THE ORTHODOX KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS

In the fifth century, for various reasons, of which the Arian Bishop
Ulphilas’ translation of the Gospel into German was perhaps the most
important, the great majority of barbarians who now dominated Western
Europe were Arian. Romanitas was associated with Orthodox Christianity;
several Orthodox bishops in the old Roman cities ably and courageously
defended the faith of the Romans while remaining loyal politically to their
barbarian and Arian political leaders. This was a difficult juggling act; but, in
contrast with North Africa, most of the Arian barbarians of Western Europe
respected these Roman Orthodox bishops and did not persecute them, which
laid the foundations for the conversion of the whole of the West to Orthodoxy
(whereas North Africa fell to Islam).

Perhaps the only exception was the Visigothic King Euric (466-84), who
“suspended the exercise of ecclesiastical, or, at least, episcopal functions, and
punished popular bishops of Aquitaine with imprisonment, exile, and
confiscation.”. 1 As Chris Wickham writes, Euric “was the first major ruler of a
‘barbarian’ polity in Gaul – the second in the empire after Geiseric – to have a
fully autonomous political practice, uninfluenced by any residual Roman
loyalties. Between 471 and 476 he expanded his power east to the Rhône (and
beyond, into Provence), north to the Loire, and south into Spain. The Goths
had already been fighting in Spain since the later 450s (initially on behalf of
the emperor Avitus), but Euric organized a fully fledged conquest there,
which is ill-documented, but seems to have been complete (except for a
Suevic enclave in the north-west) by the time of his death. By far the best
documented of Euric’s conquests, though not the most important, was the
Auvergne in 471-5, because the bishop of its central city, Clermont, was the
Roman senator Sidonius Apollinarius. Sidonius, who was [Bishop] Avitus’
son-in-law, and had been a leading lay official for both [Emperors] Majorian
and Anthemius, ended his political career besieged inside his home city, and
we can see all the political changes of the 450s-470s through his eyes. A
supporter of alliance with the Visigoths in the 450s, by the late 460s Sidonius
had become increasingly aware of the dangers involved, and hostile to Roman
officials who still dealt with them; then in the 470s we see him despairing of
any further help for Clermont, and contemptuous of the Italian envoys who
sacrificed the Auvergne so as to keep Provence under Roman control. By
around 480, as he put it, ‘now that the old degrees of official rank are swept
away… the only token of nobility… will henceforth be a knowledge of
letters’; the official hierarchy had gone, only traditional Roman culture
remained…”2

1
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London: The Folio Society, 1788,
1986, vol. 4, p. 309.
2
Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000, London: Penguin,
2009, p. 87.
 In Provence, the archiepiscopate of Arles was a bastion of Roman
traditions, and for a time played the role of a metropolitan centre on a par
with Rome. Thus St. Hilary, Archbishop of Arles (430-449) became “de facto
head of the whole of the Gallican Church and presided over Episcopal
councils in Riez (429), Orange (441) and Bezons (442).” Again, St. Caesarius of
Arles (503-542) “introduced a series of disciplinary reforms in the spirit of
Romanitas (Romanity), which confirmed the independence of bishops from the
local civil and juridical authorities, proclaimed the inalienability of church
property, introduced disciplinary rules for clergy (including celibacy for the
priesthood) and established sacramental obligations for laymen (regular
communion, conditions for marriage, etc.).”3

A potential threat to the continuance of Christian Roman Gaul came from

the Arian Kings Alaric of Toulouse and Theoderic of Ravenna. However,
these were tolerant of Orthodox Christianity, and St. Caesarius was able to
establish good cooperative relations with both of them.

Another threat was originally posed by the pagan Clovis, first king of the
Franks, who in 486 defeated the last representative of Roman power at the
Battle of Soissons. However, in 496 he was converted to Orthodoxy under the
influence of his wife, St. Clothilde, and St. Remigius, Bishop of Rheims. St.
Gregory of Tours tells the story: “The queen asked Saint Remigius, Bishop of
Rheims, to summon Clovis secretly, urging him to introduce the king to the
word of salvation. And the bishop sent for him secretly and began to urge
him to believe in the true God, maker of heaven and earth, and to cease
worshipping idols, which could help neither themselves nor any one else. But
the king said: ‘I gladly hear you, most holy father; but there remains one
thing: the people who follow me cannot endure to abandon their gods; but I
shall go and speak to them according to your words.’ He met with his
followers, but before he could speak the power of God anticipated him, and
all the people cried out together: ‘O pious king, we reject our mortal gods, and
we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remigius preaches.’ This was
reported to the bishop, who greatly rejoiced, and bade them get ready the
baptismal font. The squares were shaded with tapestried canopies, the
churches adorned with white curtains, the baptistery set in order, the aroma
of incense spread, candles of fragrant odour burned brightly, and the whole
shrine of the baptistery was filled with a divine fragrance: and the Lord gave
such grace to those who stood by that they thought they were placed amid
the odours of paradise. And the king was the first to ask to be baptized by the
bishop. Another Constantine advanced to the baptismal font, to terminate the
disease of ancient leprosy and wash away with fresh water the foul spots that
had long been borne. And when he entered to be baptized, the saint of God
began with ready speech: ‘Gently bend your neck, Sigamber; worship what
you burned; burn what you worshipped.’ The holy bishop Remigius was a
man of excellent wisdom and especially trained in rhetorical studies, and of
such surpassing holiness that he equalled the miracles of Sylvester. For there
3
Alexander Dvorkin, Ocherki po Istorii Vselenskoj Pravoslavnoj Tserkvi, Nizhni-Novgorod, 206,
pp. 354, 359.
is extant a book of his life which tells that he raised a dead man. And so the
king confessed all-powerful God in the Trinity, and was baptized in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and was anointed with the holy ointment
with the sign of the cross of Christ. And of his army more than 3000 were
baptized. His sister also, Albofled, was baptized, who not long after passed to
the Lord. And when the king was in mourning for her, the holy Remigius sent
a letter of consolation which began in this way: ‘The reason of your mourning
pains me, and pains me greatly, that Albofled your sister, of good memory,
has passed away. But I can give you this comfort, that her departure from the
world was such that she ought to be envied rather than mourned.’ Another
sister also was converted, Lanthechild by name, who had fallen into the
heresy of the Arians, and she confessed that the Son and the holy Spirit were
equal to the Father, and was anointed.”4

Clovis’ baptism, together with the stunning victories that he won over the
Arian kings, was a tremendous boost to Gallic Romanitas. St. Avitus, Bishop of
Vienne, congratulated him on his baptism in terms that showed that he
regarded Clovis’ kingdom as part of the Empire: “Let Greece rejoice in having
chosen our princeps”.5 Again, St. Gregory of Tours wrote that he received
letters “from the Emperor Anastasius to confer the consulate on him. In Saint
Martin’s church he stood clad in a purple tunic and the military mantle, and
he crowned himself with a diadem. He then rode out on his horse and with
his own hand showered gold and silver coins among the people present all
the way from the doorway of Saint Martin’s church to Tours cathedral. From
that day on he was called Consul or Augustus.”6

Actually, since the Emperor Anastasius was a heretic, Clovis was the only
major Orthodox ruler on the continent at this time. Moreover, he consciously
stressed the continuity of his rule with that of Rome. As Fr. Andrew Louth
writes: “Like most of the barbarian kingdoms that appeared in the Western
Roman Empire, [the Frankish realms] inherited something of the
administrative structure of the Roman Empire, and could claim to rule as
representative, in some way, of the true Roman emperor, who resided in New
Rome, Constantinople. This understanding was fictional in several respects:
the Roman or Byzantine emperor had no choice over his Merovingian
representative in Gaul and, although taxes were still being collected, the
dynamics of political society in the West were changing in the direction of a
society ruled by military warlords, who gave protection to those who lived in
their domains and rewarded their followers with booty from fighting
amongst themselves, and further afield, and who accepted the overlordship of
the Merovingian kings. The fiction was nevertheless significant, not least in

4
St. Gregory, The History of the Franks.
5
St. Avitus, Letter 4.
6
St. Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, II, 38, p. 154. During the coronation of the
Russian Tsars, too, the bystanders were showered with gold and silver, symbolizing the
betrothal of the Tsar with the State. See Fr. Nikita Chakirov (ed.), Tsarskie Koronatsii na Rusi
(Imperial Coronations in Rus’), New York: Russian Orthodox Youth Committee, 1971, p. 22.
the way it articulated political legitimacy in terms of the ideals of the Roman
Empire.”7

Clovis defeated the Arian Visigothic King Alaric II at Vouillé in 507. Then
in 511 the Franks’ allies against the Visigoths, the Burgundians, were
converted from Arianism to Orthodoxy. And although the Arian Theoderic
profited from the Visigoths’ defeat to incorporate their kingdom into his
while the Franks took Aquitaine, the revival of Orthodoxy continued,
receiving its strongest boost in 518 when the Monophysite Emperor
Anastasius, died, and was succeeded by the Orthodox Justin I. In 526 the
Ostrogothic King Theoderic died, and his kingdom lost its hold on the
Visigoths and Vandals, leaving the Franks as the most powerful force in the
West. The Emperor Justinian confirmed the Franks in their dominion over the
whole land beyond the Alps.8 The Gallo-Romans now set about working with
their Frankish king to create the Merovingian Orthodox kingdom, the most
glorious period in the history of France.

“Established at Paris, Clovis governed this kingdom by virtue of an

agreement concluded with the bishops of Gaul, according to which [Gallo-
Roman] natives and [Frankish] barbarians were to be on terms of equality…
All free men bore the title of Frank, had the same political status, and were
eligible to the same offices. Besides, each individual observed the law of the
people among whom he belonged; the Gallo-Roman lived according to their
code, the barbarian according to the Salian or Ripuarian law; in other words,
the law was personal, not territorial. If there were any privileges they
belonged to the Gallo-Romans, who, in the beginning were the only ones on
whom the episcopal dignity was conferred. The king governed the provinces
through his counts, and had a considerable voice in the selection of the clergy.
The drawing up of the Salian Law (Lex Salica), which seems to date from the
early part of the reign of Clovis, and the Council of Orléans, convoked by him
and held in the last year of his reign, prove that the legislative activity of this
king was not eclipsed by his military energy.”9

Our main source for Frankish history, The History of the Franks by St.
Gregory of Tours, confirms this account. As Wickham writes, St. Gregory,
“although of an aristocratic Roman family, seems hardly aware the empire
has gone at all; his founding hero was Clovis, and all his loyalties Frankish.” 10
Nowhere does he dispute the legitimacy of Frankish rule; and the rebellions
that take place are of Franks against Franks rather than Gallo-Romans against
Franks.

One exception to this rule was the attempt of Bishop Egidius of Rheims to
kill King Childebert (V, 19). But St. Gregory shows no sympathy for the
7
Louth, Greek East and Latin West, Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007, pp.
67-68.
8
Gibbon, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 339.
9
“New Advent” Catholic encyclopaedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06238a.htm
10
Wickham, op. cit., p. 200.
bishop, and records his trial and exile by his fellow-bishops without criticism.
As for the independence of the bishops in the Frankish kingdom, this is
demonstrated by the completely free election of St. Gregory himself to the
episcopate by the people, with no interference by the king.11

Gaul was the great success story of Romanity in the West. It remained loyal
to Constantinople, preserving both the faith and the political forms of
Romanity more closely than any other continental nation. Indeed, writes Janet
Nelson, “the Franks were distinguished by their orthodoxy and by their
kings’ determination to destroy heresy.” 12 And, as David Starkey writes,
under the rule of Clovis and his successors, “most aspects of sub-Roman
society – the architecture, language, literature, manners and, above all, Roman
Christianity – continued to flourish in the most successful regime since the fall
of the Western Empire”.13

Thus the 6th century Byzantine lawyer, scholar, poet, and historian
Agathias Scholasticus writes in his Histories: "The Franks have a common
frontier with Italy. They may reasonably be identified with the people who in
ancient times were called 'Germans'… Their system of government,
administration and laws are modelled more or less on the Roman pattern,
apart from which they uphold similar standards with regard to contracts,
marriage, and religious observance. They are in fact all Christians and adhere
to the strictest Orthodoxy. They also have magistrates in their cities and
priests and celebrate the feasts in the same way as we do, and, for a barbarian
people, strike me as extremely well-bred and civilized and as practically the
same as ourselves except for their uncouth style of dress and peculiar
language. I admire them for their other attributes and especially for the spirit
of justice and harmony that prevails amongst them. Although on many
occasions in the past and even during my own lifetime their kingdom has
been divided between three or more rulers they have never yet waged war
against one another or seen fit to stain their country's honour by the slaughter
of their kith and kin. And yet whenever great powers are seen to have
reached a state of parity, arrogant and uncompromising attitudes are
inevitably engendered and the logical outcome is rivalry, the lust for
domination and a host of other passions that constitute a fertile breeding-
ground for unrest and dissension. Nevertheless nothing of the kind occurs in
their case no matter how many different kingdoms they are split up into. In
the rare event of some dispute arising between their kings they draw
themselves up ostensibly in battle-formation and with the apparent object of
deciding the issue by force of arms and then confront one another. But once
the main body of the army on either side has come face to face they
immediately lay aside all animosity, return to mutual understanding and
enjoin their leaders to settle their differences by arbitration, or failing that by
11
Abbot Odo, The Life of St. Gregory of Tours, translated by Fr. Seraphim Rose in Vita Patrum,
Platina, Ca.: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1988, p. 45.
12
Nelson, King and Emperor. A New Life of Charlemagne, London: Allen Press, 2019, p. 16.
13
Starkey, Crown & Country, London: Harper, 2011, pp. 28-29.
placing their own lives at stake in single combat. For it is not right, they say,
or in keeping with ancestral precedent for the common good to suffer injury
and upheaval on account of some personal feud of theirs. The immediate
result is that they break their ranks and lay down their arms. Peace and quiet
are restored, normal communications resumed, and the horrors of war are
forgotten. So law-abiding therefore and public spirited are the subject classes
and so docile and amendable to reason, when need be, are the masters. It is
for this reason that the basis of their power remains secure and their
government stable and that they have not lost any of their territory but have
actually increased it greatly. When justice and amity are second nature to a
people then their state is guaranteed happiness and stability and rendered
impregnable to enemy attack. So, living this virtuous life, the Franks rule over
their own people and their neighbours, the succession passing from father to
son."14

November 27 / December 10, 2019.

14
However, Gibbon considered Agathias’ enthusiasm “partial”; it could not “be sufficiently
justified by their domestic annals [i.e those of Gregory of Tours]”(op. cit., p. 339).