FOOTNOTES:
[71] Still we must not omit to state that the lays of ancient Germany, and the old Chronicles of the country, exhibit singular agreement in the reproduction of the popular tradition which makes the nation of the Franks come from Troy. However, after all, this makes no great difference, as even the most strenuous believers in the existence of a distinct nation of Franks, fully admit that as early as the third century (the time when the name of the Franks first appears in history) that name included several Germanic nations. By some the Thuringians are given as a branch of the Frank nation.
[72] Some, however, derive the name from the Old German word saljan, i.e. to grant, in reference to part of the territory occupied by the Salian Franks having been granted to them by the Romans (by Carausius, in 287, confirmed at a later period by Julian the Apostate). Leo derives the name from the Celtic word, Sal, i.e. the sea.
[73] Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, King of Persia, in 260, who is said to have treated the fallen emperor with the greatest indignity. Valerian died in captivity.
[74] He was one of the nineteen usurpers who rose against Gallienus in the several provinces of the empire. The writers of the Augustan history have magnified the number to thirty.
[75] History names Pharamond as the first King of the Franks; the author of the Gesta Francorum makes that prince the son of Marcomir, the king mentioned in the text; and there appears to be little doubt indeed, but that the Franks had established the right of hereditary succession somewhat before the time of Clodion, the reputed son of Pharamond.
[76] The fashion of long hair was among the Franks for a time, the somewhat exclusive privilege of the royal family; the members of which wore their locks hanging down in flowing ringlets on their back and shoulders; while the rest of the nation were obliged to shave the hind part of the head, and to comb the hair over the forehead.
[77] Elevation on a buckler was the ceremony by which the Franks invested their chosen leader with military command.
[78] According to some historians and geographers, Duisburg, on the right bank of the Rhine.
[79] Most historians make Meroveus, the younger of the two sons of Clodion; and, after his father’s death, they send him to Rome to implore the protection of Ætius. Now, it is next to impossible that the beardless youth, whom Priscus states to have seen at Rome (about 449 or 450), could have been Meroveus, since the son of that prince, Childeric, was within ten years after exiled by the Franks on account of his excesses and his despotic sway. The young man whom Priscus saw was most probably Childeric, who may have been sent to Rome by his father, Meroveus, to renew the alliance which Clodion had made with Ætius.
[80] The kingdom of the Burgundians, which had been established in 407 (see [page 93]), was divided, in 470, among the four sons of king Gonderic; Hilperic, or Chilperic, the father of Clotilda, fixed his residence at Geneva; Gundobald at Lyons; Godegesil at Besançon, and Godemar at Vienne (in Dauphiné). A war broke out between the brothers, in which Gundobald conquered and took prisoner Hilperic and Godemar; the latter committed suicide; the former was put to death by his inhuman brother Gundobald, and his wife and his two sons shared his fate; his two daughters were spared, and one of them, Clotilda, was brought up at the court of Lyons; and, as chance would have it, in the Catholic faith, though Gundobald himself, like most of the Christian princes of the time, professed the Arian doctrine, Gundobald would gladly have refused Clovis the hand of his niece, had he dared to brave the anger of the powerful Frankish chief. Clotilda, on her part, was overjoyed at the prospect of an alliance with a King, whose ambition might be turned to good account for the pursuit of her own vengeful projects against the murderer of her father; with a pagan, whose conversion to the Nicean creed would gain her beloved Catholic church a formidable champion against the hated Arian heretics. Gundobald had scarcely parted with his niece, and her father’s treasures, when the pious princess displayed her Christian spirit, by ordering her Frankish escort to burn down the Burgundian villages through which they were passing, and when she saw the flames rising, and heard the despairing cries of the unfortunates who were thus being deprived of their homes, she lifted up her voice, and praised the God of Athanasius—the holy Chlotildis!
[81] The Alemanni were also, like the Franks, a league of several Germanic nations, among whom the Teneteri, the Usipetes, and most probably a portion of the Suevi, were the most important. The favorite etymology of the name, Allemanni or All-Men, as meant to denote at once the various lineage, and the common bravery of the component members of the league, is a little fanciful perhaps, yet not more so, or rather not quite so much so, as some other etymologies of the name indulged in by the learned.
[82] The invocation as given by Gregory of Tours, is rather naïve. Jesu Christe, quem Chlotildis prædicat esse filium Dei vivi, qui dare auxilium laborantibus, victoriamque in te sperantibus tribuere diceris, tuæ opis gloriam devotus efflagito: ut si mihi victoriam super hos hostes indulseris, et expertus fuero illam virtutem, quam de te populus tuo nomine dicatus probasse se prædicat, credam tibi et in nomine tuo baptizer. Invocavi enim deos meos, sed ut experior, elongati sunt ab auxilio meo: unde credo eos nullius potestatis, qui tibi obedientibus non succurrunt. A pretty plain hint: no victory, no belief, no baptism!
[83] Theodoric had lately married Albofleda (Audofleda, or Andefleda), the sister of Clovis.
[84] Lex Gudebalda—“La loy Gombette.”—Drawn up by Aredius.
[85] Alaric was married to Theodoric’s daughter Theudogotha, or Theodichusa.
[86] Prosternabat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius, et augebat regnum ejus, eo quod ambularet recto corde coram eo, et faceret, quæ placita erant in oculis ejus. Gregor. Hist. lib. II., cap. 40.
[87] Austrasia comprised the old Salian possessions in Belgium, and the territories of the Ripuarians and the Alemanni.
[88] Clodomir had left three sons, who were brought up by their grandmother, Clotilda. The two brothers having got possession of two of their nephews, calmly resolved to kill them. Clotaire sheathed his dagger in the breast of one of them, the other embraced the knees of his uncle Childebert, and besought him to spare his life. The tears of the innocent child moved even the harsh Childebert to pity; he entreated his brother to spare him; but that monster remained deaf to all prayers, and threatened even to make Childebert share the fate of the helpless boy, should he continue any longer to withhold him from his murderous hands: Childebert thereupon pushed back the poor innocent, and Clotaire’s dagger speedily sent him to rejoin his brother (532). The third of the children of Clodomir was, indeed, saved from his uncle’s clutches; but he deemed it necessary afterwards to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, in order to secure his safety.
[89] Fredegonda was first Chilperic’s concubine, subsequently, after the murder of Galsuintha, his wife. After a career of blood and crime, of which history affords but few parallels, she died in 579, at the height of prosperity and power, tranquilly in her bed, properly shriven, of course, and with a promise of paradise. Had the female monster been but a little more liberal to the Church, who knows but the Calendar of the Saints might contain an additional name.
[90] Brunehilda was the daughter of Athanagild, King of Spain, and the wife of Sigebert, King of Austrasia. She was in every respect a worthy pendant to Fredegonda; but her final fate was very different from that of her more fortunate rival, whom she survived about sixteen years. In the year 613, she fell into the hands of Fredegonda’s son, Clotaire, who inflicted upon the aged woman the most horrible tortures, and had her finally tied, with one arm and one leg, to the tail of a wild horse, and thus dragged along over a stony road until death took mercy upon her. And all these people professed the religion of Christ, and were surrounded by numbers of most pious bishops! but then, the Church has always been indulgent to those who could and would remember her with rich endowments. Moreover, many of the bishops of that period were themselves such monstrous villains that little or no remonstrance could be expected from them against any royal crime, however so atrocious.—To give one instance out of many: a bishop of Clermont, wishing to compel a priest of his diocese to cede to him a small estate held by the latter, and which he refused to part with, had the unfortunate man shut up in a coffin, with a decaying corpse, and the coffin placed in the vault of the church!
[91] Theuderic, or Thierry, was the younger son of Sigebert’s son Childebert; he murdered his elder brother, Theudebert, and the infant son of the latter, Meroveus (612). He died a year after, and two of his own boys, Sigebert and Corbus, met the same fate at the hands of Clotaire.