Everything about Salian Franks totally explained
» Salians redirects here, for the eleventh-century dynasty, see Salian dynasty, for Roman priests see Salii.
The
Salian Franks or
Salii were a subgroup of the early
Franks who originally had been living north of the
limes in the coastal area above the
Rhine in the northern
Netherlands, where today there still is a region called
Salland. The
Merovingian kings, responsible for the conquest of Gaul were of Salian stock. From the 3rd century on the Salian Franks appear in the historical records as warlike Germanic people and pirates, and as "Laeti" (allies of the Romans). They were the first Germanic tribe from beyond the
limes that settled permanently on Roman land.
The Salians fully adopted the Frankish identity and ceased to appear by their original name from the 5th century onward, when they evolved into the Franks par excellence. This is long before the
Ripuarian Franks were first mentioned. The
Lex Ripuaria originated about 630 around
Cologne and has been described as a later development of the Frankish laws known from
Lex Salica. Unlike popular opinion, there was no division of Franks between Salians and Ripuarians.
Etymology
From the early 7th century on the name
Salian Franks (or
Salii in Latin) is used to contrast with the
Ripuarian Franks.
Salii may have derived from the name of a river in the Netherlands: once called
Isala, or
Sal, currently named
IJssel signalling the people's movement and residence in that area of
Gaul. Even nowadays, this area is called
Salland. The name
Salian may also refer to salt and, by extension, the sea,
for example 'sea-dwelling'. In Latin texts the word
Salii otherwise is used for the dancing priests of Mars.
Culture
Their language belongs to, and is ancestral to, the family of
Low Franconian dialects. The Salian Franks are one of the people that formed the foundation for early Dutch culture and society (along with for example the
Frisians,
Batavians and
Saxons). According to modern scholars like Robinson their language evolved from Franconian into
Dutch. After settling within Roman territory, they were to develop an organized society that tilled the land and didn't pose a threat over the neighboring Romans.
The Salian tribes constituted a loose confederacy, that stood up together in order to negotiate with Roman authority. Each tribe was made up of extended familiar groups, gathered around a particular family, seen as specially renowned and noble. The importance of such a family bond was made clear by the
Salic Law, that ordained that an individual has no right to protection in the case he isn't part of a family.
Mythology and religion
Ancient
mythology and religion was pagan and
Germanic in nature. Their polytheistic beliefs are thought to have flourished among the Salian Franks until the conversion of Clovis to Christianity, after which paganism withered slowly.
History
The Salian Franks' original vicinity to the sea has been attested by the first historic records. In about 286
Carausius was put in charge of defending the coasts of the Straits of Dover against Saxon and Frankish pirates. This changed when the
Saxons drove them south into Roman territory. Among others, their history is attested by
Ammianus Marcellinus and
Zosimus, who described their migrations towards the southern Netherlands, and
Belgium. They first crossed the Rhine during the Roman upheavals and subsequent Germanic breakthrough in 260 AD. When peace had returned Roman Emperor
Constantius I Chlorus allowed the Salians to settle in 297 AD between the
Batavians, where they soon came to dominate the Batavian island in the Rhine delta. It isn't known whether this people were obliged to serve the Roman army like the Batavians before them, or if they were assigned another territory close to the
Black Sea, so the backgrounds of the seafaring Franks whose story was written down during the reign of emperor
Probus (276-282), are not clear when a large group decided to hijack some ships and return from Eastern Europe – reaching their homes in the Rhine estuaries without large losses through Greece, Sicily and Gibraltar, although not without causing mayhem. Franks ceased to be associated with seafaring when other Germanic tribes, probably
Saxons, drove them to the south. The Salians received protection from the Romans and in return were recruited by
Constantius Gallus – together with the other inhabitants of the Batavian isle. However, this didn't prevent the onslaught of the Germanic tribes to the north especially by the
Chamavi. The subsequent "insolent" settlement of the Salians within Roman territory in
Toxandria (between the
Meuse and the
Scheldt rivers in the
Netherlands and
Belgium) was rejected by the future
Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate who attacked them. The Salians surrendered to him in 358 AD accepting Roman terms.
One particular Salian family comes to light of Frankish history in the early fifth century, in time to become the
Merovingians – Salian kings named after Childeric's mythical father
Merovech whose birth was atttributed with supernatural elements.
From the 420s onwards, headed by a certain
Chlodio, they expanded their territory to the
Somme into northern
France. They formed a kingdom in that area with the Belgian city of
Tournai becoming the center of their domain. This kingdom was extended even further by
Childeric and especially
Clovis, who gained control over
Roman Gaul, for example
France, which bears its current name after the Franks.
In
451,
Flavius Aëtius,
de facto ruler of the
Western Roman Empire, called upon his Germanic allies on Roman soil to help fight off an invasion by
Attila's
Huns. The Salian Franks answered the call and fought in the battle of the
Catalaunian Fields in a temporary alliance with Romans and
Visigoths, which de facto ended the Hunnic threat to Western Europe.
Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, became the absolute ruler of a Germanic kingdom of mixed Roman-Germanic population in
486. He consolidated his rule with victories over the
Gallo-Romans and all the other Frankish tribes and established his capital in
Paris. After he'd beaten the
Visigoths and the
Alemanni his sons drove the Visigoths to Spain and subdued the
Burgundians, Alemanni and
Thuringians. After 250 years of this dynasty, however, they were marked by internecine struggles and a gradual decline. The position in society of the Merovingians was taken over by
Carolingians who again came from a northern area around the river Maas in what is now Belgium and southern Netherlands.
In Gaul, a fusion of Roman and Germanic societies was occurring. During the period of Merovingian rule, the Franks reluctantly began to
adopt Christianity following the baptism of
Clovis I in
496, an event that inaugurated the alliance between the Frankish kingdom and the
Roman Catholic Church. Unlike their
Goth and
Lombard counterparts, who adopted
Arianism, the Salians adopted Catholic Christianity early on; they'd an intimate relationship with their ecclesiastical hierarchy, subjects, and conquered territories.
The division of the Frankish kingdom among Clovis’s four sons (
511) was a precedent that would influence Frankish history for more than four centuries. By then the Salic Law had established the exclusive right to succession of male descendants. However, this principle turned out to be an exercise in interpretation, rather than the simple implementation of a new model of succession. No trace of an established practice of territorial division can in fact be discovered among Germanic peoples other than the Franks.
By the 9th century, if not earlier, the division between Salian and Ripuarian Franks had in practice become virtually non-existent, but continued for some time to have implications for the legal system under which a person could go on trial. The adjective
Salian as applied to the Frankish people is the origin of the name of the
Salic Law.
Footnotes
Further Information
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