His victory over Syagrius. A.D. 436. traversed a peaceful territory, they were prohibited from touching The first exploit of Clovis was the defeat of Syagrius, the son of Ægidius; and the public quarrel might, on this occasion, be inflamed by private resentment. The glory of the father still insulted the Merovingian race; the power of the son might excite the jealous ambition of the king of the Franks. Syagrius inherited, as a patrimonial estate, the city and diocese of Soissons, the desolate remnant of the second Belgic, Rheims and Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit to the count or patrician; 15 and after the dissolution of the Western empire he might reign with the title, or at least with the autho rity, of king of the Romans. 16 As a Roman, he had been educated in the liberal studies of rhetoric and jurisprudence; but he was engaged by accident and policy in the familiar use of the Germanic idiom. The independent Barbarians resorted to 14 The Duke of Nivernois, a noble statesman, who has managed weighty and delicate negotiations, ingeniously illustrates (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 147-184) the political system of Clovis. 15 M. Biet (in a dissertation which deserved the prize of the Academy of Soissons, p. 178-226) has accurately defined the nature and extent of the kingdom of Syagrius, and his father; but he too readily allows the slight evidence of Dubos (tom. ii. p. 54-57) to deprive him of Beauvais and Amiens. [His kingdom was bounded by the Somme (beyond which was the Salian territory under Chlodwig); by the territory of the Ripuarian Franks (on the lower Mosel); by the Burgundian kingdom (Auxerre was probably near the frontier); and by the Seine. The territory of the Armorican federation between the Seine and Loire seems to have been independent, after the death of Ægidius. And in this region isolated fortresses may have been still in the hands of Roman garrisons, independent of the lord of Soissons (Procop., B. G., i. 12). Cp. Junghans, op. cit. p. 23, 24.] 16 I may observe that Fredegarius, in his Epitome of Gregory of Tours (tom. ii. P. 398 [c. 15]), has prudently [but on what authority?] substituted the name of Patricius for the incredible title of Rex Romanorum. [This description given by Gregory (ii. 27) expresses very well the actual position of Syagrius in northern Gaul. Syagrius had not, so far as we know, any official title in the Empire (like his father's post of magister militum).] the tribunal of a stranger, who possessed the singular talent of explaining, in their native tongue, the dictates of reason and equity. The diligence and affability of their judge rendered him popular, the impartial wisdom of his decrees obtained their voluntary obedience, and the reign of Syagrius over the Franks and Burgundians seemed to revive the original institution of civil society.17 In the midst of these peaceful occupations, Syagrius received, and boldly accepted, the hostile defiance of Clovis ; who challenged his rival in the spirit, and almost in the language, of chivalry, to appoint the day and the field 18 of battle. In the time of Cæsar, Soissons would have poured forth a body of fifty thousand horse; and such an army might have been plentifully supplied with shields, cuirasses, and military engines, from the three arsenals, or manufactures of the city.19 But the courage and numbers of the Gallic youth were long since exhausted; and the loose bands of volunteers, or mercenaries, who marched under the standard of Syagrius, were incapable of contending with the national valour of the Franks. It would be ungenerous, without some more accurate knowledge of his strength and resources, to condemn the rapid flight of Syagrius, who escaped, after the loss of a battle, to the distant court of Toulouse. The feeble minority of Alaric could not assist or protect an unfortunate fugitive; the pusillanimous 20 Goths were intimidated by the menaces of Clovis; and the Roman king, after a short confinement, was delivered into the hands of the executioner. The Belgic cities surrendered to the king of the Franks; 21 17 Sidonius (1. v. epist. 5, in tom. i. p. 794), who styles him the Solon, the Amphion of the Barbarians, addresses this imaginary king in the tone of friendship and equality. From such offices of arbitration, the crafty Dejoces had raised himself to the throne of the Medes (Herodot. l. i. c. 96-100). 18 Campum sibi præparari jussit. M. Biet (p. 226-251) has diligently ascertained this field of battle, at Nogent, a Benedictine abbey, about ten miles to the north of Soissons. The ground was marked by a circle of Pagan sepulchres; and Clovis bestowed the adjacent lands of Leuilly and Coucy on the church of Rheims. 19 See Cæsar, Comment. de Bell. Gallic. ii. 4, in tom. i. p. 220, and the Notitiæ, tom. i. p. 126. The three Fabricae of Soissons were, Scutaria, Balistaria, and Clinabaria. The last supplied the complete armour of the heavy cuirassiers. 20 The epithet must be confined to the circumstances; and history cannot justify the French prejudice of Gregory (1. ii. c. 27, in tom. ii. p. 175), ut Gothorum pavere mos est. [Gregory tells of the siege of Rheims after the victory over Syagrius. That victory extended the dominion of Chlodwig to the Seine; in the following years he advanced by degrees to the Loire. This progress indicated in the Gesta by the words usque Ligere fluvio occupavit (c. 14) is not clearly marked in earlier sources (Gregory passes it over), but it can be traced in the story told by Procopius (B. G., i. 12) of the dealings between the Franks and the Arboruchi (who are certainly the Defeat and and his dominions were enlarged towards the East by the ample diocese of Tongres, 22 which Clovis subdued in the tenth year of his reign. The name of the Alemanni has been absurdly derived from their imaginary settlement on the banks of the Leman lake. 28 That fortunate district, from the lake to Avenche and Mount Jura, was occupied by the Burgundians.24 The northern parts of Helvetia had indeed been subdued by the ferocious Alemanni, who destroyed with their own hands the fruits of their conquest. A province, improved and adorned by the arts of Rome, was again reduced to a savage wilderness; and some [Windisch] vestige of the stately Vindonissa may still be discovered in the fertile and populous valley of the Aar.25 From the source of the Rhine to its conflux with the Main and the Moselle, the formidable swarms of the Alemanni commanded either side of the river, by the right of ancient possession or recent victory. They had spread themselves into Gaul, over the modern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine; and their bold invasion of the kingdom of Cologne summoned the Salic prince to the defence of his Ripuarian allies. Clovis encountered the invaders of Gaul in Armorici); in the siege of Paris in the Vita Genovefae; and in the unsuccessful siege of Nantes in Gregory's De Gloria Martyrum, í. 60. Gibbon places this advance after A.D. 496; see below.] 22 Dubos has satisfied me (tom. i. p. 277-286) that Gregory of Tours, his transcribers, or his readers, have repeatedly confounded the German kingdom of Thuringia, beyond the Rhine, and the Gallic city of Tongria on the Meuse, which was more anciently the country of the Eburones and more recently the diocese of Liege. [Thoringis bellum intulit, Greg. ii. 27. There is nothing to be said for the view (revived by Pétigny in Études sur l'époque mérovingienne, 1842-4) that the Tongri are meant. But the view of Junghans that these Thoringi dwelt on the left bank of the Rhine near its mouth seems highly improbable. The Thuringian kingdom approached the Rhine, but was entirely on the right bank.] 23 Populi habitantes juxta Lemannum lacum, Alemanni dicuntur. Servius, ad Virgil Georgic. iv. 278. Dom Bouquet (tom. i. p. 817) has only alleged the more recent and corrupt text of Isidore of Seville. 24 Gregory of Tours sends St. Lupicinus inter illa Jurensis deserti secreta, quæ, inter Burgundiam Alamanniamque sita, Aventicæ adjacent civitati, in tom. i. p. 648. M. de Watteville (Hist. de la Confédération Helvétique, tom. i. p. 9, 10) has accurately defined the Helvetian limits of the duchy of Alemannia and the Transjurane Burgundy. They were commensurate with the dioceses of Constance and Avenche, or Lausanne, and are still discriminated, in Modern Switzerland, by the use of the German or French language. 25 See Guilliman de Rebus Helveticis, 1. i. c. 3, p. 11, 12. Within the ancient walls of Vindonissa, the castle of Habsburg, the abbey of Königsfeld, and the town of Bruck [Brugg], have successively arisen. The philosophic traveller may compare the monuments of Roman conquest, of feudal or Austrian tyranny, of monkish sueprstition, and of industrious freedom. If he be truly a philosopher he will applaud the merit and happiness of his own times. 26 the plain of Tolbiac, about twenty-four miles from Cologne; and the two fiercest nations of Germany were mutually animated by the memory of past exploits and the prospect of future greatness. The Franks, after an obstinate struggle, gave way; and the Alemanni, raising a shout of victory, impetuously pressed their retreat. But the battle was restored by the valour, the conduct, and perhaps by the piety, of Clovis; and the event of the bloody day decided for ever the alternative of empire or servitude. The last king of the Alemanni was slain in the field, and his people was slaughtered and pursued, till they threw down their arms and yielded to the mercy of the conqueror. Without discipline it was impossible for them to rally; they had contemptuously demolished the walls and fortifications which might have protected their distress; and they were followed into the heart of their forests by an enemy, not less active or intrepid than themselves. The great Theodoric congratulated the victory of Clovis, whose sister Albofleda the king of Italy had lately married; but he mildly interceded with his brother in favour of the suppliants and fugitives who had implored his protection. The Gallic territories, which were possessed by the Alemanni, became the prize of their conqueror; and the haughty nation, invincible or rebellious to the arms of Rome, acknowledged the sovereignty of the Merovingian kings, who graciously permitted them to enjoy their peculiar manners and institutions, under the government of official, and, at length, of hereditary, dukes. After the conquest of the Western provinces, the Franks alone maintained their ancient habitations beyond the Rhine. They gradually subdued and civilized the exhausted countries, as far as the Elbe and the mountains of Bohemia; and the peace of Europe was secured by the obedience of Germany,27 [Gregory does not mark the place of the battle; and Tolbiacum (Zülpich) is a false inference from another passage (ii. 27), where Sigibert, king of the Ripuarian Franks, is said to have been wounded in the knee, fighting against the Alamanni apud Tulbiacense oppidum. That this was the battle in which Alamannia was overthrown is a pure assumption. The Vita Seti Vedasti (Acta Sct. Feb. 6) point in another direction, to the Upper Rhine; the battle being brought on by the attempt of Chlodwig to pass that river. After his victory he returns to Rheims, by Toul (Tullum) and the course of the Aisne (Axona). Another source represents him returning by Joine (Juviniacum). Sybel has defended the Vita Vedasti.] Gregory of Tours (1. ii. 30, 37, in tom. ii. p. 176, 177, 182), the Gesta Francorum (in tom. ii. p. 551), and the epistle of Theodoric (Cassiodor. Variar. 1. ii. c. 41, in tom. iv. p. 4) represent the defeat of the Alemanni. Some of their tribes settled in Rhætia, under the protection of Theodoric; whose successors ceded the colony and their country to the grandson of Clovis. [This is probably the true Conversion of Clovis. A.D. 496 Till the thirtieth year of his age, Clovis continued to worship the gods of his ancestors. 28 His disbelief, or rather disregard, of Christianity might encourage him to pillage with less remorse the churches of an hostile territory; but his subjects of Gaul enjoyed the free exercise of religious worship, and the bishops entertained a more favourable hope of the idolater than of the heretics. The Merovingian prince had contracted a fortunate [c. A.D. 4923] alliance with the fair Clotilda, the niece of the king of Burgundy, who, in the midst of an Arian court, was educated in the profession of the Catholic faith. It was her interest, as well as her duty, to achieve the conversion 29 of a Pagan husband; and Clovis insensibly listened to the voice of love and religion. He consented (perhaps such terms had been previously stipulated) to the baptism of his eldest son; and, though the sudden death of the infant excited some superstitious fears, he was persuaded, a second time, to repeat the dangerous experiment. In the distress of the battle of Tolbiac, Clovis loudly invoked the god of Clotilda and the Christians; and victory disposed him to hear, with respectful gratitude, the eloquent 30 Remigius, 31 bishop of Rheims, who forcibly displayed the temporal and spiritual view; and we must prefer it to the theories that part of Alamannia remained independent, or was annexed by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. For his treatment of the fugitive Alamanni, see also Ennodius, Panegyricus, c. xv. p. 212, ed. Vogel.] The state of the Alemanni under the Merovingian kings may be seen in Mascou (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, xi. 8, &c. Annotation xxxvi.) and Guilliman (de Reb. Helvet. 1. ii. c. 10-12, p. 72-80). 28 Clotilda, or rather Gregory, supposes that Clovis worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome. The fact is incredible, and the mistake only shews how completely, in less than a century, the national religion of the Franks had been abolished, and even forgotten. 29 Gregory of Tours relates the marriage and conversion of Clovis (1. ii. c. 28-31, in tom. ii. p. 175-178). Even Fredegarius, or the nameless Epitomizer (in tom. ii. P: 398-400), the author of the Gesta Francorum (in tom. ii. p. 548-552), and Aimoin himself (1. i. c. 13, in tom. iii. p. 37-40) may be heard without disdain. Tradition might long preserve some curious circumstances of these important transactions. [On these later accounts see Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule Méridionale, ii. 493 sqq., and Junghans, op. cit. p. 51-54.] 30 A traveller who returned from Rheims to Auvergne had stolen a copy of his Declamations from the secretary or bookseller of the modest archbishop (Sidonius Apollinar. 1. ix. epist. 7). Four epistles of Remigius, which are still extant (in tom. iv. p. 51, 52, 53), do not correspond with the splendid praise of Sidonius. 31 Hincmar, one of the successors of Remigius (A.D. 845-882), has composed his life (in tom. iii. p. 373-380 [Migne, vol. cxxv. p. 1128 sqq.]). The authority of ancient Mss. of the church of Rheims might inspire some confidence, which is destroyed, however, by the selfish and audacious fictions of Hincmar. It is remarkable enough that Remigius, who was consecrated at the age of twenty-two (A.D. 457), filled the episcopal chair seventy-four years (Pagi Critica, in Baron. tom. ii. p. 384, 572). [Gregory of Tours used a liber vitae of Remigius (ii. 39), which Life was doubtless also used by Venantius Fortunatus and afterwards by Hincmar.] |
