Carloman I

Carloman I (28 June 751 – 4 December 771) was king of the Franks from 768 until his death in 771. He was the second surviving son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon and was a younger brother of Charlemagne. Little is known of him, except such as touches upon his more famous father and brother.

Split of the Frankish kingdom

At the age of 3, he was, together with his father, Pepin the Short, and his elder brother, Charlemagne, anointed King of the Franks and titled "Patrician of the Romans" by Pope Stephen II, who had left Rome to beg the Frankish King for assistance against the Lombards. Carloman and Charlemagne each inherited a half of the Kingdom of the Franks upon Pepin's death. His share was based in the centre of the Frankish Kingdom, with his capital at Soissons, and consisted of the Parisian basin, the Massif Central, the Languedoc, Provence, Burgundy, southern Austrasia, Alsace and Alemannia; the regions were poorly integrated and surrounded by those bequeathed to Charlemagne, and, although Carloman's territories were easier to defend than those of Charlemagne, they were also poorer in income.

Franks

The Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum) are historically first known as a group of Germanic tribes that roamed the land between the Lower and Middle Rhine in the 3rd century AD, and second as the people of Gaul who merged with the Gallo-Roman populations during succeeding centuries, passing on their name to modern-day France and becoming part of the heritage of the modern French people. Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the military rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. With the coronation of their ruler Charlemagne as Imperator Romanorum by Pope Leo III in 800 AD, he and his successors were portrayed as legitimate successors to the emperors of the Western Roman Empire.

The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium and the southern Netherlands. The kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 AD. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century. The Franks became very powerful after this. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

Franks (disambiguation)

The Franks were a confederacy of ancient to early medieval Germanic tribes.

Franks may also refer to:

See also

Franks (surname)

Franks is also an Anglo-American surname, derived from the given name Frank. The name is on record in Virginia from the 1660s.

People with the surname include: