Franks

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(Redirected from
Franks (Crusaders)
)
Franks
Franci
Old Frankish, Vulgar Latin
Religion
Originally Frankish paganism, later Roman Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Germanic peoples, Belgians, French people, Dutch people, Lombards, Germans, Austrians, Swiss people, Normans

The Franks (

Germanic people who lived near the Lower Rhine, on the northern continental frontier of the empire. They subsequently expanded their power and influence during the Middle Ages, until much of the population of western Europe, particularly in and near France, were commonly described as Franks, for example in the context of their joint efforts during the Crusades starting in the 11th century.[1] This expansion came about because the romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire first became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine
, and then subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire.

Although the Frankish name does not appear until the 3rd century, at least some of the original Frankish tribes had long been known to the Romans under their own names, both as allies providing soldiers, and as enemies. The Franks were first reported as working together to raid Roman territory. However, the Romans also reported the Franks suffering attacks upon them from outside their frontier area, and being allowed to move into Roman territory. Frankish peoples subsequently living inside Rome's frontier on the Rhine river are often divided by historians into two groups – the

Rhine delta; and the Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks to the east, who eventually conquered the Roman frontier city of Cologne and took control of the left bank of the Lower Rhine
in that region.

In the middle of the 5th century,

Carolingians, eventually came to be seen as the new emperors of Western Europe in 800, when Charlemagne
was crowned by the pope.

In 870 the Frankish realm came to be permanently divided between western and eastern kingdoms, which were the predecessors of the future Kingdom of France and Holy Roman Empire respectively. It is the western kingdom whose inhabitants eventually came to be known as "the French" (French: Les Français, German: Die Franzosen, Dutch: De Fransen, etc.) which has become a distinct modern concept connected to the nation state of France. However, in various historical contexts, such as during the medieval crusades, the French and the peoples of neighbouring regions in Western Europe continued to be referred to collectively as Franks. The crusaders in particular had a lasting impact on the use of Frank-related names for Western Europeans in many non-European languages.[2][3][4]

Etymology

A 19th century depiction of different Franks (AD 400–600)

The name Franci was not a tribal name, but within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the original peoples who constituted them. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm,[5] the name of the Franks has been linked with the English adjective frank, originally meaning "free".[6] There have also been proposals that Frank comes from the Germanic word for "javelin" (such as in Old English franca or Old Norse frakka).[7] Words in other Germanic languages meaning "fierce", "bold" or "insolent" (German frech, Middle Dutch vrac, Old English frǣc and Old Norwegian frakkr), may also be significant.[8]

River Loire everyone seems to have been considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest (except Bretons); Romani (Romans) were essentially the inhabitants of Aquitaine after that".[13]

Mythological origins

Apart from the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, two early sources relate the mythological origin of the Franks: a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar and the anonymous Liber Historiae Francorum, written a century later.

Many say that the Franks originally came from Pannonia and first inhabited the banks of the Rhine. Then they crossed the river, marched through Thuringia, and set up in each county district [pagus] and each city [civitas] longhaired kings chosen from their foremost and most noble family.

— Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks (6th c. CE)[14]

The author of the Chronicle of Fredegar claimed that the Franks came originally from Troy and quoted the works of Virgil and Hieronymus:

Blessed Jerome has written about the ancient kings of the Franks, whose story was first told by the poet Virgil: their first king was Priam and, after Troy was captured by trickery, they departed. Afterwards they had as king Friga, then they split into two parts, the first going into Macedonia, the second group, which left Asia with Friga were called the Frigii, settled on the banks of the Danube and the Ocean Sea. Again splitting into, two groups, half of them entered Europe with their king Francio. After crossing Europe with their wives and children they occupied the banks of the Rhine and not far from the Rhine began to build the city of "Troy" (Colonia Traiana-Xanten).

— Fredegar, Chronicle of Fredegar (7th c. CE)[14]

According to historian Patrick J. Geary, those two stories are "alike in betraying both the fact that the Franks knew little about their background and that they may have felt some inferiority in comparison with other peoples of antiquity who possessed an ancient name and glorious tradition. [...] Both legends are of course equally fabulous for, even more than most barbarian peoples, the Franks possessed no common history, ancestry, or tradition of a heroic age of migration. Like their Alemannic neighbours, they were by the sixth century a fairly recent creation, a coalition of Rhenish tribal groups who long maintained separate identities and institutions."[15]

The other work, the Liber Historiae Francorum, previously known as Gesta regum Francorum before its republication in 1888 by Bruno Krusch,

River Don in Russia and on to Pannonia, which is on the River Danube, settling near the Sea of Azov. There they founded a city called Sicambria. (The Sicambri were the most well-known tribe in the Frankish homeland in the time of the early Roman empire, still remembered though defeated and dispersed long before the Frankish name appeared.) The Trojans joined the Roman army in accomplishing the task of driving their enemies into the marshes of Mæotis, for which they received the name of Franks (meaning "fierce"). A decade later the Romans killed Priam and drove away Marcomer and Sunno, the sons of Priam and Antenor, and the other Franks.[17][18]

History

Early history

The most important contemporary sources mentioning the early Franks include the

Augustan History, a collection of biographies of the Roman emperors. None of these sources presents a detailed list of which tribes or parts of tribes became Frankish, or concerning the politics and history, but to quote James (1988
, p. 35):

A Roman marching-song joyfully recorded in a fourth-century source, is associated with the 260s; but the Franks' first appearance in a contemporary source was in 289. [...] The
Chattuarri from 306 to 315, the Salii or Salians from 357, and the Amsivarii and Tubantes
from c. 364 to 375.

The Franks were described in Roman texts both as allies (laeti) and enemies (dediticii). About the year 260 one group of Franks penetrated as far as Tarragona in present-day Spain, where they plagued the region for about a decade before they were subdued and expelled by the Romans. In 287 or 288, the Roman Caesar Maximian forced a Frankish leader Genobaud and his people to surrender without a fight.

In 288 the emperor

Toxandria.[22] Eumenius mentions Constantius as having "killed, expelled, captured [and] kidnapped" the Franks who had settled there and others who had crossed the Rhine, using the term nationes Franciae for the first time. It seems likely that the term Frank in this first period had a broader meaning, sometimes including coastal Frisii.[23]

The Life of Aurelian, which was possibly written by Vopiscus, mentions that in 328, Frankish raiders were captured by the 6th Legion stationed at Mainz. As a result of this incident, 700 Franks were killed and 300 were sold into slavery.[24][25] Frankish incursions over the Rhine became so frequent that the Romans began to settle the Franks on their borders in order to control them.

Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana, showing Francia at the top

The Franks appear to be mentioned in the

Roman roads. (It is a 13th-century copy of a 4th or 5th century document that reflects information from the 3rd century.) Several tribal names are written at the mouth of the Rhine. One of these says Hamavi; Quietpranci, which is generally believed to mean 'The Chamavi who are Franks' (despite the letter p). Further up the river the word "Francia" is clearly marked, indicating a country name on the bank opposite to Nijmegen and Xanten
.

Salians

Germanic tribes in the 5th century

The Salians were first mentioned by

Texuandria as fœderati within the Empire, having moved there from the Rhine-Maas delta.[28][29] The 5th century Notitia Dignitatum
lists a group of soldiers as Salii.

Some decades later, Franks in the same region, possibly the Salians, controlled the River Scheldt and were disrupting transport links to Britain in the English Channel. Although Roman forces managed to pacify them, they failed to expel the Franks, who continued to be feared as pirates.

The Salians are generally seen as the predecessors of the Franks who pushed southwestwards into what is now modern France, who eventually came to be ruled by the Merovingians (see below). This is because when the Merovingian dynasty published the Salian law (

Belgica Secunda and possibly other areas.[30]

Records of Childeric show him to have been active together with Roman forces in the Loire region, quite far to the south. His descendants came to rule Roman Gaul all the way to there, and this became the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, the basis of what would become medieval France. Childeric's son Clovis I also took control of the more independent Frankish kingdoms east of the Silva Carbonaria and Belgica II. This later became the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia, where the early legal code was referred to as "Ripuarian".

Ripuarians

Approximate location of the original Frankish tribes in the 3rd century

The Rhineland Franks who lived near the stretch of the Rhine from roughly

Lex Ribuaria
, but it probably applied in all the older Frankish lands, including the original Salian areas.

Battle of Châlons in 451, and distinct from the "Franci": "Hi enim affuerunt auxiliares: Franci, Sarmatae, Armoriciani, Liticiani, Burgundiones, Saxones, Riparii, Olibriones ..." [31] But these Riparii ("river dwellers") are today not considered to be Ripuarian Franks, but rather a known military unit based on the Rhône.[32]

The Ripuarian territory on both sides of the Rhine thus became a central part of Merovingian Austrasia. This stretched to include Roman Germania Inferior (later Germania Secunda), which included the original Salian and Ripuarian lands, and roughly equates to medieval Lower Lotharingia. It also included Gallia Belgica Prima (roughly medieval Upper Lotharingia), and further lands on the east bank of the Rhine.

Merovingian kingdom (481–751)

A 6th–7th century necklace of glass and ceramic beads with a central amethyst bead. Similar necklaces have been found in the graves of Frankish women in the Rhineland.
A 6th century bow fibula found in north-eastern France and the Rhineland. They were worn by Frankish noblewomen in pairs at the shoulder or as belt ornaments.

Gregory of Tours (Book II) reported that small Frankish kingdoms existed during the fifth century around

Belgica Secunda, by its spiritual leader in the time of Clovis, Saint Remigius
.

Clovis later defeated the son of Aegidius,

and was in a position to make the city of Paris his capital. He became the first king of all Franks in 509, after he had conquered Cologne.

Clovis I divided his realm between his four sons, who united to defeat Burgundy in 534. Internecine feuding occurred during the reigns of the brothers

Arnulfing
clan of Austrasia ensured that the political centre of gravity in the kingdom gradually shifted eastwards to the Rhineland.

The Frankish realm was reunited in 613 by

rois fainéants. After the Battle of Tertry in 687, each mayor of the palace, who had formerly been the king's chief household official, effectively held power until in 751, with the approval of the Pope and the nobility, Pepin the Short deposed the last Merovingian king Childeric III and had himself crowned. This inaugurated a new dynasty, the Carolingians
.

Carolingian kingdom (751–987)

The unification achieved by the Merovingians ensured the continuation of what has become known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The Carolingian Empire was beset by internecine warfare, but the combination of Frankish rule and Roman Christianity ensured that it was fundamentally united. Frankish government and culture depended very much upon each ruler and his aims and so each region of the empire developed differently. Although a ruler's aims depended upon the political alliances of his family, the leading families of Francia shared the same basic beliefs and ideas of government, which had both Roman and Germanic roots.[citation needed]

The Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. With the coronation of their ruler Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in 800 AD, he and his successors were recognised as legitimate successors to the emperors of the Western Roman Empire. As such, the Carolingian Empire gradually came to be seen in the West as a continuation of the ancient Roman Empire. This empire would give rise to several successor states, including France, the Holy Roman Empire and Burgundy, though the Frankish identity remained most closely identified with France.

After the death of

Frankish Empire
was now split between Louis' three sons.

Military

Participation in the Roman army

Germanic peoples, including those tribes in the Rhine delta that later became the Franks, are known to have served in the Roman army since the days of

Ricomer and Bauto held command positions in the Roman army during the mid 4th century. From the narrative of Ammianus Marcellinus
it is evident that both Frankish and Alamannic tribal armies were organised along Roman lines.

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 until the days of the scholar Procopius (c. 500 – c. 565), more than a century after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, who wrote describing the former Arborychoi, having merged with the Franks, retaining their legionary organization in the style of their forefathers during Roman times.[35] The Franks under the Merovingians melded Germanic custom with Romanised 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.

Military practices of the early Franks

The primary sources for Frankish military custom and armament are

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 handle was very short. And they are accustomed always to throw these axes at a signal in the first charge and thus to shatter the shields of the enemy and kill the men.[36]

His contemporary, Agathias, who based his own writings upon the tropes laid down by Procopius, says:

The military equipment of this people [the Franks] is very simple ... They do not know the use of the

hand to hand combat.[37]

In the Strategikon, supposedly written by the emperor Maurice, or in his time, the Franks are lumped together with the Lombards under the heading of the "fair-haired" peoples.

If they are hard pressed in cavalry actions, they dismount at a single prearranged sign and line up on foot. Although only a few against many horsemen, they do not shrink from the fight. They are armed with shields, lances, and short swords slung from their shoulders. They prefer fighting on foot and rapid charges. [...] Either on horseback or on foot they are impetuous and un- disciplined in charging, as if they were the only people in the world who are not cowards.[38]

While the above quotations have been used as a statement of the military practices of the Frankish nation in the 6th century and have even been extrapolated to the entire period preceding

Scramasaxes
and arrowheads are numerous in Frankish graves even though the Byzantine historians do not assign them to the Franks.

The frontispiece of Gregory's Historia Francorum

The evidence of Gregory and of 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,[39] 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.[40]

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 5th and early 6th 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 and laeti, who were descendants of Roman soldiers with Germanic origin, granted a quasi-national status under Frankish law. These milites continued to be commanded by tribunes.[41] 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, his sworn followers, who were generally 'old soldiers' in service away from court.

antrustiones (senior soldiers who were aristocrats in military service) and pueri (junior soldiers and not aristocrats).[43]
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 6th century, during the wars instigated by

stem duchies on the orders of a monarch. The Saxons, Alemanni and Thuringii all had the institution of the levy and the Frankish monarchs could depend upon their levies until the mid-7th 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). All the forms of the levy gradually disappeared, however, in the course of the 7th century after the reign of

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 8th century. In the final half of the 7th century and first half of the 8th 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 8th century.

Strategy, tactics and equipment

Merovingian armies used coats of mail, helmets, shields, lances, swords, bows and arrows and war horses. The armament of private armies resembled those of the Gallo-Roman potentiatores of the late Empire. A strong element of Alanic cavalry settled in Armorica influenced the fighting style of the Bretons down into the 12th 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 ineffective weapons, such as farming implements. The peoples east of the Rhine – Franks, Saxons and even Wends – who were sometimes called upon to serve, wore rudimentary armour and carried weapons such as spears and axes. Few of these men were mounted.[citation needed]

Merovingian society had a militarised nature. The Franks called annual meetings every

Marchfeld (1 March), when the king and his nobles assembled in large open fields and determined their targets for the next campaigning season. The meetings were a show of strength on behalf of the monarch and a way for him to retain loyalty among his troops.[44] In their civil wars, the Merovingian kings concentrated on the holding of fortified places and the use of siege engines
. In 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 political control over their neighbours.

Tactically, the Merovingians borrowed heavily from the Romans, especially regarding siege warfare. Their battle tactics were highly flexible and were designed to meet the specific circumstances of a battle. The tactic of subterfuge was employed endlessly. Cavalry formed a large segment of an army[

Danes by Theuderic I in 515 involved ocean-worthy ships and rivercraft were used on the Loire, Rhône and Rhine
.

Culture

Language

In a modern

Old Low Franconian) being the term used to differentiate between the affected and non-affected variants following the aforementioned Second Germanic consonant shift.[46]

The Frankish language has not been directly attested, apart from a very small number of

Gallo-Roman vocabulary and phonology, have long been questions of scholarly debate.[49] Frankish influence is thought to include the designations of the four cardinal directions: nord "north", sud "south", est "east" and ouest "west" and at least an additional 1000 stem words.[48]

Although the Franks would eventually conquer all of

Urban T. Holmes has proposed that a Germanic language continued to be spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Northern Neustria as late as the 850s, and that it completely disappeared as a spoken language during the 10th century from regions where only French is spoken today.[50]

The Germanic tribes who were called Franks in

Istvaeonic cultural-linguistic grouping.[51][52][53]

Art and architecture

A chalice from the Treasure of Gourdon
Palatine chapel at Aachen
, Germany.

Early Frankish art and architecture belongs to a phase known as

pre-Romanesque. Very little Merovingian architecture has been preserved. The earliest churches seem to have been timber-built, with larger examples being of a basilica type. The most completely surviving example, a baptistery in Poitiers, is a building with three apses of a Gallo-Roman style. A number of small baptistries can be seen in Southern France
: as these fell out of fashion, they were not updated and have subsequently survived as they were.

Jewelry (such as brooches), weapons (including swords with decorative hilts) and clothing (such as capes and sandals) have been found in a number of grave sites. The grave of Queen

Late Antiquity and a lesser degree of skill and sophistication in design and manufacture than comparable works from the British Isles. So little has survived, however, that the best quality of work from this period may not be represented.[54]

The objects produced by the main centres of the Carolingian Renaissance, which represent a transformation from that of the earlier period, have survived in far greater quantity. The arts were lavishly funded and encouraged by Charlemagne, using imported artists where necessary, and Carolingian developments were decisive for the future course of

St Gall, or the old Cologne Cathedral, since rebuilt. These large structures and complexes made frequent use of towers.[55]

Religion

A sizeable portion of the Frankish aristocracy quickly followed Clovis in converting to Christianity (the Frankish church of the Merovingians). The conversion of all under Frankish rule required a considerable amount of time and effort.

Paganism

Drawing of golden bees or flies that was discovered in the tomb of Childeric I

Echoes of

Germanic polytheism. It was highly ritualistic. 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.[56] Most of their gods were linked 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 connections with specific objects, in contrast to the God of Christianity.[57]

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. There is a likely connection with the bees to the traditional Frankish weapon, the angon (meaning "sting"), from its distinctive spearhead. It is possible that the fleur-de-lis is derived from the angon.

Christianity

Some Franks, like the 4th century usurper

Christianised Germanic tribe without a predominantly Arian
aristocracy and this led to a naturally amicable relationship between the Catholic Church and the increasingly powerful Franks.

Although many of the Frankish aristocracy quickly followed Clovis in converting to Christianity, the conversion of all his subjects was only achieved after considerable effort and, in some regions, a period of over two centuries.[59] The Chronicle of St. Denis relates that, following Clovis' conversion, a number of pagans who were unhappy with this turn of events rallied around Ragnachar, who had played an important role in Clovis' initial rise to power. Although the text remains unclear as to the precise pretext, Clovis had Ragnachar executed.[60] Remaining pockets of resistance were overcome region by region, primarily due to the work of an expanding network of monasteries.[61]

Gelasian Sacramentary, c. 750

The Merovingian Church was shaped by both internal and external forces. It had to come to terms with an established Gallo-Roman hierarchy that resisted changes to its culture, Christianise pagan sensibilities and suppress their expression, provide a new theological basis for Merovingian forms of kingship deeply rooted in pagan Germanic tradition and accommodate Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionary activities and papal requirements.[62] The Carolingian reformation of monasticism and church-state relations was the culmination of the Frankish Church.

The increasingly wealthy Merovingian elite endowed many monasteries, including that of the Irish missionary

Roman rite
. When the mayors took over, the Church was supportive and an Emperor crowned by the Pope was much more to their liking.

Laws

As with other Germanic peoples, the laws of the Franks were memorised by "rachimburgs", who were analogous to the

River Loire and the clergy remained subject to traditional Roman law.[65] Germanic law was overwhelmingly concerned with the protection of individuals and less concerned with protecting the interests 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".[66]

Crusaders and other Western Europeans as "Franks"

Carolingian Empire (green) in 814

The term Frank has been used by many of the Eastern Orthodox and Muslim neighbours of medieval Latin Christendom (and beyond, such as in Asia) as a general synonym for a European from Western and Central Europe, areas that followed the Latin rites of Christianity under the authority of the Pope in Rome.[67] Another term with similar use was Latins.

Modern historians[

Rûmi ("Roman") for Orthodox Christians. On a number of Greek islands, Catholics are still referred to as Φράγκοι (Frangoi) or "Franks", for instance on Syros, where they are called Φραγκοσυριανοί (Frangosyrianoi). The period of Crusader rule in Greek lands is known to this day as the Frankokratia
("rule of the Franks").

During the

.

The Chinese called the Portuguese Folangji 佛郎機 ("Franks") in the 1520s at the

Battle of Xicaowan. Some other varieties of Mandarin Chinese
pronounced the characters as Fah-lan-ki.

During the reign of Chingtih (Zhengde) (1506), foreigners from the west called Fah-lan-ki (or Franks), who said they had

Bogue
, and by their tremendously loud guns shook the place far and near. This was reported at court, and an order returned to drive them away immediately, and stop the trade.

— Samuel Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Education, Social Life, Arts, Religion, &c. of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants, 2 vol. (Wiley & Putnam, 1848).

The Mediterranean Lingua Franca (or "Frankish language") was a pidgin first spoken by 11th century European Christians and Muslims in Mediterranean ports that remained in use until the 19th century.

Examples of derived words include:

In the Thai usage, the word can refer to any European person. When the presence of

US soldiers during the Vietnam War placed Thai people in contact with African Americans, they (and people of African ancestry in general) came to be called Farang dam ("Black Farang", ฝรั่งดำ). Such words sometimes also connote things, plants or creatures introduced by Europeans/Franks. For example, in Khmer, môn barang, literally "French Chicken", refers to a turkey and in Thai, Farang is the name both for Europeans and for the guava fruit, introduced by Portuguese traders over 400 years ago. In contemporary Israel, the Yiddish[citation needed] word פרענק (Frenk) has, by a curious etymological development, come to refer to Mizrahi Jews in Modern Hebrew and carries a strong pejorative connotation.[76]

Some linguists (among them Drs. Jan Tent and Paul Geraghty) have suggested that the Samoan and generic Polynesian term for Europeans, Palagi (pronounced Puh-LANG-ee) or Papalagi, might also be cognate, possibly a loan term gathered by early contact between Pacific islanders and Malays.[77]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Frank | People, Definition, & Maps". Britannica. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
  2. .
  3. .
  4. .
  5. ^ Perry 1857, p. 42.
  6. ^ Examples: "frank". American Heritage Dictionary. "frank". Webster's Third New International Dictionary. And so on.
  7. ^ Robert K. Barnhart, ed. Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (Bronx, NY: H. W. Wilson, 1988), 406.
  8. ^ Murray, Alexander Callander (2000). From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader. Broadview Press. p. 1. The etymology of 'Franci' is uncertain ('the fierce ones' is the favourite explanation), but the name is undoubtedly of Germanic origin.
  9. ^ Panegyric on Constantine, xi.
  10. ^ Howorth 1884, p. 217.
  11. ^ Perry 1857, p. 43.
  12. ^ James 1988, p. 187.
  13. .
  14. ^ a b Geary 1988, p. 77.
  15. ^ Geary 1988, pp. 77–78.
  16. ^ Krusch, Bruno (ed.) Liber Historicae Francorum. Mon. Germ. Hist., Script. Rer. Meroving. II, 215-238, Hanover, 1888. See also fr:Liber Historiae Francorum
  17. ^ Dörler 2013, pp. 25–32.
  18. ^ Liber Historiae Francorum.
  19. ^ Williams, 50–51.
  20. ^ Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 7.
  21. ^ MacGillivray Nicol, Donald; Matthews, J.F. "Constantine I". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  22. ^ Howorth 1884, pp. 215–216
  23. .
  24. ^ As the 6th Gallicana is only known from this work, its existence is sometimes questioned along with the genuineness of the work; the question remains unanswered, however: Lendering, Jona. "Legio VI Gallicana". Livius.org. Archived from the original on 2012-10-14. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  25. ^ Howorth 1884, p. 213.
  26. ^ Res Gestae, XVII.8.
  27. ^ The Latin, petit primos omnium Francos, eos videlicet quos consuetudo Salios appellavit is slightly ambiguous, resulting in an interpretation "first of all he proceeded against the Franks ..." with "first" presented improperly as an adjective instead of an adverb. As it stands, the Salians are the first Franks of all; if an adverb is intended, the Franks are they who are the Salians.
  28. Previté-Orton
    . The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, vol. I. pp. 51–52.
  29. ^ Pfister 1911, p. 296.
  30. ^ Gregory of Tours was apparently skeptical of Childeric's connection to Chlodio, and only says that some say there was such a connection. Concerning Belgica Secunda, which Chlodio had conquered first for the Franks, Bishop Remigius, the leader of the church in the same province, stated in a letter to Childeric's son Clovis that "Great news has reached us that you have taken up the administration of Belgica Secunda. It is no surprise that you have begun to be as your parents ever were." (Epistolae Austriacae, translated by AC Murray, and quoted in Murray's "From Roman to Merovingian Gaul" p. 260). This is normally interpreted to mean that Childeric also had this administration. (See for example Wood "The Merovingian Kingdoms" p. 41.) Both the passage of Gregory and the letter of Remigius note the nobility of Clovis's mother when discussing his connection to this area.
  31. ^ Paragraph 191.
  32. ^ Nonn "Die Franken", p. 85: "Heute dürfte feststehen, dass es sich dabei um römische Einheiten handelt; die in der Gallia riparensis, einem Militärbezirk im Rhônegebiet, stationiert waren, der in der Notitia dignitatum bezeugt ist."
  33. ^ Halsall (2007, p. 267)
  34. ^ James (1988, p. 70)
  35. .
  36. ^ Procopius HW, VI, xxv, 1ff, quoted in Bachrach (1970), 436.
  37. ^ Agathias, Hist., II, 5, quoted in Bachrach (1970), 436–437.
  38. ^ Maurice's Strategikon. Handbook Of Byzantine Military Strategy. Translated by Dennis, George T. p. 119.
  39. ^ a b James, Edward, The Franks. Oxford; Blackwell 1988, p. 211
  40. ^ Bachrach (1970), 440.
  41. .
  42. ^ Halsall, Guy. Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450–900 (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 48
  43. ^ Halsall, pp. 48–49
  44. ^ Halsall, p. 43
  45. ^ Rheinischer Fächer – Karte des Landschaftsverband Rheinland "LVR Alltagskultur im Rheinland". Archived from the original on February 15, 2009. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
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  48. ^ a b "Romance languages | Description, Origin, Characteristics, Map, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. 21 July 2023.
  49. ^ Noske 2007, p. 1.
  50. ^ R.L. Stockman: Low German, University of Michigan, 1998, p.46.
  51. ^ K. Reynolds Brown: Guide to Provincial Roman and Barbarian Metalwork and Jewelry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981, p.10.
  52. ^ H. Schutz: Tools, Weapons and Ornaments: Germanic Material Culture in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400-750. BRILL, 2001, p.42.
  53. ^ Eduard Syndicus; Early Christian Art; pp. 164–174; Burns & Oates, London, 1962
  54. ^ Schutz, 152.
  55. ^ Gregory of Tours, in his History of the Franks, relates: "Now this people seems to have always been addicted to heathen worship, and they did not know God, but made themselves images of the woods and the waters, of birds and beasts and of the other elements as well. They were wont to worship these as God and to offer sacrifice to them." (Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, Book I.10 Archived 2014-08-14 at the Wayback Machine)
  56. ^ Gregory of Tours. "Book II, 31". History of the Franks. Archived from the original on 2014-08-14. Retrieved 2007-07-20.
  57. ; pp. 441–446
  58. ^ The Chronicle of St. Denis, I.18–19, 23 Archived 2009-11-25 at the Wayback Machine
  59. ^ Lorenz (2001:442)
  60. ^ J.M. Wallace-Hadrill covers these areas in The Frankish Church (Oxford History of the Christian Church; Oxford:Clarendon Press) 1983.
  61. ^ Michel Rouche, 435–436.
  62. ^ Michel Rouch, 421.
  63. ^ Michel Rouche, 421–422.
  64. ^ Michel Rouche, 422–423
  65. ^ König, Daniel G., Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West. Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Western Europe, Oxford: OUP, 2015, chap. 6, p. 289-230.[page needed]
  66. ^ Igor de Rachewiltz – Turks in China under the Mongols, in: China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries, p. 281
  67. ^ Nandini Das - Courting India, p. 107
  68. ^ "FİRƏNG". Azərbaycan dilinin izahlı lüğəti [Explanatory dictionary of the Azerbaijani language] (in Azerbaijani). Archived from the original on 15 August 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2020 – via Obastan. Danışıq dilində "fransız" mənasında işlədilir.
  69. ^ Rashid al-din Fazl Allâh, quoted in Karl Jahn (ed.) Histoire Universelle de Rasid al-Din Fadl Allah Abul=Khair: I. Histoire des Francs (Texte Persan avec traduction et annotations), Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1951. (Source: M. Ashtiany)
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  71. .
  72. .
  73. .
  74. ^ Batya Shimony (2011) On “Holocaust Envy” in Mizrahi Literature, Dapim:Studies on the Holocaust, 25:1, 239-271, DOI: 10.1080/23256249.2011.10744411. Page 241: "Frenk [a pejorative slang term for Mizrahi]"
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