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THE FRANKS BEFORE CLOVIS

Tacitus, in the de Moribus Germanorum, tells us that the Germans claimed to be descended from a common ancestor, Mannus, son of the earth-born god Tuisco. Mannus, according to the legend, had three sons, from whom sprang three groups of tribes: the Istaevones, who dwelt along the banks of the Rhine; the Ingaevones, whose seat was on the shores of the two seas, the Oceanus Germanicus (North Sea) and the Mare Suevicum (the Baltic), and in the Cimbric peninsula between; and, lastly, more to the east and south, on the banks of the Elbe and the Danube, the Herminones. After indicating this general division, Tacitus, in the latter part of his work, enumerates about forty tribes, whose customs presented, no doubt, a strong general resemblance, but whose institutions and organization showed differences of a sufficiently marked character.

When we pass from the first century to the fifth, we find that the names of the Germanic peoples given by Tacitus have completely disappeared. Not only is there no mention of Istaevones, Ingaevones, and Herminones, but there is no trace of individual tribes such as the Chatti, Chauci, and Cherusci; their names are wholly unknown to the writers of the fourth and fifth centuries. In their place we find these writers using other designations: they speak of Franks, Saxons, Alemans. The writers of the Merovingian period not unnaturally supposed that these were the names of new peoples, who had invaded Germany and made good their footing there in the interval. This hypothesis found favor especially with regard to the Franks. As early as Gregory of Tours, we find mention of a tradition according to which the Franks had come from Pannonia, had first established themselves on the right bank of the Rhine, and had subsequently crossed the river. In the chronicler known under the name of Fredegar the Franks are represented as descended from the Trojans. “Their first king was Priam; afterwards they had a king named Friga; later, they divided into two parts, one of which migrated into Macedonia and received the name of Macedonians. Those who remained were driven out of Phrygia and wandered about, with their wives and children, for many years. They chose for themselves a king named Francion, and from him took the name of Franks. Francion made war upon many peoples, and after devastating Asia finally passed over into Europe, and established himself between the Rhine, the Danube and the sea”. The writer of the Liber Historiae combines the statements of Gregory of Tours and of the pseudo-Fredegar, and, with a fine disregard of chronology, relates that, after the fall of Troy, one part of the Trojan people, under Priam and Antenor, came by way of the Black Sea to the mouth of the Danube, sailed up the river to Pannonia, and founded a city called Sicambria. The Trojans, so this anonymous writer continues, were defeated by the Emperor Valentinian, who laid them under tribute and named them Franks, that is wild men (feros), because of their boldness and hardness of heart. After a time the Franks slew the Roman officials whose duty it was to demand the tribute from them, and, on the death of Priam, they quitted Sicambria, and came to the neighborhood of the Rhine. There they chose themselves a king named Pharamond, son of Marcomir. This naïf legend, half-popular, half-learned, was accepted as fact throughout the Middle Ages. From it alone comes the name of Pharamond, which in most histories heads the list of the kings of France. In reality, there is nothing to prove that the Franks, any more than the Saxons or the Alemans, were races who came in from without, driven into Germany by an invasion of their own territory.

Some modern scholars have thought that the origin of the Franks, and of other races who make their appearance between the third century and the fifth, might be traced to a curious custom of the Germanic tribes. The nobles, whom Tacitus calls principes, attached to themselves a certain number of comrades, comites, whom they bound to fealty by a solemn oath. At the head of these followers they made pillaging expeditions, and levied war upon the neighboring peoples, without however involving the community to which they belonged. The comes was ready to die for his chief; to desert him would have been an infamy. The chief, on his part, protected his follower, and gave him a war-horse, spear, etc. as the reward of his loyalty. Thus there were formed, outside the regular State, bands of warriors united together by the closest ties. These bands, so it is said, soon formed, in the interior of Germany, what were virtually new States, and the former princeps simply took the title of king. Such, according to the theory, was the origin of the Franks, the Alemans, and the Saxons. But this theory, however ingenious, cannot be accepted. The bands were formed exclusively of young men of an age to bear arms; among the Franks we find from the first old men, women, and children. The bands were organized solely for war; whereas the most ancient laws of the Franks have much to say about the ownership of land, and about crimes against property; they represent the Franks as an organized nation with regular institutions.

The Franks, then, did not come into Germany from without; and it would be rash to seek their origin in the custom of forming bands. That being so, only one hypothesis remains open. From the second century to the fourth the Germans lived in a continual state of unrest. The different communities ceaselessly made war on one another and destroyed one another. Civil war also devastated many of them. The ancient communities were thus broken up, and from their remains were formed new communities which received new names. Thus is to be explained why it is that the nomenclature of the Germanic peoples in the fifth century differs so markedly from that which Tacitus has recorded. But neighboring tribes presented, despite their constant antagonisms, considerable resemblances. They had a common dialect and similar habits and customs. They sometimes made temporary alliances, though holding themselves free to quarrel again before long and make war on one another with the utmost ferocity. In time, groups of these tribes came to be called by generic names, and this is doubtless the character of the names Franks, Alemans, and Saxons. These names were not applied, in the fourth and fifth centuries, to a single tribe, but to a group of neighboring tribes who presented, along with real differences, certain common characteristics.

It appears that the peoples who lived along the right bank of the Rhine, to the north of the Main, received the name of Franks; those who had established themselves between the Ems and the Elbe, that of Saxons (Ptolemy mentions the Saxones as inhabitants of the Cimbric peninsula, and perhaps the name of this petty tribe had passed to the whole group); while those whose territory lay to the south of the Main and who at some time or other had overflowed into the agri decumates (the present Baden) were called Alemans. It is possible that, after all, we should see in these three peoples, as Waitz has suggested, the Istaevones, Ingaevones, and Herminones of Tacitus.

But it must be understood that between the numerous tribes known under each of the general names of Franks, Saxons, and Alemans there was no common bond. They did not constitute a single State but groups of States without federal connection or common organization. Sometimes two, three, even a considerable number of tribes, might join together to prosecute a war in common, but when the war was over the link snapped and the tribes fell asunder again.

Franks and Romans. 240-392

Documentary evidence enables us to trace how the generic name Franci came to be given to certain tribes between the Main and the North Sea, for we find these tribes designated now by the ancient name which was known to Tacitus and again by the later name. In Peutinger's chart we find Chamavi qui et Pranci and there is no doubt that we should read qui et Franci. The Chamavi inhabited the country between the Yssel and the Ems; later on, we find them a little further south, on the banks of the Rhine in Hamaland, and their laws were collected in the ninth century in the document known as the Lex Francorum Chamavorum. Along with the Chamavi we may reckon among the Franks the Attuarii or Chattuarii. We read in Ammianus Marcellinus (xx. 10) Rheno transmisso, regionem pervasit (Julian in AD 360) Francorum quos Atthuarios vocant. Later, the pagus Attuariorum will correspond to the country of Emmerich, of Cleves, and of Xanten. We may note that in the Middle Ages there was to be found in Burgundy, in the neighborhood of Dijon, a pagus Attuariorum, and it is very probable that a portion of this tribe settled at this spot in the course of the fifth century. The Bructeri, the Ampsivarii, and the Chatti were, like the Chamavi, reckoned as Franks. They are mentioned as such in a well-known passage of Sulpicius Alexander which is cited by Gregory of Tours (Historia Francorum, II. 9). Arbogast, a barbarian general in the service of Rome, desires to take vengeance on the Franks and their chiefs—subreguli—Sunno and Marcomir. It is this Marcomir, chief of the Ampsivarii and Chatti, whom the author of the Liber Historiae makes the father of Pharamond, though he has nothing whatever to do with the Salian Franks.

Thus it is evident that the name Franks was given to a group of tribes, not to a single tribe. The earliest historical mention of the name may be that in Peutinger's chart, supposing, at least, that the words et Pranci are not a later interpolation. The earliest mention in a literary source is in the Vita Aureliani of Vopiscus, cap. 7. In the year 240, Aurelian, who was then only a military tribune, immediately after defeating the Franks in the neighbourhood of Mainz, was marching against the Persians, and his soldiers as they marched chanted this refrain:

Mille Sarmatas, mille Francos semel et semel occidimus;

Mille Persas quaerimus.

It would be in any case impossible to follow the history of all these Frankish tribes for want of evidence, but even if their history was known it would be of quite secondary interest, for it would have only a remote connection with the history of France. Offshoots from these various tribes no doubt established themselves sporadically here and there in ancient Gaul, as in the case of the Attuarii. It was not however by the Franks as a whole, but by a single tribe, the Salian Franks, that Gaul was to be conquered; it was their king who was destined to be the ruler of this noble territory. It is therefore to the Salian Franks that we must devote our attention.

The Salian Franks. 358-400

The Salian Franks are mentioned for the first time in AD 358. In that year Julian, as yet only a Caesar, marched against them. What is the origin of the name? It was long customary to derive it from the river Yssel (Isala), or from Saalland to the south of the Zuiderzee; but it seems much more probable that the name comes from sal (the salt sea). The Salian Franks at first lived by the shores of the North Sea, and were known by this name in contradistinction to the Ripuarian Franks, who lived on the banks of the Rhine. All their oldest legends speak of the sea, and the name of one of their earliest kings, Merovech, signifies sea-born.

From the shores of the North Sea the Salian Franks had advanced little by little towards the south, and at the period when Ammianus Marcellinus mentions them they occupied Toxandria, that is to say the region to the south of the Meuse, between that river and the Scheldt. Julian completely defeated the Salian Franks, but he left them in possession of their territory of Toxandria. Only, instead of occupying it as conquerors, they held it as foederati, agreeing to defend it against all other invaders. They furnished also to the armies of Rome soldiers whom we hear of as serving in far distant regions. In the Notitia Dignitatum, in which we find a sort of Army List of the Empire drawn up about the beginning of the fifth century, there is mention of Salii senioresand Salii juniores, and we also find Salii figuring in the auxilia palatina.

At the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century the Salian Franks established in Toxandria ceased to recognize the authority of Rome, and began to assert their independence. It was at this period that the Roman civilization disappeared from these regions. The Latin language ceased to be spoken and the Germanic tongue was alone employed. Even at the present day the inhabitants of these districts speak Flemish, a Germanic dialect. The place-names were altered and took on a Germanic form, with the terminations hem, ghem, seele, and zele, indicating a dwelling-place, loo wood, dal valley. The Christian religion retreated along with the Roman civilization, and those regions reverted to paganism. For a long time, it would seem, these Salian Franks were held in check by the great Roman road which led, by way of Arras, Cambrai, and Bavay, to Cologne, and which was protected by numerous forts.

Clodion, Merovech. 431-451

The Salians were subdivided into a number of tribes each holding a pagus. Each of these divisions had a king who was chosen from the most noble family, and who was distinguished from his fellow-Franks by his long hair—criniti reges. The first of these kings to whom we have a distinct reference bore the name of Clogio or Clojo (Clodion). He had his seat at Dispargum, the exact position of which has not been determined—it may have been Diest in Brabant. Desiring to extend the borders of the Salian Franks he advanced southwards in the direction of the great Roman road. Before reaching it, however, he was surprised, near the town of Helena (Hélesmes-Nord), when engaged in celebrating the betrothal of one of his warriors to a fair-haired maiden, by Aetius, who exercised in the name of Rome the military command in Gaul. He sustained a crushing defeat; the victor carried off his chariots and took prisoner even the trembling bride. This was about the year 431. But Clodion was not long in recovering from this defeat. He sent spies into the neighborhood of Cambrai, defeated the Romans, and captured the town. He had thus gained command of the great Roman road. Then, without encountering opposition, he advanced as far as the Somme, which marked the limit of Frankish territory. About this period Tournai on the Scheldt seems to have become the capital of the Salian Franks.

Clodion was succeeded in the kingship of the Franks by Merovech. All our histories of France assert that he was the son of Clodion; but Gregory of Tours simply says that he belonged to the family of that king, and he does not give even this statement as certain; it is maintained, he says, by certain persons. We should perhaps refer to Merovech certain statements of the Greek historian Priscus, who lived about the middle of the fifth century. On the death of a king of the Franks, he says, his two sons disputed the succession. The elder betook himself to Attila to seek his support; the younger preferred to claim the protection of the Emperor, and journeyed to Rome. “I saw him there”, he says; “he was still quite young. His fair hair, thick and very long, fell over his shoulders”. Aetius, who was at this time in Rome, received him graciously, loaded him with presents, and sent him back as a friend and ally. Certainly, in the sequel the Salian Franks responded to the appeal of Aetius and mustered to oppose the great invasion of Attila, fighting in the ranks of the Roman army at the battle of the Mauriac Plain (AD 451). The Vita Lupi, in which some confidence may be placed, names King Merovech among the combatants.

Various legends have gathered round the figure of Merovech. The pseudo-Fredegar narrates that as the mother of this prince was sitting by the sea-shore a monster sprang from the waves and overpowered her; and from this union was born Merovech. Evidently the legend owes its origin to an attempt to explain the etymology of the name Merovech, son of the sea. In consequence of this legend some historians have maintained that Merovech was a wholly mythical personage and they have sought out some remarkable etymologies to explain the name Merovingian, which is given to the kings of the first dynasty; but in our opinion the existence of this prince is sufficiently proved, and we interpret the term Merovingian as meaning descendants of Merovech.

Childeric. 463

Merovech had a son named Childeric. The relationship is attested in precise terms by Gregory of Tours who says cujus filius fuit Childericus. In addition to the legendary narratives about Childeric which Gregory gathered from oral tradition, we have also some very precise details which the celebrated historian borrowed from annals now no longer extant. The legendary tale is as follows. Childeric, who was extremely licentious, dishonored the daughters of many of the Franks. His subjects therefore rose in their wrath, drove him from the throne, and even threatened to kill him. He fled to Thuringia—it is uncertain whether this was Thuringia beyond the Rhine, or whether there was a Thuringia on the left bank of the river—but he left behind him a faithful friend whom he charged to win back the allegiance of the Franks. Childeric and his friend broke a gold coin in two and each took a part. "When I send you my part", said the friend, "and the pieces fit together to form one whole you may safely return to your country". The Franks unanimously chose for their king Aegidius, who had succeeded Aetius in Gaul as magister militum. At the end of eight years the faithful friend, having succeeded in gaining over the Franks, sent to Childeric the token agreed upon, and the prince, on his return, was restored to the throne. The queen of the Thuringians, Basina by name, left her husband Basinus to follow Childeric. "I know thy worth", said she, "and thy great courage; therefore I have come to live with thee. If I had known, even beyond the sea, a man more worthy than thou art, I would have gone to him". Childeric, well pleased, married her forthwith, and from their union was born Clovis. This legend, on which it would be rash to base any historical conclusion, was amplified later, and the further developments of it have been preserved by the pseudo-Fredegar and the author of the Liber Historiae.

But alongside of this legendary story we have some definite information regarding Childeric. While the main centre of his kingdom continued to be in the neighborhood of Tournai, he fought along with the Roman generals in the valley of the Loire against all the enemies who sought to wrest Gaul from the Empire. Unlike his predecessor Clodion and his son Clovis, he faithfully fulfilled his duties as a foederatus. In the year 463 the Visigoths made an effort to extend their dominions to the banks of the Loire. Aegidius marched against them, and defeated them at Orleans, Friedrich, brother of King Theodoric II, being slain in the battle.

Now we know for certain that Childeric was present at this battle. A short time afterwards the Saxons made a descent, by way of the North Sea, the Channel, and the Atlantic, under the leadership of a chief named Odovacar, established themselves in some islands at the mouth of the Loire, and threatened the town of Angers on the Mayenne. The situation was the more serious because Aegidius had lately died (October 464), leaving the command to his son Syagrius. Childeric threw himself into Angers and held it against the Saxons. He succeeded in beating off the besiegers, assumed the offensive, and recaptured from the Saxons the islands which they had seized. The defeated Odovacar placed himself, like Childeric, at the service of Rome, and the two adversaries, now reconciled, barred the path of a troop of Alemans who were returning from a pillaging expedition into Italy. Thus Childeric policed Gaul on behalf of Rome and endeavored to check the inroads and forays of the other barbarians.

The death of Childeric probably took place in the year 481, and he was buried at Tournai. His tomb was discovered in the year 1653. In it was a ring bearing his name, CHILDIRICI REGIS, with the image of the head and shoulders of a long-haired warrior. Numerous objects of value, arms, jewels, remains of a purple robe ornamented with golden bees, gold coins bearing the effigies of Leo I and Zeno, Emperors of Constantinople, were found in the tomb. Such of these treasures as could be preserved are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. They serve as evidence that these Merovingian kings were fond of luxury and possessed quantities of valuable objects. In the ensuing volume it will be seen how Childeric's son Clovis broke with his father's policy, threw off his allegiance to the Empire, and conquered Gaul for his own hand. While Childeric was reigning at Tournai, another Salian chief, Ragnachar, reigned at Cambrai, the town which Clodion had taken; the residence of a third, named Chararic, is unknown to us.

The Ripuarian Franks. 360-481

The Salian Franks, as we have said above, were so called in contra­distinction to the Ripuarians. The latter doubtless included a certain number of tribes, such as the Ampsivarii and the Bructeri. Julian, in the year 360, checked the advance of these barbarians and forced them to retire across the Rhine. In 389 Arbogast similarly checked their inroads and conquered all their territory in 392, as we have already said. But in the beginning of the fifth century, when Stilicho had withdrawn the Roman garrisons from the banks of the Rhine, they were able to advance without hindrance and establish themselves on the left bank of the river. Their progress however was far from rapid. They only gained possession of Cologne at a time when Salvian, born about 400, was a man in middle life; and even then the town was retaken. It did not finally pass into their hands until the year 463. The town of Treves was taken and burned by the Franks four times before they made themselves masters of it. Towards 470 the Ripuarians had founded a fairly compact kingdom, of which the principal cities were Aix-la-Chapelle, Bonn, Juliers, and Zülpich. They had advanced southwards as far as Divodurum (Metz), the fortifications of which seem to have defied all their efforts. The Roman civilization, the Latin language, and even the Christian religion seem to have disappeared from the regions occupied by the compact masses of these invaders. The present frontier of the French and German languages, or a frontier drawn a little further to the south—for it appears that in course of time French has gained ground a little—indicates the limit of their dominions. In the course of their advance southwards, the Ripuarians came into collision with the Alemans, who had already made themselves masters of Alsace and were endeavoring to enlarge their borders in all directions. There were many battles between the Ripuarians and Alemans, of one of which, fought at Zülpich (Tolbiacum), a record has been preserved. Sigebert, king of the Ripuarians, was there wounded in the knee and walked lame for the rest of his life; whence he was known as Sigebertus Claudus. It appears that at this time the Alemans had penetrated far north into the kingdom of the Ripuarians. This kingdom was destined to have but a transient existence; we shall see in the following volume how it was destroyed by Clovis, and how all the Frankish tribes on the left bank of the Rhine were brought under his authority.

While the Salian and Ripuarian Franks were spreading along the left bank of the Rhine, and founding flourishing kingdoms there, other Frankish tribes remained on the right bank. They were firmly established, especially to the north of the Main, and among them the ancient tribe of the Chatti, from whom the Hessians are derived, took a leading place. Later this territory formed one of the duchies into which Germany was divided, and took from its Frankish inhabitants the name of Franconia.

The Salic Law. 507-511

If we desire to make ourselves acquainted with the manners and customs of the Franks, we must have recourse to the most ancient document which has come down from them—the Salic Law. The oldest redaction of this Law, as will be shown in the next volume, probably dates only from the last years of Clovis (507-511), but in it are codified much more ancient usages. On the basis of this code we can conjecture the condition of the Franks in the time of Clodion, of Merovech, and of Childeric. The family is still a very closely united whole; there is solidarity among relatives even to a remote degree. If a murderer could not pay the fine to which he had been sentenced, he must bring before the mâl (court) twelve comprobators who made affirmation that he could not pay it. That done, he returned to his dwelling, took up some earth from each of the four corners of his room, and cast it with the left hand over his shoulder towards his nearest relative; then, barefoot and clad only in his shirt, but bearing a spear in his hand, he leaped over the hedge which surrounded his dwelling. Once this ceremony had been performed, it devolved upon his relative, to whom he had thereby ceded his house, to pay the fine in his place. He might appeal in this way to a series of relatives one after another; and if, ultimately, none of them was able to pay, he was brought before four successive mâls, and if no one took pity on him and paid his debt, he was put to death. But if the family was thus a unit for the payment of fines, it had the compensating advantage of sharing the fine paid for the murder of one of its members. Since the solidarity of the family sometimes entailed dangerous consequences, it was permissible for an individual to break these family ties. The man who wished to do so presented himself at the mâl before the centenarius and broke into four pieces, above his head, three wands of alder. He then threw the pieces into the four corners, declaring that he separated himself from his relatives and renounced all rights of succession. The family included the slaves and liti or freedmen. Slaves were the chattels of their master; if they were wounded, maimed, or killed, the master received the compensation; on the other hand, if the slave had committed any crime the master was obliged to pay, unless he preferred to give him up to bear the punishment. The Franks recognized private property, and severe penalties were denounced against those who invaded the rights of ownership; there are penalties for stealing from another's garden, meadow, corn-field, or flax-field, and for ploughing another's land. At a man's death all his property was divided among his sons; a daughter had no claim to any share of it. Later, she is simply excluded from Salic ground, that is from her father's house and the land that surrounds it.

We find also in the Salic Law some information about the organization of the State. The royal power appears strong. Any man who refuses to appear before the royal tribunal is outlawed. All his goods are confiscated and anyone who chooses may slay him with impunity; no one, not even his wife, may give him food, under penalty of a very heavy fine. All those who are employed about the king's person are protected by a special sanction. Their wergeld is three times as high as that of other Franks of the same social status. Over each of the territorial divisions called pagi the king placed a representative of his authority known as the grafio, or, to give him his later title, the comes. The grafio maintained order within his jurisdiction, levied such fines as were due to the king, executed the sentences of the courts, and seized the property of condemned persons who refused to pay their fines. The pagus was in turn subdivided into "hundreds" (centenae). Each "hundred" had its court of judgment known as the mâl; the place where it met was known as the mâlberg. This tribunal was presided over by the centenarius or thunginus—these terms appear to us to be synonymous. Historians have devoted much discussion to the question whether this official was appointed by the king or elected by the freemen of the "hundred". At the court of the "hundred" all the freemen had a right to be present, but only a few of them took part in the proceedings—some of them would be nominated for this duty on one occasion, some on another. In their capacity as assistants to the centenarius at the mâl the freemen were designated rachineburgi. In order to make a sentence valid it was required that seven rachineburgi should pronounce judgment. A plaintiff had the right to summon seven of them to give judgment upon his suit. If they refused, they had to pay a fine of three sols. If they persisted in their refusal, and did not undertake to pay the three sols before sunset, they incurred a fine of fifteen sols.

Crimes and Offences

Every man’s life was rated at a certain value; this was his price, the wergeld. The wergeld of a Salian Frank was 200 sols; that of a Roman 100 sols. If a Salian Frank had killed another Salian, or a Roman, without aggravating circumstances, the Court sentenced him to pay the price of the victim, the 200 or 100 sols. The compositio in this case is exactly equivalent to the wergeld; if, however, he had only wounded his victim he paid, according to the severity of the injury, a lower sum proportionate to the wergeld. If, however, the murder has taken place in particularly atrocious circumstances, if the murderer has endeavored to conceal the corpse, if he has been accompanied by an armed band, or if the assassination has been unprovoked, the compositio may be three times, six times, nine times, the wergeld. Of this compositio, two thirds were paid to the relatives of the victim; this was the faida and bought off the right of private vengeance; the other third was paid to the State or to the king: it was called fretus or fredum from the German word Friede peace, and was a compensation for the breach of the public peace of which the king is the guardian. Thus a very lofty principle was embodied in this penalty.

The Salic Law is mainly a tariff of the fines which must be paid for various crimes and offences. The State thus endeavored to substitute the judicial sentences of the courts for private vengeance, part of the compensation being paid to the victim or his family to induce them to renounce this right. But we may safely conjecture that the triumph of law over inveterate custom was not immediate. It was long before families were willing to leave to the judgment of the courts serious crimes which had been committed against them, such as homicides and adulteries; they flew to arms and made war upon the guilty person and his family. The forming in this way of armed bands was very detrimental to public order.

The crimes mentioned most frequently in the Salic Law give us some grounds on which to form an idea of the manners and characteristics of the Franks. These Franks would seem to have been much given to bad language, for the Law mentions a great variety of terms of abuse. It is forbidden to call one’s adversary a fox or a hare, or to reproach him with having flung away his shield; it is forbidden to call a woman meretrix, or to say that she had joined the witches at their revels. Warriors who are so easily enraged readily pass to violence and murder. Every form of homicide is mentioned in the Salic Law. The roads are not safe, and are often infested by armed bands. In addition to murder, theft is very often mentioned by the code — theft of fruits, of hay, of cattle-bells, of horse-clogs, of animals, of river-boats, of slaves, and even of freemen. All these thefts are punished with severity and are held by all to be base and shameful crimes. But there is a punishment of special severity for robbing a corpse which has been buried. The guilty person is outlawed, and is to be treated like a wild beast.

The civilization of these Franks is primitive; they are, above all else, warriors. As to their appearance, they brought their fair hair forward from the top of the head, leaving the back of the neck bare. On their faces they generally wore no hair but the moustache. They wore close-fitting garments, fastened with brooches, and bound in at the waist by a leather belt which was covered with bands of enameled iron and clasped by an ornamental buckle. From this belt hung the long sword, the hanger or scramasax, and various articles of the toilet, such as scissors and combs made of bone. From it too was hung the single-bladed axe, the favorite weapon of the Franks, known as the francisca, which they used both at close quarters and by hurling it at their enemies from a distance. They were also armed with a long lance or spear formed of an iron blade at the end of a long wooden shaft. For defense they carried a large shield, made of wood or wattles covered with skins, the centre of which was formed by a convex plate of metal, the boss, fastened by iron rods to the body of the shield. They were fond of jewellery, wearing gold finger-rings and armlets, and collars formed of beads of amber or glass or paste inlaid with color. They were buried with their arms and ornaments, and many Frankish cemeteries have been explored in which the dead were found fully armed, as if prepared for a great military review. The Franks were universally distinguished for courage. As Sidonius Apollinaris wrote of them: "from their youth up war is their passion. If they are crushed by weight of numbers, or through being taken at a disadvantage, death may overwhelm them, but not fear."