

Contemporary definitions of the ethnicity of the Franks vary by period and point of view. The word "Frankish" quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. It is unclear, though, to what extent different Western European groups described or referred to themselves as the Franks. Within ''Francia'' itself everyone north of the Loire seems to have been considered a Frank by the mid-seventh century at the latest; "Romans" were essentially the inhabitants of Aquitaine after that. On the other hand, Marculf's ''Formulary'' of circa 700 still mandates that "all the peoples who dwell there [i.e. in the official's province], Franks, Romans, Burgundians, and those of other nations, live ... according to their law and their customs," which implies a continuation of national identities within a mixed population. Viewed from outside, many in the East used the term "Franks" to describe or refer to Western Europeans and Roman Catholic Christians in general, even down to the time of the First Crusade six centuries after Clovis; the Arabic word for "Europe" to this day is ''Firanja.''

The linguistic descendants of the Franks, the modern Dutch-speakers of the Netherlands and Flanders seem to have broken with this endonym around the 9th century. By this time Frankish identity had changed from an ethnic identity to a national identity, becoming localized and confined to the modern ''Franconia'' and principally to the French province of ''Île-de-France'', originally the Western Franks' seat of power.

Name

The ethnonym ''Frank'' has sometimes been traced to the Germanic word for "javelin" (cf. Old English ''franca'', Old Norse ''frakka''), as opposed to the Latin ''francisca'' "throwing axe", itself named after the tribe. A weapon-based tribal name would be comparable to that of the Saxons. Others tie the name to a word for "bold, fierce" (cf. Old Norwegian ''frakkr'', Old English ''frǣc'', Middle Dutch ''vrac''). "Frank" was also a region in Pomerania (12th century) active with Teutonic Knights. The name's origin remains disputed.

Mythological origins

Like many Germanic peoples, the Franks developed an origin story to connect themselves with peoples of antiquity. In the case of the Franks, these peoples were the Sicambri and the Trojans. An anonymous work of 727 called ''Liber Historiae Francorum'' states that, following the fall of Troy, 12,000 Trojans led by chiefs Priam and Antenor moved to the Tanais (Don) river, settled in Pannonia near the Maeotis, now Sea of Azov, and founded a city called "Sicambria". Within just two generations (Priam and his son Marcomer) from the fall of Troy (by modern scholars dated in the late Bronze Age), they arrived in the late fourth century at the Rhine. An earlier variation of this story can be read in Fredegar. In Fredegar's version, an early king named Francio serves as namegiver for the Franks, just as Romulus has lent his name to Rome.

History

The Franks enter recorded history around the year 50 due to an invasion across the Rhine into the Roman Empire. They are first mentioned on the ''Tabula Peutingeriana'' as the ''Chamavi qui est Pranci'' (meaning "Chamavi (a Germanic tribe), who are Pranci", probably an error for ''Franci''). Over the next century other Frankish tribes besides the Chamavi surface in the records. The major primary sources include Panegyrici Latini, Ammianus Marcellinus, Claudian, Zosimus, Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours. As early as 357 a Frankish king from the Salians enters Roman-held soil to stay.

Origins

Modern scholars of the Migration Period are in agreement that the Frankish identity emerged at the first half of the 3rd century out of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups, including the Salii, Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chatti, Chattuarii, Ampsivarii, Tencteri, Ubii, Batavi and the Tungri. These tribes inhabited the lower and middle Rhine valley between the Zuyder Zee and the river Lahn and extended eastwards as far as the Weser, but were the most densely settled around the IJssel and between the Lippe and the Sieg. The Frankish confederation probably began to coalesce in the 210s around the area Romans called Germania inferior.

The Salian Franks invaded the Roman Empire and were accepted as Foederati by Julian the Apostate in 358. By the end of the fifth century, the Salian Franks had largely moved onto Roman soil, to a territory now comprising the Netherlands south of the Rhine, Belgium and Northwestern Gaul where, during the chaos of the migration period, they formed a kingdom, eventually giving rise to the Merovingian dynasty.

Franks appear in Roman texts as both allies and enemies (''laeti'' or ''dediticii''). Around 250, one group of Franks, taking advantage of a weakened Roman Empire, penetrated as far as Tarragona in present-day Spain, plaguing this region for about a decade before Roman forces subdued them and expelled them from Roman territory. In 287 or 288, the Roman Caesar Maximian overwhelmed the Salian king Gennobaude. He and his people surrendered without a fight. Maximian accepted the surrender and installed the Salians in Toxandria (Germania inferior) at the mouth of the Rhine behind the limes in Belgic Gaul, under the statute of Laeti (subject to imperial authority). This success, however, did not allow him to regain Britain. Later, Constantius completed the reconquest of Britain and, having had problems with some Franks, deported Chamavi and Frisians in Gaul in the country Ambiani and Bellovaci.

About forty years later, the Franks had the region of the Scheldt river (present day west Flanders and southwest Netherlands) under control and were raiding the Channel, disrupting transportation to Britain. Roman forces pacified the region, but did not expel the Franks, who continued to be feared as pirates along the shores at least until the time of Julian the Apostate (358), when Salian Franks were granted to settle as ''foederati'' in Toxandria, according to Ammianus Marcellinus.

In the 5th century, numerous small Frankish kingdoms existed, among them the ones in Cologne, Tournai, Le Mans and Cambrai. The kings of Tournai eventually came to subdue the other Frankish kings. This was probably enabled by their association with Aegidius, the magister militum of northern Gaul; King Childeric I fights on Aegidius' side in 463. It is assumed that Childeric and Clovis I, his son, were commanders of the Roman military in the Province of Belgica Secunda, and thus subordinate to the magister militum. Clovis later turned against the Roman military leaders and won a battle against Syagrius in 486/487. After this battle, Clovis had Chararic, another Frankish king, imprisoned; he was later executed. A few years later, Ragnachar, Frankish king of Cambrai, and his brothers were killed by Clovis. By the 490s, Clovis had conquered all the Frankish kingdoms to the west of the River Maas, leaving only the Ripuarian Franks. The city of Paris became his capital.

Merovingian kingdom (481–751)

Clovis I became the first king of all Franks in 509, when he conquered the kingdom of Cologne. He had conquered the Kingdom of Soissons of the Roman general Syagrius and expelled the Visigoths from southern Gaul at the Battle of Vouillé, thus establishing Frankish hegemony over most of Gaul, excluding Burgundy, Provence, and Brittany, which he left to his successors, the Merovingians, to conquer.

Clovis divided his realm between his four sons in a manner which would become familiar, as his sons and grandsons in turn divided their kingdoms between their sons. Clovis' sons united to defeat Burgundy in 534, but internecine feuding came to the fore during the reigns of the brothers Sigebert I and Chilperic I and their sons and grandsons, largely fueled by the rivalry of the queens Fredegunda and Brunhilda. This period saw the emergence of three distinct ''regna'' (realms or subkingdoms): Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy. Each region developed in its own way and often sought to exert influence over the others. The rising star of the Arnulfing clan of Austrasia meant that the centre of political gravity in the kingdom gradually shifted eastwards from Paris and Tours to the Rhineland.

The Frankish realm was united again in 613 by Chlothar II, son of Chilperic. Chlothar granted the Edict of Paris to the nobles in an effort to cut down on corruption and unite his vast realm under his authority. After the militarily successful reign of his son and successor Dagobert I, royal authority rapidly declined under a series of kings traditionally known as ''rois fainéants''. By 687, after the Battle of Tertry, the chronicler could say that the mayor of the palace, formerly the king's chief household official, "reigned." Finally, in 751, with the approval of the papacy and the nobility, the mayor Pepin the Short deposed the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, and had himself crowned, inaugurating a new dynasty, the Carolingians.

Carolingian empire (751–843)

The unification of most of what is now western and central Europe under one chief ruler provided a fertile ground for the continuation of what is known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Despite the almost constant internecine warfare that beset the Carolingian Empire, the extension of Frankish rule and Roman Christianity over such a large area ensured a fundamental unity throughout the Empire. Each part of the Carolingian Empire developed differently; Frankish government and culture depended very much upon individual rulers and their aims. Those aims shifted as easily as the changing political alliances within the Frankish leading families. However, those families, the Carolingians included, all shared the same basic beliefs and ideas of government. These ideas and beliefs had their roots in a background that drew from both Roman and Germanic tradition, a tradition that began before the Carolingian ascent and continued to some extent even after the deaths of Louis the Pious and his sons.

The sons of Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's grandsons, fought a civil war after Louis' death over their inheritance, which only ended in exhaustion. The Frankish lands were divided between them. Charles the Bald was given the western lands, "West Francia", that would later become France. Louis the German received the eastern lands, which would become Germany. Lothair I was given the lands between the two, "Middle Francia" which consisted of Lotharingia, Provence, and northern Italy. Middle Francia was not united in any way, and in the next generation disintegrated into smaller lordships, with West Francia and East Francia fighting for control over them. Arguably, France and Germany continued to fight over these lands up until World War II.

Physical Appearance

The Franks were noted to have thin moustaches as opposed to the thicker beards of the other Germanic tribes.

Sidonius Apollinaris described their distinct moustaches and also noted of their light blue eyes:

‘‘Their eyes are faint and pale, with a glimmer of greyish blue. Their faces are shaven all round, and instead of beards they have thin moustaches which they run through with a comb. Close fitting garments confine the tall limbs of the men, they are drawn up high so as to expose the knees, and a broad belt supports their narrow middle.’’

Military

In general Germanic peoples on the borders are known to have served in the Roman army since the days of Julius Caesar. The tribes at the Rhine delta that later became Franks were no exception to that general rule. Despite the fact that from the 3rd century onward large numbers of Germanic peoples served in the Roman army, others kept on invading and raiding Roman soil. This caused confrontations between Franks and their neighbours on Roman soil such as the Batavi and Menapii. When Roman administration collapsed in Gaul in the 260's due to joint invasions of Franks and Alamanni, the Germanic Batavian Postumus was forced to usurp power and restore order. From that time on Germanic soldiers in the Roman army, most notably Franks, were visibly promoted from the ranks. A few decades later the Menapian Carausius (born in Batavia) created a Batavian-British rumpstate on Roman soil that was supported by Frankish soldiers and raiders. In the mid 4th century Frankish soldiers like Magnentius, Silvanus and Arbitio held command positions in the Roman military. From the narrative of Ammianus Marcellinus it becomes clear that both Frankish and Alamannic tribal armies were organised along Roman lines and fought comparably.

After the invasion of Chlodio the Roman armies at the Rhine border became a Frankish "franchise", and Franks were known to levy Roman-like troops that were supported by a Roman-like armour and weapons industry. This lasted at least till the days of Procopius, when the Western Roman Empire was gone for more than a century, because this historian reports that the former Rhine army was still in operation and that "legions" kept on using the same standard and insignia as had their forefathers during Roman times.

Militarily, the Franks under the Merovingians melded Germanic custom with Romanized organisation and several important tactical innovations. Before their conquest of Gaul, the Franks fought primarily as a tribe unless they were part of a Roman military unit fighting in conjunction with other imperial units.

Early Frankish warfare

The primary sources for Frankish military custom and armament are Ammianus Marcellinus, Agathias, and Procopius, the latter two Eastern Roman historians writing about Frankish intervention in the Gothic War.

Writing of 539, Procopius says:

At this time the Franks, hearing that both the Goths and Romans had suffered severely by the war ... forgetting for the moment their oaths and treaties ... (for this nation in matters of trust is the most treacherous in the world), they straightway gathered to the number of one hundred thousand under the leadership of Theudebert I and marched into Italy: they had a small body of cavalry about their leader, and these were the only ones armed with spears, while all the rest were foot soldiers having neither bows nor spears, but each man carried a sword and shield and one axe. Now the iron head of this weapon was thick and exceedingly sharp on both sides, while the wooden handles was very short. And they are accustomed always to throw these axes at one signal in the first charge and thus to shatters the shields of the enemy and kill the men.

His contemporary, Agathias, says:

The military equipment of this people [the Franks] is very simple .... They do not know the use of the coat of mail or greaves and the majority leave the head uncovered, only a few wear the helmet. They have their chests bare and backs naked to the loins, they cover their thighs with either leather or linen. They do not serve on horseback except in very rare cases. Fighting on foot is both habitual and a national custom and they are proficient in this. At the hip they wear a sword and on the left side their shield is attached. They have neither bows nor slings, no missile weapons except the double edged axe and the angon which they use most often. The angons are spears which are neither very short nor very long they can be used, if necessary, for throwing like a javelin, and also in hand to hand combat.

While the above quotations have been used as a statement of the military practices of the Frankish nation in the sixth century and have even been extrapolated to the entire period preceding Charles Martel's reforms (early–mid eighth century), post-Second World War historiography has emphasised the inherited Roman characteristics of the Frankish military from the date of the beginning of the conquest of Gaul. The Byzantine authors present several contradictions and difficulties. Procopius denies the Franks the use of the spear while Agathias makes it one of their primary weapons. They agree that the Franks were primarily infantrymen, threw axes, and carried a sword and shield. Both writers also contradict the authority of Gallic authors of the same general time period (Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours) and the archaeological evidence. The ''Lex Ribuaria'', the early 7th-century legal code of the Rhineland or Ripuarian Franks, specifies the values of various goods when paying a wergild in kind; whereas a spear and shield were worth only two ''solidi'', a sword and scabbard were valued at seven, a helmet at six, and a "metal tunic" at twelve. Scramasaxes and arrowheads are numerous in Frankish graves even though the Byzantine historians do not assign them to the Franks.

The evidence of Gregory and of the ''Lex Salica'' implies that the early Franks were a cavalry people. In fact, some modern historians have hypothesised that the Franks possessed so numerous a body of horses that they could use them to plough fields and thus were agriculturally technologically advanced over their neighbours. The ''Lex Ribuaria'' specifies that a mare's value was the same as that of an ox or of a shield and spear, two ''solidi'', and a stallion seven or the same as a sword and scabbard, which suggests that horses were relatively common. Perhaps the Byzantine writers considered the Frankish horse to be insignificant relative to the Greek cavalry, which is probably accurate.

Merovingian military

Composition and development

The Frankish military establishment incorporated many of the pre-existing Roman institutions in Gaul, especially during and after the conquests of Clovis I in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. Frankish military strategy revolved around the holding and taking of fortified centres (''castra'') and in general these centres were held by garrisons of ''milities'' or ''laeti'', that is, former Roman mercenaries usually of Germanic origin. Throughout Gaul the descendants of Roman soldiers continued to wear their uniforms and perform their ceremonial duties.

Immediately beneath the Frankish king in the military hierarchy were the ''leudes'', sworn followers of the king, generally "old soldiers" in service away from court. They could be Gallo-Romans or Franks, laymen or clergy. Some historians have gone to the length of relating their oath-making to the later development of feudalism. The king also had an elite bodyguard called the truste (''trustis''). Members of the truste, ''antrustiones'', often served in ''centannae'', garrison settlements of Franks (or others) established for military and police purposes throughout the realm. The actual day-to-day bodyguard of the king was made up ''antrustiones'' (senior soldiers who were aristocrats in military service) and ''pueri'' (junior soldiers and not aristocrats, who in time would be promoted to ''antrustiones''). All high-ranking men had ''pueri''.

The Frankish military was not composed solely of Franks and Gallo-Romans, but also contained Saxons, Alans, Taifals, and Alemanni. After the conquest of Burgundy (534) the well-organised military institutions of that kingdom were integrated into the Frankish realm. Chief among these was the standing army under the command of the Patrician of Burgundy.

In the late sixth century, during the wars instigated by Fredegund and Brunhilda, the Merovingian monarchs introduced a new element into their militaries: the local levy. A levy consisted in all the able-bodied men of a district who at the call had to report for military service. The local levy applied only to a city and its environs. Initially only in certain cities in western Gaul, in Neustria and Aquitaine, did the kings possess the right or power to call up the levy. The commanders of the local levies were always different from the commanders of the urban garrisons. Often the former were commanded by the counts of the districts. A much rarer occurrence was the general levy, which applied to the entire kingdom and included peasants (''pauperes'' and ''inferiores''). General levies could also be made within the still-pagan trans-Rhenish stem duchies at the bequest of a monarch. The Saxons, Alemanni, and Thuringii all had the levy and it could be depended upon by the Frankish monarchs until the mid-seventh century, when the stem dukes began to sever their ties to the monarchy. Radulf of Thuringia called up the levy for a war ''against'' Sigebert III in 640.

Soon the local levy spread to Austrasia and the less Romanised regions of Gaul. On an intermediate level, the kings began calling up territorial levies from the regions of Austrasia (which did not have major cities of Roman origin). However, all the forms of the levy gradually disappeared in the course of the seventh century after the reign of Dagobert I. Under the so-called ''rois fainéants'', the levies disappeared by mid-century in Austrasia and later in Burgundy and Neustria. Only in Aquitaine, which was fast becoming independent of the central Frankish monarchy, did complex military institutions persist into the eighth century. In the final half of the seventh century and first half of the eighth in Merovingian Gaul, the chief military actors became the lay and ecclesiastical magnates with their bands of armed followers called retainers. The other aspects of the Merovingian military, mostly Roman in origin or innovations of powerful kings, disappeared from the scene by the eighth century.

Strategy, tactics, and equipment

The equipment of the Merovingian armies was as varied as the composition. Magnates were known to provide their retainers with coats of mail, helmets, shields, lances, swords, bows and arrows, and war horses. The magnates' private armies resembled in armament those of the Gallo-Roman ''potentiatores'' of the late Empire. The descendants of Roman soldiers continued to use their service weapons. There was a strong element of Alanic cavalry settled in Armorica which influenced the fighting style of the Bretons down into the twelfth century. Local urban levies could be reasonably well-armed and even mounted, but the more general levies were composed of ''pauperes'' and ''inferiores'' who were mostly farmers by trade and carried into battle whatever weapons they had at hand, often tools or farming implements which made them militarily ineffective and thus rarely called upon. The peoples east of the Rhine – Franks, Saxons, and even Wends – who were sometimes called upon to serve wore less and more rudimentary armour and carried more primitive weaponry, including spears and axes. Few of these men were mounted and they were not affected very much by Roman traditions and technologies.

Merovingian strategy was wound up in the militarised nature of the entire society. The Franks, unlike their Germanic neighbours to a great extent in this respect, were disposed to call annual meetings each 1 March (the so-called Marchfeld, because assemblies so large had to meet in large open fields) whereat the nobles in the presence of the king determined the military target or targets for the coming season of campaigning. This also served as a "show of strength" on behalf of the monarch, and a way for the monarch to retain the loyalty of common troops. In their civil wars with one another, the Merovingian kings concentrated on the holding of fortified places and cities (''castra'') and siege warfare was a primary aspect in all their endeavours. Siege engines of Roman type were used extensively and the greatest emphasis on tactics was tied to sieges. In offensive wars waged against external foes, the objective was typically the acquisition of booty or the enforcement of tribute. Only in the lands beyond the Rhine did the Merovingians seek to extend their political control over their neighbours.

Tactically, the Merovingians borrowed heavily from the Romans, especially regarding siege warfare. However, they were not bereft of innovation and there seems to be little remnant of tribal custom in their battle tactics, which were highly flexible and designed to meet the specific circumstances under which battle was being given. Subterfuge, as a tactic, was endlessly employed. Cavalry formed a large segment of the Merovingian military, but mounted troops readily dismounted when appropriate to fight on foot with the infantry. The Merovingians were capable of raising naval forces when necessary. The most significant naval campaign was waged against the Danes by Theuderic I in 515 and involved ocean-worthy ships. More regular was the use of rivercraft on the Loire, Rhone, and Rhine.

Culture

Language and literature

The language spoken by the early Franks is known as Old Frankish. It is attested only in personal names, and is mostly reconstructed from Old Dutch and loanwords in Old French and Latin. Though it lent its name to a number of widely spoken dialects in modern Germany (Ripuarian, Moselle-Franconian, Rhine-Franconian, East-Franconian, South-Franconian), France (Lorrainian) and Luxemburg (Luxembourgish), these languages are not directly related to the ancient language of the Franks.

There is no surviving work of literature in the Frankish language and perhaps no such works ever existed. Latin was the written language of Gaul before and during the Frankish period (e.g. Salic law). Of the Gallic works which survive, there are a few chronicles, many hagiographies and saints' lives, and a small corpus of poems.

The word "frank" has the meaning of "free" (e.g. English ''frank'', ''frankly'', ''franklin''). This arose because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.

Religion

Paganism

Echoes of Frankish paganism arise in the primary sources, but their meaning is not always clear. Modern scholars vary wildly about their interpretation, but it is very likely that Frankish paganism shared most of its characteristics with the other varieties of Germanic paganism. The mythology of the Franks was probably a form of Germanic polytheism, later adapted and supplanted in the wake of their incursion into the Roman Empire.

It was highly ritualistic and many daily activities centred around the multiple deities, chiefest of which may have been the Quinotaur, a water-god from whom the Merovingians were reputed to have derived their ancestry. Most of the pagan gods were associated with local cult centres and their sacred character and power were associated with specific regions, outside of which they were neither worshipped nor feared. Most of the gods were "worldly", possessing form and having concrete relation to earthly objects, in contradistinction to the transcedent God of Christianity.

Archaeologically, Frankish paganism has been observed in the burial site of Childeric I, where the king's body was found covered in a cloth decorated with numerous bees or flies. The symbolism of these insects is unknown.

Christianity

Some Franks converted early to Christianity, like the usurper Silvanus in the 4th century. In 496, Clovis I, who had married a Burgundian Catholic named Clotilda three years earlier, was baptised into the (Trinitarian) Catholic faith by Saint Remi after a decisive victory over the Alemanni at the Battle of Tolbiac. According to Gregory of Tours, over 3000 of his soldiers were baptised alongside him. Clovis' conversion to Catholicism would prove to have an enormous effect on the course of European history, for at the time the Franks were the only major Christianized Germanic tribe without a predominantly Arian aristocracy (their contemporary rivals, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians and Lombards, had converted to Arian Christianity), and this led to a naturally amicable relationship between the Church of Rome and the increasingly powerful Franks.

Though a sizeable portion of the Frankish aristocracy quickly followed Clovis in converting to Christianity, the conversion of the whole of the people under Frankish rule required a considerable amount of time and effort - in some places two centuries or more. Early efforts towards organized resistance were quickly squelched: the ''Chronicle of St. Denis'' relates that, following Clovis' conversion, a number of devout pagans, unhappy with this turn of events, rallied around Ragnachairus (or Ragnachar), a powerful figure who had played an important role in Clovis' initial rise to power. Though the text remains unclear as to the precise pretext, Clovis soon had Ragnachairus thrown in chains and then executed. As for the remaining pockets of resistance, they were overcome region by region - primarily due to the work of the quickly expanding network of monasteries.

The Frankish church of the Merovingians was shaped by a number of internal and external forces: it had to come to terms with an established Gallo-Roman Christian hierarchy entrenched in a culturally resistant aristocracy; it had to Christianize pagan Frankish sensibilities and effectively suppress their expression; it had to provide a new theological basis for Merovingian forms of kingship, which were deeply rooted in pagan Germanic tradition; it had to accommodate Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionary activities on the one hand and papal requirements on the other. The Carolingian reformation of monastic life and teaching and church-state relations can be seen both as the culmination of the Frankish church and a transformation of it.

The increasing personal wealth of the Merovingian elite allowed the endowment of many monasteries, such as those of the Irish missionary Saint Columbanus. The fifth, sixth and seventh centuries saw two major waves of hermitism in the Frankish world, a movement which was eventually reorganised by legislation requiring that all monks and hermits follow the Rule of St Benedict.

The period of Frankish rule saw the gradual replacement, always pushed for by Rome, of the Gallican rite of the Gallo-Roman church with the Roman rite; this does not seem to have stirred passions outside the clergy.

The Church seems to have had a somewhat uneasy relationship with the Merovingian kings, whose claim to rule depended on a mystique of royal descent that the Church had not yet come to terms with, and who tended to revert to the polygamy of their pagan ancestors. When the mayors took over, the Church was supportive, and an Emperor crowned by the Pope was much more to their liking.

Art and architecture

Early Frankish art and architecture belong to that phase of European art called Migration Period art, and have left very few remains. The later period is called Carolingian art, or, especially in architecture, the Pre-Romanesque.

Merovingian

Very little is preserved in the way of Frankish architecture of the Merovingian period. The works of Gregory of Tours praise the churches of his day, which mostly seem to have been timber-built, with larger examples using the basilica plan, but the most completely surviving example of Merovingian architecture is a baptistery dedicated to Saint John in Poitiers. It is a small building with three apses, now much rebuilt, essentially continuing Gallo-Roman style. In the South of France a number of small baptistries have survived, as separate baptistries fell permanently out of fashion in later periods, so they were not updated as the main churches have been.

What is preserved of the visual and plastic arts largely consists of archaeological finds of jewellery (such as brooches), weapons (such as swords with decorative hilts), and apparel (such as capes and sandals) found in grave sites, such as the famous grave of the queen Aregund, discovered in 1959, or the Treasure of Gourdon, deposited soon after 524. Not many illuminated manuscripts survive from the Merovingian period, though the few that do, like the Gelasian Sacramentary, contain a great deal of zoomorphic representations. Compared to the similar hybrid works of Insular art from the British Isles, Frankish works in all these media show more continuing use of late Antique style and motifs, and a lesser degree of skill and sophistication in design and manufacture. The numbers surviving are so small, however, that the best quality of work may not be represented.

Carolingian

The work of the main centres of the Carolingian Renaissance represents a great transformation from that of the earlier period, and has survived in far greater quantity. The visual and literary arts were lavishly funded and encouraged by Charlemagne, using imported artists where necessary, and Carolingingian developments were in many areas decisive for the future course of Western art.

The main surviving monument of Carolingian architecture is the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, which is an impressive and confident adaptation of San Vitale, Ravenna, from where some of the pillars were brought. Many other important buildings can be largely reconstructed, such as the monasteries of Centula or St Gall, or the old Cologne Cathedral, now rebuilt. These were now large structures and complexes with a distinctive and sophisticated style, including an emphasis on the vertical and the frequent use of towers.

Carolingian illuminated manuscripts and ivory plaques survive in reasonable numbers, and now approach those of Constantinople in quality, as was certainly the intention.

Society

Law

Like other Germanic peoples, the legal models of the Franks were originally housed only in the memory of designated specialists, ''rachimburgs'', parallel to Scandinavian lawspeakers. By the time codes began to be written down in the sixth century, there persisted two basic legal subdivisions within the Frankish nation: Salian Franks were subject to Salic law, Ripuarian Franks to Ripuarian law. Gallo-Romans south of the Loire River and the clergy remained subject to traditional Roman law. Germanic law was overwhelmingly concerned with private law, which protects individuals, over public law, which protects the interest of the state. According to Michel Rouche, "Frankish judges devoted as much care to a case involving the theft of a dog as Roman judges did to cases involving the fiscal responsibility of ''curiales'', or municipal councilors."

Legacy

Because the Frankish kingdom ("France" name origin) dominated Western Europe for centuries, terms derived from "Frank" were used by many in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond as a synonym for Roman Christians (e.g., ''al-Faranj'' in Arabic, ''farangi'' in Persian and Urdu, ''Frenk'' in Turkish, ''Feringhi'' in Hindi, and ''Frangos'' in Greek). See also Thai ฝรั่ง ''Farang''. During the crusades, which were at first led mostly by nobles from northern France who claimed descent from Charlemagne, both Muslims and Christians used these terms as ethnonyms to describe the Crusaders. Another term with similar use was "Latins" (cf. the Latin Empire). This usage is often followed by modern historians, who call Western Europeans in the eastern Mediterranean "Franks" or "Latins" regardless of their country of origin. Compare with ''Rhomaios'', ''Rûmi'' ("Roman"), used for Orthodox Christians. Catholics on various islands in Greece are still referred to as Φράγκοι, "Frangoi" (Franks). Examples include the naming of a Catholic from the island of Syros as "''Frangosyrianos''" (Φραγκοσυριανός). The term Frangistan was used by Muslims to refer to the land where the Crusaders came from, i.e. Christian Europe.

The Mediterranean Lingua Franca ("Frankish language") was a pidgin spoken among "Franks" (i.e. European Christians) and Muslims in Mediterranean ports from the 11th century to the 19th.

See also

List of Frankish kings

Name of France

List of Germanic peoples

Frankokratia

Notes

Sources

Primary sources

Ammianus Marcellinus. ''Roman History''. trans. by Roger Pearse. London: Bohn, 1862.

Procopius. ''History of the Wars''. trans. by H. B. Dewing.

Fredegar. ''The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with its Continuations''. trans. by John Michael Wallace-Hadrill. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1960.

Fredegar. ''Historia Epitomata''. Woodruff, Jane Ellen. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, 1987.

Gregory of Tours. ''Historia Francorum''.

*Gregory of Tours. ''The History of the Franks''. trans. by Earnest Brehaut. 1916. Excerpts here

*Gregory of Tours. ''The History of the Franks''. 2 vol. trans. O. M. Dalton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.

Bachrach, Bernard S. (trans.) ''Liber Historiae Francorum''. 1973.

Secondary sources

Bachrach, Bernard S. ''Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. ISBN 0 8166 0621 8

Collins, Roger. ''Early Medieval Europe 300–1000''. London: MacMillan, 1991.

Geary, Patrick J. ''Before France and Germany: the Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0 19 504458 4

James, Edward. ''The Franks''. (Peoples of Europe series) Basil Blackwell, 1988. ISBN 0 631 17936 4

Lewis, Archibald R. "The Dukes in the Regnum Francorum, A.D. 550–751." ''Speculum'', Vol. 51, No 3 (July 1976), pp 381–410.

McKitterick, Rosamond. ''The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–987''. London: Longman, 1983. ISBN 0 582 49005 7.

Murray, Archibald Callander, and Goffart, Walter A. ''After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History''. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1998.

Nixon, C. E. V. and Rodgers, Barbara. ''In Praise of Later Roman Emperors''. Berkeley, 1994.

Perry, Walter Copland. ''The Franks, from Their First Appearance in History to the Death of King Pepin''. Longman, Brown, Green: 1857.

Schutz, Herbert. ''The Germanic Realms in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400–750''. American University Studies, Series IX: History, Vol. 196. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.

Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. ''The Long-Haired Kings''. London: Butler & tanner Ltd, 1962.

Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. ''The Barbarian West''. London: Hutchinson, 1970.

External links

Category:Ancient Germanic peoples Category:Ethnic groups in Europe Category:History of the Germanic peoples Category:Early Middle Ages

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Modu Chanyu
title	Xiongnu Chanyu
reign	209–174 BCE
full name	Chanyu
predecessor	Touman
successor	Laoshang
dynasty	Maodun
father	Touman
birth date	c. 234 BCE
birth place	Modern-day Mongolia
death date	174 BCE

Modu Chanyu (Maodun, Maotun, Mode , sometimes also transcribed Modun and Maodun, Mongolian: Modun, Модун) was born c. 234 BCE was the fourth known emperor and founder of the Xiongnu Empire after he killed his father in 209 BCE. The years of his rule were 209 BCE to 174 BCE. He was a military leader under his father Touman, and later the Chanyu and king of the Xiongnu, centered in modern day Mongolia.

Once he had secured the throne, he established a powerful Xiongnu Empire by successfully unifying the tribes of the Mongolian steppes and hence posed an imminent threat to the Chinese Qin Dynasty. His Xiongnu Empire was one of the largest of his time – the eastern border stretched as far as the Liao River, the western borders of the empire reached the Pamir Mountains whilst the northern border reached Lake Baikal.

He was succeeded by his son Laoshang.

Name

Several scholars have suggested that the reconstructed pronunciation of "modu" 冒頓 is /mək-twən/ and is equivalent to the Turkic title Baghatur /baɣaːtuːr/ in Mongol word its too meaning bagaatar baatar ; this "appears to represent a foreign *baγtur, a relative of the later-attested Central Asian culture word ''baγatur'' 'hero'. The etymology of the word is unknown, though the first syllable may be the Iranian word *baγ 'god, lord', an element in many later Central Asian titles." The original origin may not be Iranian, as suggested by Clauson, who claims it an original Xiongnu name/title.

Origins and rise to power

The only details of his early years is recorded in chapter 110 of the ''Shiji'', but, although they are based on history, they seem to contain some legendary elements.

He was the eldest son of Touman, the leader of the Xiongnu at the time. Since his childhood, Modu was well-known for his outstanding courage and valor. He was so valourous that he was regarded as one of the most heroic men in the realm. However, a beauty called E'shi was the favourite wife of Touman and he decided to raise her son to be his successor. Touman's new wife had wanted to kill Modu so she adopted a cruel plot to kill Modu by another person's hands: his father sent him to the Yuezhi, a different tribe of peoples, as a hostage and then he waged wars against them, to make Modu the victim. Fortunately, Modu had sensed something suspicious so he pretended to be seriously sick when he was staying in the Yuezhi camp. His guards then slackened their guard. In the evening when Touman was massing his troops to attack the Yuezhi tribe, Modu killed the guards, stole the Yuezhi's precious horse and fled. To avoid the pursuit of the Yuezhi tribe and a surprise attack by his father, Modu disguised himself and was able to return.

Later for his bravery his father gave him a ''tumen'' of soldiers. He controlled his 10,000 men strictly, and trained them hard every day for battle. According to Sima Qian he had some arrows made that whistled in flight and trained his men to shoot at anything his whistling arrow struck. One day he shot at one of his best horses and executed any man that failed to follow suit. Later he shot his favorite wife and killed every man who did not shoot at her. Next he shot at his father's favorite horse and all his men obeyed. Later, when on a hunting expedition with his father, he shot a whistling arrow at his father, as did all his men.

Also his father's wife and the rival heir were executed. After this he gained the leadership of all the tribes his father had controlled and he was crowned as the new Xiongnu ruler. He disciplined all the tribes for warfare and to follow his every command. He was respected by his men, and none would challenge his authority. After his army was ready for war, he began his conquests.

The rise of the Xiongnu Empire

First he marched on the Donghu, the Xiongnu’s eastern neighbours, and brought them under his rule in 208 BC. After his Donghu campaign (the Donghu split into Xianbei and Wuhuan); he defeated the Dingling and other peoples living in Northern Mongolia and finally he brought the Yuezhiunder his rule in 203 BC. After these conquests all Xiongnu lords submitted to him.

With these victories, he was able to gain control of the important trade routes, which later supplied the Xiongnu with a large income. He later (in 200 BC) fought a three-year campaign with the Han Dynasty of China, and decisively defeated the Han ruler Gaodi (by shrewdly trapping him and his forces), forcing him to pay humiliating yearly tributes to the Xiongnu: when Emperor Gao of Han Dynasty launched a military offensive against him, Modu (with 40,000 soldiers) lured the Han army into a trap and ambushed the emperor reputedly with 300,000 elite Xiongnu cavalry, and encircled them for seven days at Baideng. The emperor was cut off from supplies and reinforcements. The siege was only relieved when the Han royal court sent spies to bribe Modu's wife. The result of this campaign resulted in Han China resorting to the humiliating "marriage alliance" strategy with Xiongnu for the next seventy years.

Modu never tried to conquer China completely, because he thought that a foreign dynasty could not rule such a vast country for a long time. After his Chinese campaign, Modu forced the Yuezhi and the Wusun to become vassals of the Xiongnu.

During his reign, many peoples were brought under Xiongnu rule. He united all of them under one empire, all the nomad horse archer tribes of the steppes. Apart from his nomadic subjects, Modu also made the oasis city-states of the Tarim Basin swear fealty to him. His organizations in both military and administration were later used by many other Central Asian peoples and states.

Under his rule, he launched 26 major war campaigns to conquer 26 kingdoms, and became greatly feared widely throughout Asia, even in the mighty Han Empire. He was a great warrior and a master tactician and was nearly undefeated in his battles against many empires including the Han Dynasty.

Later legends

Christopher I. Beckwith has pointed out that the story of the young Modu resembles a widespread class of folk tales in which a young hero is abandoned, goes on a quest, proves his worth, gains a group of trusted companions, returns to his home country, slays a powerful figure and becomes a king.

The name of Maodun has been associated with Oguz Kagan, an epic ancestor of the Turkic people. The reason for that is a striking similarity of the Oguz-Kagan biography in the Turko-Persian manuscripts (Rashid al-Din, Hondemir, Abulgazi) with the Maodun biography in the Chinese sources (feud between the father and son and murder of the former, the direction and sequence of conquests, etc.), which was first noticed by N.Ya. Bichurin (Collection of information, pp. 56–57)".

Another suggestion connects it with the name of the Magyar (Mad'ar) royal tribe of the Hungarians (匈牙利) and with their distant relatives Mators, now extinct. He has been linked with the Dulo known from the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans and this, in the form *Duh-klah Tuqi, with the Hungarian/Magyar Gyula (D'ula) clan. It has been suggested that his name, as Bixtun or Beztur, appears in the genealogy as the ancestor of Attila the Hun.

See also

Sino-Xiongnu War

Jin Midi

Ban Chao

Oghuz Khan

Footnotes

References

Watson, Burton. (1993). ''Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian''. Translated by Burton Watson. Revised Edition. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08167-7.

Hulsewé, A. F. P. and Loewe, M. A. N. (1979). ''China in Central Asia: The Early Stage 125 BC – AD 23: an annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty''. E. J. Brill, Leiden. ISBN 90 04 05884 2.

Beckwith, Christopher I. (2009): ''Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13589-2.

Yap, Joseph P. (2009). ''Wars With The Xiongnu, A Translation from Zizhi tongjian'', pp. 67–107. AuthorHouse, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4490-0604-4.

Clauson, Sir Gerard (1962): ''Turkish and Mongolian Studies''. The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

External links

Baidu Entry on Batur Tengriqut

All Empires: The Xiongnu Empire

The Xiongnu – China Knowledge site

Category:174 BC deaths Category:Xiongnu Category:Chanyus

az:Mete xaqan bg:Маодун de:Mao-tun eo:Modu Ĉanju fa:مودو چانیو ko:묵돌 선우 kk:Мөде қаған mn:Модун шаньюй nl:Mao Dun (heerser) ja:冒頓単于 ru:Модэ sh:Modu Chanyu tt:Мөде хан tr:Mete tk:Oguz han ug:باتۇر تەڭرىقۇت zh-classical:冒頓單于 zh:冒顿单于