Christian Pfister

“ At the end of the 4th century and at the beginning of the 5th, when the Roman legions withdrew from the banks of the Rhine, the Salians installed themselves in the district as an independent people. The place-names became entirely Germanic; the Latin language disappeared; and the Christian religion suffered a check, for the Franks were to a man pagans. The Salians were subdivided into a certain number of tribes, each tribe placing at its head a king, distinguished by his long hair and chosen from the most noble family (Historia Francorum, ii. 9) . ”

“ The Ripuarians long remained allies of Clovis, Sigebert’s son Chloderic fighting under the king of the Salian Franks at Vouillé in 507. Clovis, however, persuaded Chloderic to assassinate his father, and then posed as Sigebert’s avenger, with the result that Chloderic was himself assassinated and the Ripuarians raised Clovis on the shield and chose him as king. Thus the Salian Franks united under their rule all the Franks on the left bank of the Rhine. During the reigns of Clovis’s sons they again turned their eyes on Germany, and imposed their suzerainty upon the Franks on the right bank. ”

“ Each tribe was politically independent; they formed no confederations. Sometimes two or three tribes joined forces to wage a war; but, the struggle over, the bond was broken, and each tribe resumed its isolated life. Waitz holds with some show of probability that the Franks represent the ancient Istaevones of Tacitus, the Alamanni and the Saxons representing the Herminones and the Ingaevones.
Of all these Frankish tribes one especially was to become prominent, the tribe of the Salians. ”