Christianization of the Franks

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Christian states 495 AD (en)

Christianization of the Franks was the process of converting the

bishop of Reims
.

Political landscape

Unlike many other Germanic people who migrated to the Roman Empire during the Migration Period the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks, were not Arian, but still pagan. The Arians believed that Jesus was a distinct and separate being from God the Father, both subordinate to and created by Him. This contrasted Nicene Christianity, whose followers believe that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are three persons of one being (consubstantiality). However, when Arianism was declared a heresy at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the banished Arians (such as Bishop Ulfilas) proceeded to convert Germanic pagans to their faith in the 4th century. These Gothic converts came to dominate Christian Gaul.[1]

Baptism of Clovis I

Clovis baptised by Saint Remigius

Clovis's wife Clotilde, a

Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims; a statue of his baptism by Saint Remigius can still be seen there. The details of this event have been passed down by Gregory of Tours
, who recorded them many years later in the 6th century.

The king's Catholic baptism was of immense importance in the subsequent history of Western and Central Europe in general, for Clovis expanded his dominion over almost all of Gaul. Catholicism offered certain advantages to Clovis as he fought to distinguish his rule among many competing power centers in Western Europe. His conversion to the Roman Catholic form of Christianity served to set him apart from the other Germanic kings of his time, such as those of the Visigoths and the Vandals, who had converted from Germanic paganism to Arian Christianity. His embrace of the Roman Catholic faith may have also gained him the support of the Catholic Gallo-Roman aristocracy in his later campaign against the Visigoths, which drove them from southern Gaul in 507 and resulted in a great many of his people converting to Catholicism as well.[5]

On the other hand,

Saint Genevieve and letters to or concerning Clovis from bishops and Theodoric
.

Clovis and his wife were buried in the

Abbey of St Genevieve (St. Pierre) in Paris; the original name of the church was the Church of the Holy Apostles.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, (Longman, 1994), 45.
  2. ^ Geary, Patrick (2003). Readings in Medieval History: Gregory of Tours History of the Franks. Canada: Broadview Press Ltd. pp. 145–146.
  3. S2CID 161819012
    .
  4. ^ Gender and Conversion in the Merovingian Era, Cordula Nolte, Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages, ed. James Muldoon, (University of Florida Press, 1997), 88
  5. ^ Robinson, J. H. (1905). Readings in European History. Boston. pp. 51–55.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ James, Edward (1985) Gregory of Tours: Life of the Fathers. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press; p. 155 n. 12
  7. ^ Daly, William M., "Clovis: How Barbaric, How Pagan?" Speculum 69.3 (July 1994:619–664)
  8. ^ Geary, Patrick (2003). Readings in Medieval History: Gregory of Tours History of the Franks. Canada: Broadview Press Ltd. p. 153.
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