Freedom and slavery in Anglo-Saxon England

 This is based on a facebook post I wrote for some medieval groups I'm on, where its often complained that there's very little discussion of peasants in contrast to the near constant posts about what kings, queens, dukes, earls and barons were up to/ were not up to. Early medieval slavery is something that's fascinated me since my first year as an undergraduate, not least given how it links to the legacy of the Roman world and its transformation (a recurring theme on this blog) and to the Feudal Revolution debate that I'm so fixated on, for which I will one day get round to doing a post on here for your benefit and mine.

Anglo-Saxon Slavery

Could these be Anglo-Saxon slaves at work in this early eleventh century manuscript?

There certainly was a lot of slavery in Anglo-Saxon England. It’s been estimated that, in the period 800 - 1066 , at least ten percent of the population of Anglo-Saxon England were slaves, though that figure may have been as high as 30%. If the latter estimate is correct, then that would mean that, proportionally speaking, there were almost as many slaves in Anglo-Saxon England as there were in Roman Italy from c.100 BC to 400 AD, according to Keith Hopkins’ estimates.

How did these slaves become slaves? Some would have been born into that condition – following ancient precedent, slavery was a hereditary condition and any child born to an enslaved parent/s was automatically a slave. Others were formerly free peasants who had been pushed below subsistence level by bad harvests or debt, and therefore needed to bargain away their freedom in order to receive the food and clothing needed for them and their families to survive from a slave master or mistress. For example, one wealthy Anglo-Saxon woman in her will gave freedom to:

“Ecceard the smith and Alfstan and his wife and all their children born and unborn, and Arcil and Cole and Ecgferth and Ealdhun’s daughter and all those people who had bowed their heads to her in return for food when times were bad.”

Others still were foreigners either captured in war or purchased at slave markets. Slave-raiding was a very standard part of warfare in the early medieval British Isles. This was a very ancient practice indeed, that can be seen in ancient Near Eastern texts and in the Bronze Age Mycenaean/ Archaic Greek societies described in Homer’s Iliad. At the same time as the Anglo-Saxons, it was very common in Viking age Scandinavia, along the eastern frontiers between the Frankish empire and the Slavic tribes and in the Islamic world, with the famous Moorish razzias. For example, when the people of Northumbria in 1065 rose up in revolt against the heavy-handed and unpopular administration of Earl Tostig, who had been imposed on them by Edward the Confessor, they, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, invaded the Mercian shires and

“They took many captives and carried them off north with them.”

Thirteen years earlier, Harold Godwinson, after he had gone into exile in Ireland after being deprived of his earldom in 1051, invaded the coast of Somerset with a force of Irish and Hiberno-Norse mercenaries and, according to the ASC

“Seized whatever he pleased, in cattle, captives and property.”

And in 1036, when Edward the Confessor and his brother Alfred tried unsuccessfully to invade England from Normandy to reclaim their throne from the Danish king Harald Harefoot, while Edward escaped, Alfred and his companions were not so lucky and, according to the ASC:

“Some of them were sold for money.”

Alfred himself, and some of his companions, were even less fortunate – they were horrifically mutilated and died shortly afterwards. It was not yet considered honourable to be merciful to captives in war, even if they were highborn – this was a pre-chivalric age. The typical choice for any defeated warrior in the early medieval period was simple – death or slavery.

Turning to slave markets, those were also widespread in Anglo-Saxon England. There were two primary slave-trading zones – the North Sea and the Irish Sea. William of Malmsbury (1080 – 1143), looking back on the mid-eleventh century from the 1120s, describes how Gytha Thorkelsdottir, the Danish noblewoman who was the wife of Earl Godwin of Wessex, would

“Buy parties of slaves in England and ship them back to Denmark, young girls especially, whose beauty and youth would enhance their price.”

Turning to the slave trade for West Britain and Ireland, in his “The Life of St Wulfstan”, William of Malmsbury also describes the slave market at Bristol, where merchants

“Would purchase people from all over England and sell them off to Ireland in the hope of profit; and put up for sale maidservants after toying with them in bed and making them pregnant. You would have groaned to see the files of the wretches of people roped together, young people of both sexes, whose youth and beauty would have aroused the pity of barbarians, being put up for sale every day.”

This passage brings into focus two things. One being the brutality of the slave system in Anglo-Saxon England. The second being the range of different roles for slaves. Historians of slavery often usefully speak of the concept of “social death” – that upon becoming enslaved, a slave ceases to be recognised as a human being and a member of society with rights, and becomes something else i.e., the ancient Greek philosopher Plato famously described the slave as being a “tool with a voice.” Certainly, a degree of violent and inhumane treatment was built into the Anglo-Saxon slave system, like with all other slave systems. The punishments for transgressive behaviour could be very harsh, including being branded like cattle, blinded, castrated, stoned to death by other slaves (if male) or burned alive (if female). As alluded to earlier in that passage from William of Malmesbury, like in all patriarchal societies which also have systems of slavery, female slaves in Anglo-Saxon England were extremely vulnerable to sexual assault from slave merchants, masters and their agents, lacking as they did the protection mechanisms available to free women – the law and family honour. William of Malmsbury also suggests that there was a certain incentive to rape female slaves – getting them pregnant would mean churning out more slaves. However, in contrast to Classical Greece and Rome, free men showing their sexual dominance over their inferiors (women and slaves) was a much less integral part of Anglo-Saxon masculinity, and over time the force of Christian moral reform began to be felt, however slowly.

Yet there are some signs that “slavery as social death” was starting to weaken by the ninth century. By this point, almost all slaves would have been Christians and many, if not most, of them would have been the same ethnicity as their masters, unlike in the immediate post-Roman period (c.450 – c.680) when the majority of Anglo-Saxon slaves would have been conquered Romano-Britons/ proto-Welsh – these factors would have made it more difficult to make slaves seem other and not “people like us.” And so we do start to see slaves gaining some legal rights and recognition of their humanity. For example, the laws of King Alfred the Great (r.871 – 899) state:

“These days are to be given to all free men, but not to slaves and unfree labourers: twelve days at Christmas; and the day on which Christ overcame the devil (15 February); and the anniversary of St Gregory (12 March); and the seven days before Easter and the seven after; and one day at the feast of St Peter and St Paul (29 June); and in harvest-time the whole week before the feast of St Mary (15 August); and one day at the feast of All Saints (1 November). And the four Wednesdays in the four Ember weeks are to be given to all slaves, to sell to whomsoever they please anything of what anyone has given them in God’s name, or of what they can earn in any of their spare time.”

A folio of the Laws of King Alfred

While it is clear that slaves are not afforded the right to enjoy the same Christian holidays as the free, at the same time their agency as human beings is recognised in that the are allowed to engage in buying and selling objects at their own volition during Lent. And it is also hinted at that slaves could do certain additional tasks for rewards and wages, and were also the recipients of gifts given as pious acts of charity by the free, the latter recognising that slaves were human beings with souls and that treating them kindly would please God.

Slaves could be employed in all kinds of things. Given that this series is about peasants and agriculture, it is of course important to remember, as noted from the outset, that many slaves were employed as agricultural workers, but some were employed as domestic servants, artisans or even priests. And as hinted at from the allusions to the prettiness of the slave girls sold by Gytha, many female slaves may even have served primarily as entertainers and concubines to their masters, much like the harem women of the Islamic world.

Let’s finish our discussion Anglo-Saxon slavery with a quote from Abbot Aelfric of Eynsham (955 – 1010), a prodigiously learned man who produced translations of Latin works into Old English and wrote an Old English grammar textbook and glossary. Aelfric describes the life of the field slave as follows:

“I go out at daybreak, goading the oxen to the field, and I join them to the plough; there is not a winter so harsh that I dare not lurk at home for fear of my master.”

As you can see, there’s no sugar-coating of the slave’s condition in that description, however brief, and a measure of human sympathy.

The free peasantry in Anglo-Saxon England

The majority of the population in Anglo-Saxon England was, however, comprised of peasant families who owned landed property and were legally free – these people were known in Old English as ceorls. Being legally free didn’t just mean not being a slave. Free peasants had the right to have both disputes concerning their property and redress for crimes done towards them and their dependents brought before the public law courts of shire and hundred, supervised by the king’s officials (ealdormen, shire reeves, reeves, bishops and abbots). At these courts, juries that would include free peasants (ceorls) as well as thegns (the gentry of Anglo-Saxon England) would participate, giving the facts of the case and eventually reaching a verdict. Free peasants also had the right to bear arms, and concomitant to that were liable to be called up for military service in the fyrd – the royal armies of levied free men (thegns and ceorls) raised in the shires by the king’s officials (ealdormen and shire reeves). They could also, on occasion, have their grievances heard and addressed in the Witan – the royal assemblies kings held several times a year to take counsel, settle disputes and make government policies, which were attended mostly by bishops, abbots, lay magnates (earls and king’s thegns) and some ordinary thegns representing the shires. Thus they were fully participating members of the public sphere which, like in ancient Greece and Rome, was the central defining feature of their free status.

However, the ceorls were not as homogenous a class as they appear. Some ceorls were clearly doing better than others, for as Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d.1023) wrote in the laws of King Cnut, if a ceorl possessed five hides (a unit of tax assessment) of land, a proprietary church, a kitchen, a bell house and a burgh gate and an office in the King’s Hall, he could become a thegn. This indicates that some free peasants were, by the early eleventh century, getting so rich from the rapid economic growth that had been taking place since the Reconquest of the Danelaw and the onset of the medieval warm period in c.900, that they were building up what were in effect manorial estates and thus attaining thegnly (gentry) status through the backdoor.

The kitchen, proprietary church, bell house and burgh gate described by archbishop Wulfstan depicted in a modern illustration of an Anglo-Saxon thegnly residences - clearly some free peasants were getting incredibly wealthy if they could build such country residences and get considered for thegnly status under the law

At the other end there was a lot of downward mobility. In the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, a combination of oppressively high taxation through the geld (the only systematic land tax levied in Western Europe at that time), the costs of military service and the obligations to repair roads, bridges and fortresses that were imposed on the free peasantry meant that many ended up as slaves or entering into some form of dependency to lords. Meanwhile, the economic growth of the tenth and eleventh centuries was leading to the emergence of a much more developed manorial system in Wessex and Mercia, based on more extensive direct exploitation of the land by lords. By the mid-eleventh century, a complex rural pecking order seems to have been in place. A document called the “Rights and Ranks of People”, written in Old English sometime in the reign of Edward the Confessor and copied in Latin in the twelfth century. Between the thegn and the slave, this document specifies three types of free peasant instead of the traditional ceorl – (in descending order of status) the geneat, the cottar and the boor.

The obligations of the geneat (the original meaning of that word was courtier/ companion, but by the 11th century it just simply meant a free proprietor of some standing) were completely subject to regional variation, butc could include the following:

1. Pay rent in kind, in the form of a swine a year.
2. Perform carting services.
3. Perform reaping and mowing services for his lord.
4. “Keep up places from which deer may be shot”
5. Build and fence the lord’s house

For the cottar (a small-holding peasant owning five acres of land) the duties were as follows:

1. Perform labour services on the demesne every Monday, or for three days a week at harvest time.
2. He has to pay Peter’s pence (a tax of one penny paid by any freeholder with land above a certain value to the Holy See, abolished by Henry VIII in 1534) on Ascension Day and the tithe on Martinmas like the former two.
3. He can also be expected to do coastguard and work on the king’s deer-fence

Finally, the Boor's obligations were as follows:

1. On some estates he has to work on the lord’s demesne (land directly farmed by the lord for his benefit) for two days a week.
2. At Michaelmas he pays 10 pence in cash rent, and rents in kind at Martinmas (23 sesters of barley and 2 hens) and at Easter (a young sheep)
3. He must plough three acres as “boon work” (additional labour services performed at specific times of the year) and perform various other supplementary labour services where appropriate too.
4. Each boor must maintain one hunting dog and provide 6 loaves to the swineherd.
5. In return he gets two oxen, one cow, six sheep and seven acres of land as well as tools for his work and utensils for his house, though all this reverts to the lord after his death

I'm going to follow up with this post very soon with one on the Continental situation in the same period, for which there are many parallels, which will involve a close look at the ninth century Carolingian polyptychs - how exciting! There will also be a post about how slavery came to an end in both continental Western Europe and England - spoiler alert: the feudal revolution does feature and the Normans (contrary to how a lot of people like to see them, most of the time anyway) aren't the bad guys in this.

1016 and all that

 

On this day of course took place, 955 years ago, the battle of Hastings. The story gets told and retold every year. Walter Carruthers Sellars and Robert Julian Yeatman in the revealingly named "1066 and all that" (1930), their famous satire of how history was taught in British schools in the early twentieth century and how adults remembered it, claimed that, along with Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain in 55 BC, it was one of two truly memorable dates in English history. Indeed, at this very moment the vast majority of English secondary school students in year 7 (11 - 12 year olds) will either still be studying, or will have recently finished, the Norman Conquest in their Key Stage 3 National Curriculum history classes. The choice of 1066 as being the place to begin the secondary school history curriculum is very intentional - while one can argue that it was far from being the great "year zero" of English history, the Norman Conquest is an inherently dramatic story. So memorable a date is it, that banks explicitly advise customers against choosing 1066 as their PIN number. I'm not going to join in with the flood of posts about how William won the battle of Hastings, or what the implications of his victory were for England. Instead, I'm going to look back a good fifty years earlier to another very important (but less memorable) date in English history - 1016. And to a king for whom it could be said that all the events leading up to the Norman Conquest took place in the shadow of - Cnut or Canute, as he's sometimes referred to.

An image of Cnut from the New Minster Liber Vitae, produced in his lifetime (c.1031)

King Cnut (r.1016 - 1035) is probably one of the five pre-conquest English kings that most people know anything about - the others being Offa (r.757 - 796), Alfred (r.871 - 899), Aethelred the Unready (r.978 - 1016) and Edward the Confessor (r.1042 - 1066). Perhaps what he's most famous for, however, is an apocryphal tale first recorded by the twelfth century historian Henry of Huntingdon (d.1157), in which Cnut sits by the seashore and commands the incoming tide not to wet his feet and robes, yet predictably it does. Henry of Huntingdon himself interpreted the story as showing that Cnut was a wise and pious man, trying to rebuke the flatteries of his courtiers by demonstrating that his power was nothing compared to that of God. However, the story has often been spun differently to tell the exact opposite message, and has often been brought up as an analogy for any modern political leader who appears too arrogant or quixotic.

Cnut rebukes his courtiers by Adolphe-Marie-Alphonse de Neuville (1904)

Like with most early medieval rulers, we know almost nothing about Cnut's childhood and adolescence. Even his date of birth is very uncertain - he could have been born in any year between 980 and 1000, though most modern historians opt for c.990. We know his father was King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark (d.1014), who was responsible for the renewed wave of Viking invasions on England from 1002 and who had managed to briefly become king of England from 1013 - 1014 after starving the citizens of London into surrendering and electing him king, facilitated by widespread dissatisfaction among the governing elite of Anglo-Saxon England with Aethelred's rule. Its not entirely certain who Cnut's mother was, though she seems most likely to have been a Polish princess. The most contemporary sources, the Chronicon of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg (d.1017) and the Encomium Emmae Reginae claim that she was Swietoslawa, a daughter of Duke Mieszko I of Poland, though Snorri Sturlusson, writing in the early thirteenth century, claims she was a certain Gunhild, a daughter of Duke/ King Boleslaw the Brave of Poland. And to further complicate things, Adam of Bremen, whose "The Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg-Bremen" (completed in 1076) is one of the most important sources for the early history of Scandinavia and the first European source to mention the Americas, claimed that she was actually the widow of the King of Sweden. This kind of uncertainty about very basic information is one of the many joys of early medieval history. Its precisely the reason why you won't be seeing a popular biography of Cnut on your bookshelves anytime soon, and why some historians doubt whether early medieval rulers in general are biographable at all (c.f. Sarah Hamilton, ‘Early Medieval Rulers and their Modern Biographers’, Early Medieval Europe, 2003, p 248).

Where Cnut really comes to the fore of the historical record is when he led his invasion of England in 1016. At that time, his brother, Harald II, ruled as King of Denmark. Aethelred the Unready had been invited back to rule as King of England in 1014, after reaching a constitutional settlement with the Witan – the regular assembly of the bishops, abbots, ealdormen (half-way between the post-conquest earl and sheriff), kings thegns (quasi-baronial figures) and thegns (the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of knights or gentry) of the kingdom, which already operated on a doctrine of virtual representation (by Aethelred’s reign it was claiming to speak for the English people and sometimes relayed the concerns of free peasants about the oppressive behaviour of royal officials onto the king) - that placed limits on his power and required him to reform the state apparatus, which was becoming quite expensive and burdensome, and hold his officials to account for their oppressive behaviour. John R Maddicott in “The Origins of the English Parliament, 924 – 1327” (2013) describes it as the first constitutional settlement between crown and subjects in English history, and indeed Cnut and Edward the Confessor would have to make similar agreements in 1018/ 1020 and 1041, setting some important precedents for political thought and practice in centuries to come (see Maddicott, pp 35 – 41). Cnut invaded England in April 1016. King/ Duke Boleslaw the Brave of Poland sent contingents of warriors to assist him, pretty clear evidence that Cnut’s mother was a Polish princess – whether Boleslaw was Cnut’s cousin or his uncle is, however, uncertain. Aethelred died and a very interesting situation arose. While Aethelred’s chief counsellors and the citizens and garrison of London elected Edmund Ironside, Aethelred’s eldest surviving son, to be the new king, a much larger body of representatives from the Witan, including bishops, abbots, ealdormen and thegns, assembled at Southampton and swore to renounce Aethelred’s descendants and elect Cnut as their king provided he promised to be a faithful lord to them. Cnut and Edmund Ironside then fought each other to a stalemate at Assandun before coming to an agreement – Edmund would rule Wessex and Kent (everything south of the Thames) and Cnut would rule Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria (everything north of the Thames). Edmund died later that year on 30 November 1016, leaving Cnut as sole ruler of England.

Cnut soon proved himself to be an astute and effective ruler. After he had paid off his army and fleet, he decided to keep the Geld – the land tax (the first of its kind since the disappearance of the ancient Roman land tax in the West in the sixth and seventh centuries AD) introduced in the reign of Aethelred, funnily enough for the purpose of paying off the Danes. He used the Geld to fund a permanent standing fleet and to pay for permanent standing contingents of troops, the huscarls and the lithsmen. As the historian James Campbell has argued while calling these contingents a standing army may be straining a point, to deny them the functions of a standing army would be to miss a point as they were paid annually, included men of varied status and served as a mobile field force, as garrisons, as the nucleus of a larger army supplemented by levied free men and as tax collectors (see James Campbell, the Anglo-Saxon State, pp 201 – 206). In effect, Cnut created a kind of embryonic fiscal military state not unlike that of the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg-Prussia (r.1640 – 1688) many centuries later. In 1020 Cnut, following in the tradition of Anglo-Saxon kings going back to the seventh century, issued a royal law code written in Old English (Anglo-Saxon administrative documents were mostly written in the vernacular, rather than Latin) that as well as containing new laws also provided authoritative compilations of earlier law codes. the laws of King Ine of Wessex (688 – 726), King Alfred the Great and King Edgar the Peaceful (r.959 – 975), thus signally his respect for his Anglo-Saxon predecessors and for his subjects’ native traditions of law and government. Cnut also created a substantially reconstituted and remodelled England’s governing class. Much of the West Saxon nobility had been decimated in the renewed Viking invasions from 991 to 1016, and many other figures would soon fall following Cnut’s rise to power, including the treacherous royal counsellor Eadric Streona (a possible inspiration for Wormtongue in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings). Cnut replaced the various ealdormanries with a smaller number of provincial earldoms and appointed trusted subordinates to be in charge of them as earls – an earldom was essentially a provincial governorship, it was not yet the hereditary noble title it would later become. Some of his appointees were native Anglo-Saxons/ Englishmen from lesser thegnly (gentry) backgrounds – for example, Godwin was appointed Earl of Wessex and Kent and Leofric was appointed Earl of Mercia. But he also appointed a number of Scandinavians – firstly Thorkell the Tall then Osgod Clapa served as earls of East Anglia and Siward (who features in Shakespeare’s Macbeth) as Earl of Northumbria. Whether or not this meant that he created a loyal and efficient service aristocracy or a bunch of overmighty subjects has been much debated by historians since the late nineteenth century. All in all, through a mixture of effective statecraft and strategic use of royal patronage supplemented by political communication that signalled continuity with his predecessors, Cnut managed to consolidate a firm hold over England. A clear sign of how much political stability and internal and external peace England enjoyed under Cnut was that he was able to go on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1027. There, he nabbed a chance to attend the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad II (d.1037), the first emperor of the Salian dynasty (c.1024 – 1125), at St Peter’s, making him the first (and last) English king to attend an imperial coronation.

 

Early Twelfth Century depiction of Emperor Conrad II

Cnut also expanded his power to other realms, creating what some historians have called a “North Sea Empire.” In 1018, after his brother Harald II’s death, he became King of Denmark, and began to win some influence and possibly overlordship over the Norse colonies in Ireland – the coins of the Norse kings of Dublin from 1017 to 1025 bear Cnut’s quatrefoil legend rather than the traditional legend of the Norse kings of Dublin. Later in 1027, after Cnut’s pilgrimage to Rome, King Malcolm II of Scots (the grandfather of the King Duncan who features in Macbeth – quite a few Shakespeare characters finding their way into this, aren’t they) would pay homage to Cnut and accept him as his overlord – this would lead the Burgundian monk Raoul Glaber, writing in the 1030s, to claim that Cnut had some kind of imperial overlordship over all the British Isles. King Cnut would then exploit an internal political crisis in Norway to take control there when the Norwegian nobles and peasants, who were disatissfied by the rule of King Olaf Haraldsson, invited him to become their king in 1028, and in 1029 Olaf was exiled to the Viking principalities in Russia. Cnut also managed to, besides his pilgrimage and attendance of Conrad II’s coronation, deepen ties with Germany with Germany and the Empire and secure Danish control of Schleswig-Holstein by marrying his daughter Gunhild to Conrad’s son, Henry (the future Emperor Henry III).

Coin of Olaf Haraldsson

When Cnut died, he left two sons to succeed him. The first was Harald Harefoot, the son of a concubine or a common law wife (a wife not married in a church ceremony with ecclesiastical sanction but still recognised as a wife under Danish law). There was still very little stigma around illegitimacy in Western Europe in this period (that would only really come into place in the twelfth century), not least among recently Christianised peoples like the Danes, so there was no obstacle to Harald Harefoot becoming king. The other was Harthacnut, the son of Cnut’s wife Emma of Normandy (984 – 1052), the widow of Aethelred the Unready and mother of Edward the Confessor.  Harthacnut succeeded Cnut in Denmark and Harald Harefoot in England. Harald was opposed by much of the political community in England, but Earl Godwin was able to sway the Witan in favour of Harald’s candidacy – maybe he really was an overmighty subject. Harald Harefoot died in 1040, and was succeeded by Harathacnut. The following year, Harthacnut invited his half-brother Edward the Confessor, who had spent almost all his life living in exile in Normandy with his maternal cousins (the dukes of Normandy), to return to England in 1041, no doubt at the persuasion of his mother. He was also designated as his successor, with the Witan making it conditional that Edward agree to uphold the laws of King Cnut and govern the kingdom justly. A year later Harthacnut died, as recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle after experiencing a seizure whilst drinking, or perhaps he might have been poisoned. Thus it was thanks to Cnut’s choice of marriages that Edward the Confessor was able to come to the throne in 1042 at all, and that, well, set the stage for everything to come.

Emma of Normandy (a key player in it all) as depicted in the Encomium which she herself commissioned the writing of

As was stated earlier, Cnut was responsible for the rise of Earl Godwine, and under the new regime, headed by a 40 year-old who had spent most of his life in France, Earl Godwin managed to use his political leverage, which as we have already seen was very great, to win more power for his family. He managed to get Edward to marry his daughter, Edith, and by 1046 four out of seven earldoms were in the hands of Godwin and his sons Sweyn and Harold. Godwin was also married to Gytha, a Danish noblewoman and a relative of Cnut’s. Gytha’s nephew, Sweyn Estridsson, managed to become King of Denmark in 1047 after having defeated Magnus the Good, the son of the exiled King Olaf of Norway who had seized control of Denmark and Norway in the power vacuum following Harthacnut’s death. Sweyn II tried to take control of Norway after Magnus’ death but was prevented from doing so by a charismatic old-school Viking adventurer, Harald Hardrada, who the political community in Norway chose instead to be their king. Indeed, before his invasion of England in September 1066, leading up to the battle of Stamford Bridge, Harald Hardrada would try to take Denmark off Sweyn on multiple occasions.

Edward and much of the political community in England would come to resent the overbearing influence of Godwin and his family and in the late 1040s they did much to discredit themselves. Edith, for whatever reason, failed to produce Edward a son. Sweyn Godwinson abducted (and possibly raped) the abbes of Leominster in 1046, had his earldom promptly confiscated and was sent into exile, before being invited back, murdering his cousin Bjorn and being sent into exile again in 1049 – he died in Constantinople in 1052, on his way back from the Holy Land. And Earl Godwin did much to discredit himself when the Witan vetoed his attempts in 1047 for the English navy to be sent to help his nephew Sweyn II against Magnus because, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle “it seemed unwise to everybody.” These events would create tensions that would almost ferment a civil war and result in the entire Godwine family being exiled from England in 1051. Later in 1051, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Edward would invite his cousin Duke William the Bastard of Normandy to visit England, and may have temporarily designated him as his successor (which William may have then interpreted as binding), thus setting the stage for 1066. Of course, the Godwin family would bounce back and in January 1066 no one could doubt that Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex and Kent, was the most powerful magnate in England, hence why, whether by the prudent decision-making of the Witan or by a carefully planned coup, he was able to succeed Edward the Confessor as king of England.

Thus, without Cnut, none of the three contenders in the great struggle of 1066 – Harold Godwinson, William of Normandy and Harald Hardrada – would have been in the position to claim the throne of England, indeed Harold Godwinson wouldn’t have even existed given that Cnut was responsible for bringing his parents together. Indeed its very odd that William the Conqueror gets singled out for his Scandinavian connections because his great-great-great grandfather, Rollo (d.930), was a Viking, while Harold Godwinson was literally half-Danish. William the Conqueror may have been a direct descendant of Rollo, but he was also the 8x great-grandson of Charlemagne, and its pretty clear both from William’s own personality and style of rule and from what mid-eleventh century Norman government, society and culture was like that the Frankish heritage mattered a great deal more than the Viking one. But lets not get too sidetracked from our general conclusion, that the events of Cnut’s reign were fundamental in setting the stage for the Norman Conquest, and that the events of 1066 were basically the three most formidable warlords in Northwest Europe fighting over the debris of Cnut’s legacy. 

 

Clovis takes to the stage and the end of Roman Gaul (481 - 486)

As we get to this point in  Adhemar's narrative., we've got to deal with a thorny (though pretty minor to non-specialists in late Roman and Merovingian history) historiographical question, one for which we're not much better informed about than Adhemar and his eleventh century contemporaries were - what was this entity that Aegidius, and his son Syagrius who appears centre stage in this chapter, were in charge of. 

The one thing we can be fairly sure about is that any effective control from the West Roman imperial centre (the imperial court at Ravenna in Italy, that is to say) over Gaul north of the Loire ended in the late 450s. In Aquitaine (the south western third of Gaul between the Loire, Rhone and Pyrenees) Roman rule had already ended, as the Visigoths had established themselves a kingdom based at Toulouse and the local senatorial aristocracy and other provincial Roman elites had agreed to co-operate with them - one of such figures, Sidonius Apollinaris (d.489) recounts in his letters playing backgammon with the Visigothic king Theodoric II (d.466) and tactically losing to win his patronage. But a string of events between 454 and 460 would lead to the one corridor linking northern Gaul to Italy (the modern day French regions of Burgundy, the Rhone-Alpes and Provence) being lost. In September 454 Valentinian III, the incompetent, child-like emperor Western Roman Emperor (a bit like an overgrown Joffrey Baratheon, to give a rough analogy to any Game of Thrones fans among you), had his effective second in command and right hand man, the magister militum (head of the armed forces) Flavius Aetius, who was responsible for cutting short Attila the Hun's invasion of Gaul in 451, murdered in his own presence. Valentinian III was then himself assassinated by a eunuch the following year. At this stage it was pretty clear that the Western Roman empire was going up schitt's creek without a paddle - the Rhineland, Britain, Aquitaine, Africa and Sicily had all either been abandoned or lost for good, the centre was becoming starved of tax revenues to pay the armed forces and the time-honoured ancient Roman political traditions of factionalism, assassination, military coups and usurpation were as alive as ever. The new emperor, Petronius Maximus, dispatched his confidant Avitus in order to establish friendly relations with the Visigoths, knowing that the Western Roman Empire could not militarily defend itself on its own steam. However, the Visigoths proclaimed Avitus emperor and as he returned via Provence the Gallo-Roman senators at Arles proclaimed him as such too. Petronius Maximus meanwhile had been deposed after the Vandal fleet sailed from their newly established kingdom in Africa and sacked Rome. The Burgundians also got behind Avitus, but the Roman legions in Italy under the command of a Romanised-Germanic general called Ricimer resisted Avitus, and he was defeated by 457. The new emperor, Marjorian, got the Burgundians and Visigoths to help him out in dealing with the Suebi, a Germanic tribe that had taken over much of Spain, but in the end the Visigoths further consolidated their holdings in Aquitaine by taking the area around Narbonne (Septimania) as well and the Burgundians took over Burgundy (the region of course gets its name from them), Provence and Savoy, sharing the lands there with the local senators. Northern Gaul was thus by the time of Marjorian's overthrow in 461, completely cut off from the remaining West Roman imperial territories in Italy and Dalmatia and, given the nature of communications at that time, had to basically be run on its steam (my source here is Peter Heather, "The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western Europe", English Historical Review, 1994, pp 31 - 35).

(Above: Modern reconstruction of what Roman legionaries would have looked like in the mid-5th century)

So with this necessary context established, what kind of regime existed in northern Gaul in the 460s to 480s? The first theory is the most straightforward. Aegidius, the commander of the Roman legions in Gaul, kept the Roman imperial government structures (the legions, the tax system, the bureaucracy, the coinage) going at provincial level there and established himself as a "king" or as a contender for the imperial throne (as Steven Fanning has suggested, to counter those who suggest that this is implausible because the Romans had been ideologically opposed to kingship since Tarquin the Proud) with his base at Soissons in the modern day Picardy region of northeast France. His son Syagrius then succeeded him after his death and kept going until, well, we'll see in the upcoming translated chapter. However, there's a problem with this. Its all based on a passage in the Ten Books of Histories of Bishop Gregory of Tours (535 - 594). Since Gregory was writing about a century after all this was supposed to have happened, historians have argued that he is therefore not reliable, that either he got confused over what went on in the 460s and so decided to oversimplify things thus, or that for some reason or other he made a purposeful distortion. This goes with the feeling that the idea of a Roman rump-state holding out in northern Gaul is too romantic to be true, and doesn't gel well with what we know about how things worked out between Romans and barbarians elsewhere in the Roman west during the second half of the fifth century. 

(Above: A helpful yet somewhat controversial map)

The second theory, proposed by Edward James in "The Franks" (1988), argues that the Franks had already taken over northern Gaul by this point and had managed to accomodate themselves by allowing a lot of the imperial government structures to continue, provided they received shares in the tax revenue. Under this model, Aegidius was just a military commander and Syagrius was just a local count (a late Roman term for military governor, from which the medieval hereditary noble title eventually evolved by the eleventh century) of Soissons. The problem with it is that it doesn't explain why the Franks would have been fighting in Anjou and Orleans, supposedly areas under their control, as we saw in the last post. It doesn't properly account for Brittany, which the Franks didn't even begin to make moves towards conquering until well into the sixth century, and even in the areas near Brittany, Nantes and Vannes, the material culture remains thoroughly Gallo-Roman with no sign of Frankish influence until the late 500s. Gregory of Tours might have gotten things wrong, but since there's a complete gap in narrative histories for Gaul between the end of Prosper of Aquitaine's chronicle in 455 and when Gregory himself began writing his histories more than a century later, we can't dismiss him altogether. Indeed, some explanation needs to be made for why Soissons remained such an important political centre for Frankish kings up until the mid-tenth century (I get these critiques from Penny McGeorge's "Late Roman Warlords", Oxford University Press, 2002, pp 161 - 162).

A third theory favoured by McGeorge herself is to see northern Gaul as a "complex and shifting patchwork" (read massive clusterfuck) of competing powers, including Saxon, Alan and British settlements (as well as a Romano-British army led by a king), Frankish warlords, semi-autonomous Gallo-Roman bishops, municipal authorities, landowners and peasant communities and the remnants of the late Roman imperial administration all vying for power, with no one clearly on top (see Ibid, p 164). Yet another theory that I've heard going round on Historical discussion groups (but never seen a source cited for) suggests that Aegidius and the remnants of the Roman legions and Childeric and his Frankish warriors got together to form a joint Romano-Frankish kingdom. Perhaps there are some indications towards this concealed in the sources from Gregory of Tours on, after all if we recall correctly Adhemar, like Gregory, does describe Aegidius running Childeric's kingdom in his absence for 8 years. But I'm not sure if I buy it. As a a Carolingianist and post-Carolingianist, I ultimately sit on the fence on this matter. But what seems relatively uncontentious is that Syagrius's rule, even if it was just in Soissons, (Spoiler alert) came to an end and that Childeric's young son, Clovis, made himself top dog in northern Gaul. So without much further ado, let's hear what Adhemar had to say about all this - as always, I accept all faults in my translation.

"After this, King Childeric died; he had reigned for twenty-four years and his son, Clovis, manfully received the kingdom of the Franks. However, in the fifth year of Clovis’ reign, Syagrius, son of Aegidius, was residing in the city of Soissons, which his father had held, on which Clovis with Ragnachar, his kinsman, approached with an army, and they were fitted for war. Although they bravely fought with each other, decided to abandon his army in favour of fleeing to Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and he escaped to the city of Toulouse. Clovis directed his messengers to Alaric, in order that Syagrius would be returned to him; if, however, he [Alaric] was not willing to return him [Syagrius], they [the Franks] would prepare to do battle with him. But Alaric was afraid of the anger of the Franks, and he handed over Syagrius to the messengers of Clovis. When he [Syagrius] was presented to him, he [Clovis] ordered him to be executed, and he received all his kingdom and treasure"

(Above: what the gates of Soissons would have likely looked like at the time Clovis laid siege to them)

(Above: an early modern depiction of Syagrius being brought before Clovis, who is about to sentence him to death)

More on the origins of the Merovingian kingdom from Adhemar of Chabannes - Chapters 6 and 7 of the Historia Francorum (c.460 - 481)

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Last time, we left Adhemar of Chabannes' Historia Francorum on a bit of a cliff-hanger. King Childeric, intoxicated with power and hubris (as well as being a little bit horny, perhaps), has gotten up to antics of a certain nature with the daughters of many of his subjects, and so, facing an uprising of the Frankish people, has to go into exile in Thuringia. Before he leaves, however, he hatches a crafty plan with his best mate, Wiomad. Here, we see where this plan leads to. Expect lots of hacking and slashing and burning, and also a romance which, while its not exactly as star-crossed as Anthony and Cleopatra, Lancelot and Guinevere, Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice or Percy and Annabeth (kudos to you if you can get the last one), is still a better love story than Twilight, if that means anything these days (I'm a medievalist not a contemporary historian, so how should I know?)

Anyway, enjoy the translations and, once again, all faults are my own.

Chapter 6: when King Childeric was raised to the kingdom

(Above: The Gold signet ring of King Childeric I - a classic example of the more abstract, Germanic/ sub-Roman artistic styles. Could it have been fashioned from the same half of the gold coin he gave to Wiomad in Adhemar of Chabannes' account?)

Indeed, the Franks, after Childeric had abandoned them, having followed bad advice, established Aegidius, prince of the Romans, to rule over the [Frankish] kingdom. When Aegidius had reigned over the Franks for eight years, Wiomad pretended to join in friendship with him; meanwhile what was known by him, was not known to Aegidius. Moreover, he encouraged Aegidius to deceitfully oppress the other Franks. Having heard that advice of his, Aegidius took to bitterly oppressing them. Indeed, they were turned from reverence to sedition; again, they desired advice from Wiomad as to what they must do. Yet to them, he said “why do you not remember how the Romans oppressed your people and ejected them from their land? Indeed, you ejected your useful and wise king, and raised over yourselves a servant of the Roman emperor, proud and conceited; you did not make a good resolution, but an exceedingly bad one.” And to Wiomad they replied “Indeed, he [Childeric] was ingenious to us. Due to the fact that he took advantage of your daughters wickedly and unlawfully, we became completely opposed to our king. If only we were rewarded to find him, and he would reign over us peacefully. Thereupon that friend [Wiomad] sent to the king the part of the gold coin which they had divided between themselves before, saying “return to the kingdom of the Franks because they are all pacified.” The king indeed, knowing this half of the gold coin to be the sign, understood it as a clear signal that he was desired by the Franks; and in response to their demands, returned to his kingdom. For while he was in Thuringia, with Queen Basina, the wife of King Bisinus, King Childeric committed adultery with her. Likewise, Basina, queen of Bisinus, king of the Thuringians, having left her man, came to Childeric. And when he questioned her what she was searching for, or else for what reason she had come to him from such a distant region, and she brought forth the response: “I altered your usefulness and handsomeness in order that you would be useful and wise, therefore I come in order to live with you. For if I were to have known, on the furthest limits of the sea, someone more useful than you, I would desire and beg for him to join together with me.” With rejoicing Basina was bound together with Childeric in marriage. Verily, receiving from him [Childeric], she gave birth to a son and he was named Clovis. This son was the great king over all the kings of the Franks and he was the bravest warrior.

 

(Above: Basina and Childeric depicted in a beautiful deluxe manuscript of the Grand Chroniques de France, produced in the 1330s for the future king of France, Jean II.)

Chapter Seven: In which the Franks cast out Aegidius, who they had instituted over themselves, and took back Childeric

(Above: seems like these chaps weren't just carving out kingdoms in lowland Britain and fighting battles with King Arthur, or whichever Romano-British warlord/s inspired the medieval legend. They were poking their noses round Gaul too).

In those days, the Franks captured the city of Agrippina over the Rhine, and they called it Cologne, as if tenant farmers lived there. They killed many of the Roman people from Aegidius’ part of Gaul there, and that same Aegidius escaped and fled. And they came to the city of Trier, over the river Moselle, and they laid waste to those lands and captured and set fire to that same city. Afterwards, King Childeric drove back a very large army of the enemies of the Franks and came through to the walls of the city of Orleans, and devastated the surrounding countryside. Adovagrius, leader of the Saxons, came through the sea with a fleet of ships up to the walls of the city of Angers, and he set that land ablaze, and thereupon great losses were inflicted on the city of Angers; afterwards, Adovagrius accepted hostages from Angers and from the other cities. Therefore, with Adovagrius having turned back from Angers, King Childeric of the Franks, having set in motion an army, came there; he killed Paulus, who was count there, and he captured that same city; and he burned down the city with fire, and from there he returned home.

(Below: a map of Europe in 481. Its the best I could find, though do exercise some caution in using it. The Kingdom of Syagrius will be making an important appearance next time, though do note that it refers to the territories in northern Gaul that remained under Roman rule even after 476).

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An eleventh century monk's take on the migration era and the origins of the Merovingian dynasty - the Historia Francorum of Adhemar of Chabannes chapters 2 - 5 (c.1200 BC - 460 AD)

More than a week has passed and progress has been made with the translation of Adhemar of Chabannes. I must say that I've been really enjoying it, even if Adhemar's generally straightforward and unpolished Latin has thrown up a few difficulties in places. Everything up to the beginning of chapter 6 has now been translated and is here for you to read at your leisure. 

(Above: an image befitting the general theme of this post)

It is here that the content of Adhemar of Chabannes' History of the Franks moves from myth (see my last post) - though having revisited the Percy Jackson books this summer (one of my favourite series' of novels when I was a kid), which really rekindled my passion for all things Greek mythology, I say "myth" with just the slightest bit of disappointment - more towards what might be called history. Or maybe more accurately a kind of middle ground. Some of the figures who feature in these chapters definitely existed, like Emperor Valentinian I, Marcomer, Chlodio, Attila the Hun and Aegidius. Others such as the very early Frankish rulers with the very un-Germanic names of Priam and Antenor are definitely fictitious, and Faramund and Merovech are also shrouded in later legends - remember, though the contemporary documentary sources for fifth century Gaul are much better than those for post-Roman Britain (where they're almost non-existent save for that notorious sermon of Gildas'), we are still approaching the age of "King Arthur." Regarding the origins of the Franks, we can safely say that Adhemar's account of Frankish migration and ethnogenesis is wrong. There is absolutely no evidence, save for eighth century legend, to suggest that the Franks migrated from the sea of Azov in modern day Ukraine to the German Rhineland in the reign of the Roman emperor Valentinian I (r.364 - 375). The Franks seem to have originated instead as a confederation of West Germanic tribes in the modern day Franconia region of central Germany who first appear fighting the Romans during the Imperial Crisis/ "Military Anarchy" of the Third Century (235 - 284) - these tribes, including the Chamavi, the Chattuari, the Bructeri and the Salians, were all continued to have fairly distinct identities, but they banded together for military purposes and called themselves the Franks, meaning "the hardy", "the brave" or "the free", depending on who you asked. In the third century, the Franks were fairly successful in leading raids across the Rhine and devastating Roman Gaul, but Constantine the Great (r.306 - 337) defeated them, having their chieftains thrown to the wild beasts and the free men pressed into service in the Roman army. The Salian Franks were made Roman foederati (allies/ auxiliaries) and given a client state just over the Rhenish frontier in the south of what is now the Netherlands to rule and act as a buffer against the Frisians to the north, one of the barbarian tribes that could not be drawn in to the remit of imperial control by the gravitational pull of Roman civilisation but wanted some sweet, sweet Roman gold and other highly items that could be plundered. As the Western Empire began to be confronted with a new wave of barbarian invasions in the fifth century, the Franks provided them with some assistance against the Visigoths, Alans, and Burgundians early in the century and against Attila and the Huns at the battle of the Catalaunian fields near modern day Chalons-en-Champagne in 451. They also became increasingly more politically unified under Merovech (d.458) and Childeric (d.481) - I obtained all this information from Patrick Geary, "Before France and Germany: the Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World", Princeton (1988), pp 77 - 80, more than thirty years old yet still authoritative and by one of the foremost living experts on the migration era and early Frankish history, certainly as concerns Anglophone academia.

But, I hear you cry "aren't myths precisely the stuff of history? Positivism, in which historians preoccupy themselves with narrowly defined 'facts' and what happened, is dead. Aren't narratives and perspectives what historians mostly deal with these days?" And you'd be right, and my own academic work (especially my masters' thesis) would confirm it to some degree. What makes it interesting is not whether Adhemar got his facts about what went on in late antiquity right - though it is interesting to find out what things people in the eleventh century knew about that time period that are still factually accepted by modern scholars, especially to counteract the tired old enlightenment stereotypes of those ignorant medievals. Instead, what is interesting here is how Adhemar, and the late seventh and early eighth century sources he drew from, the Fourth Book of Fredegar and Liber Historiae Francorum, tried to make sense of their ethnic past, or rather how they helped construct one to help strengthen a sense of Frankish identity. Ethnic histories like this abounded in the early middle ages - the most famous ones including Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" (731), Paul the Deacon's "History of the Lombards" (796) or Nennius' "History of the Britons" (828), which was an important foundation for Geoffrey of Mounmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain" (1136), including in its account of King Arthur.  Undoubtedly identity, is something that is often defined negatively - "we are from group x because we are not like group y or group z": it really isn't hard to think up historical or contemporary exempla for this, if you've been following the news at all for the last five years. But it can also be defined positively - by what brings us together rather than what divides us - through the development of shared interests, cultural practices and traditions, symbols, history and myths, on which there has been a lot of work done by historians, including ones of much more modern ones than this blog concerns. The exempla of this kind of identity formation include not just nations, social classes and political movements/ parties but also urban and rural communities, corporate organisations, schools, universities, sports clubs, friendship groups and, perhaps above all else, families. One can wonder what being a Frank meant in the early decades of the eleventh century. The Carolingian empire was long-gone, having fragmented into multiple kingdoms, some of which (like Adhemar's West Francia) had further fragmented into duchies (like Adhemar's native Aquitaine), counties and secular and ecclesiastical lordships, so there was no political unity to give "Frankish identity" any intuitive coherence. Meanwhile, the First Crusade, which would breathe new life into Frankish identity, largely because the Byzantines and Muslims used it as an ethnic slur to refer to all Westerners, whom they saw as barbarians that were good at courageous fighting and nothing else, was still a good few generations away. So what I think was going on here is that Adhemar, looking back at earlier origin stories for the Franks from the Merovingian/ early Carolingian eras, when Frankish political unity and ethnic consciousness was an ongoing project, and incorporated them into his history in order to give the Franks a heroic past that people in the politically fragmented present would want to identify with.

Moreover, what Adhemar has to about the fourth and fifth centuries AD still resonates with the debates about the Migration Era and the Fall of the Western Roman Empire still going on among scholars today. Above all, he appears to stress confrontation between Romans and barbarians (and between other barbarian groups) and a great deal of violence and destruction, exemplified in Chlodio's rampages through north-eastern Gaul - indeed, what happens at Cambrai sounds eerily like ethnic-cleansing. Whether the collapse of the Western Roman Empire really was the result of exogenous shock created by migration and confrontation between Romans and barbarians and whether it was catastrophically violent and destructive - and here I shall respectfully disagree with my former tutor at Worcester College, Oxford, Conrad Leyser, who claims that such a view of the fall of Rome, indeed the notion that such an event had taken place at all, was the invention of Italian Renaissance writers traumatised by the new wave of barbarian invaders from north of the Alps in the Italian Wars (1494 - 1559) - has been a source of great controversy since the 1970s. You'll find such diametrically opposed views on this matter coming from, on the one hand, Peter Heather and Bryan Ward-Perkins (see the interview with them together by Oxford University Press) and, on the other hand, Walter Goffart and Guy Halsall - Bryan Ward Perkins himself provides a good, but undoubtedly partial, overview of it all here. These debates aren't only academic controversies par excellence, they've also seeped into popular political discourse and inevitably things have gotten quite nasty. Broadly speaking, those who try to minimise the role of barbarian migration in the fall of Rome (indeed come close to denying it altogether, like Goffart) and emphasise accommodation between Romans and barbarians and fluid cultural and ethnic identities have been unfairly accused of pushing a politically-correct (we might now say "woke") agenda, while those who emphasise the catastrophic impact of the migrations and violent confrontation between Romans and barbarians have been hysterically accused of enabling the alt-right. But let's not get too side-tracked. What is clear is that whatever happened in the western regions of the Roman world in the fifth century AD mattered to intellectuals in the eleventh century, and still matters to us today in the twenty first, in how they made sense of the world and how they saw themselves. But now, time to let Adhemar, or rather my best attempts to translate him (I accept all errors as my own), take over.

Chapter 2 – concerning how the race of Alans rebelled against Emperor Valentinian, the Franks defeated them and the Franks were given tribute

(Above: Second Century AD Roman relief of an Alannic warrior)

After that time, the race of Alans, a perverse and very bad people, rebelled against Valentinian, emperor of the Romans. Thereupon, a most huge army moved from Rome and proceeded against that enemy, initiated battle, and overcame and defeated them. Consequently, the defeated Alans fled over the river Danube, and entered into the sea of Azov. However, the emperor said “whoever will be able to enter into these swamps and eject this wicked race, I will give them tribute for ten years.” Then the Trojans gathered together and devised stratagems, just as they were learned and noted for, and entered into the sea of Azov with others from the Roman people, and thence drove out the Alans and pierced them through with the blades of their swords. Thenceforth, Emperor Valentinian called them “Franks” in the Attic language, on account of their ferocity, rigour and courageous hearts.

 

Chapter 3 – where the emperor sent tax collectors in order that the Franks would pay tribute

(Above: statue of Emperor Valentinian I)

Therefore, after the aforementioned tribute was sent for ten years, the emperor [Valentinian] sent tax collectors with a first-rank commander from the Roman senate, in order to levy customary tribute from the Frankish people. These men also, as it were, were cruel and very monstrous, and after they had accepted their worthless delegation, the Franks said to them in turn “the emperor with the Roman army was not able to cast out the Alans, the brave and rebellious people, from the refuge of the swamps; indeed, was it not us who overcame them, why do we pay tribute? We stand here, therefore, against the first-rank man or rather these tax collectors, and we will kill them, and we will carry off all that they have with themselves, and we will not give the Romans tribute, and we will be free men in perpetuity.” Indeed, having prepared an ambush, they killed the tax collectors.

 

Chapter 4 – from when the same emperor set in motion an army against the Franks and up to their arrival in the Rhineland and their first king

(Above: a modern illustration of a fourth - sixth century Frankish warrior)

Hearing of this, the emperor [Valentinian], set alight with fury and anger, ordered that Aristarcus, his foremost general, move with an army against the enemies of the Romans and other peoples, and they directed battle lines against the Franks. Although there was a great slaughter on both sides, it was greater on that of the [Frankish] people. Certainly, regarding this, the Franks, because they could not sustain so great an army, were killed and yielded. In that place Priam, the bravest of them all, fell and they fled [the battlefield]. They also fled from Sicambria and came to the furthest parts of the river Rhine, to the towns of the Germans, and there they settled with their princes, Marcomer, son of Priam, and Sunno, son of Antenor; and they lived there for many years. After the death of Sunno, they heard a judgement in order to designate a king for them, like the other peoples. Marchomiris also gave them this advice, and they elected Faramund, his son, and they elevated him, their long-haired king, above themselves. At that very time they obtained laws and they managed to possess the superior ones of those peoples whose names were foreign to them: Wisogast, Arogast, Salegast, in the town beyond the Rhine: Inbotagin, Salecagin and Widecagin.

 

Chapter 5 – concerning the death of King Faramund and [the reign of] his son Chlodio, even the Hunnic invasion of Gaul

(Above: the Roman walls of Tongeren, which though they clearly served their purpose over the grand scheme of history, could not withstand Chlodio's forces)

Naturally, following the death of King Faramund, Chlodio, his long-haired son, was elevated to the royal dignity of his father. During that time, they [the Franks] chose to have long-haired kings, and they shrewdly came to the borders of Thuringia, and resided there. And so, King Chlodio lived in the stronghold of Duigsberg on the borders of Thuringia. On account of the peoples of Germania, all the regions that were east of the Rhine were called German, because their bodies were mountainous, their nations most vast and savage and they were hardened and always indomitable and very, very ferocious; an ancient text recounts that there were a hundred clans of these people. At that time, the Romans lived in those regions between the Rhine and the Loire; the lands south of the Loire were also ruled by them. And thus, the Burgundians, most heathen in that they held to the wicked doctrines of Arianism, were living on the opposite side of the Rhine, next to the city of Lyon. Consequently, Chlodio sent scouts from Duigsberg, stronghold of the Thuringians, all the way to the city of Cambrai. After that he crossed the Rhine with a great army, and he killed many of the Roman people and forced them to flee. Having come in through the charcoal-grey wood, he occupied the city of Tournai. Next, he came back to Cambrai, and he resided there for a short period of time; the Romans which he found there, he killed. Then he came all the way to the river Somme and occupied all of it.

(Above: where all the drama takes place)

(Yeah, this bad boy makes an appearance)

Following the death of King Chlodio, Merovech, his descendant, received the kingdom. Chlodio had reigned for twenty years. From the time of that useful king Merovech, the kings of the Franks were called Merovingians. At that time the Huns crossed the Rhine. They set Metz ablaze, destroyed Trier, passed through Tongeren, and came through all the way to Orleans. At that same time, the famous holy bishop Anianus was illustrious with miracles, and Aegidius, patrician of the Romans, and Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, came to him, and with the help of the Lord, as the Huns came to that city, as soon as St Anianus had prayed, Attila, their king, was subdued and thrown to the ground. At that very time, Merovech begat a son named Childeric, who was the father of Clovis, an illustrious and most courageous king. Indeed, at that time the Franks were pagan and frenzied, worshipping idols and images, and they did not yet know of the Lord who created the heavens and the earth. It was also at that time that Aegidius was sent away from the emperor, and was king in accordance with the Romans in that part of Gaul. And so it came to pass that King Childeric, son of Merovech, when he was becoming overweening in his rule over the Franks, he seduced their daughters to humiliate and degrade them. But, on account of this, they were enraged with great fury, and the vowed to kill him and deprive him of the royal dignity. Childeric, having heard of this, spoke to his friend, prudent in his counsel, called Wiomad, and begged with him for advice as to how he could be able to calm the furious spirits of the Franks. Thereupon, they gave between themselves the sign by which they would indicate what they needed to learn if at some time or other if the peace were to be restored. Afterwards, they divided between themselves one golden thing for a sign. One half was carried by King Childeric himself, the other half was kept by Wiomad, and he said, “when I will give this part to you, you should know that the Franks are with you and have been pacified by me, and serene peace will be restored.” Therefore, Childeric left for Thuringia and took refuge with its king, named Bisinus.