Known from an early date to the Romans as vagrant marauders, the Franks
had been heavily chastised by most of the soldier emperors from Probus
to Julian. Some of them were forcibly settled as serf-colonists on the
left bank of the Rhine; others (the _Salian_ Franks) appropriated
to themselves a large part of Batavia, the marsh country at the mouths
of the Scheldt and Rhine; a third group (the _Ripuarians_) occupied
the lands between the Rhine and the Meuse, in the neighbourhood of Koln
and Bonn. The Salians and Ripuarians counted as allies (_foederati_) of
the Empire, at least from the time of Aetius; under whom, like the
Visigoths, they fought against the Huns at Troyes (451). Their
aggressions were checked on the West by the Roman governors of the
country lying between the Somme and the Loire; and their power
was impaired by the partition of the Salian people among a swarm of
petty kings. But in 481, with the accession of Clovis to the throne of
Tournai, there began a period of consolidation and advance. In 486
Clovis overthrew the Roman governor Syagrius and usurped his power. In
496 he annexed the purely Teutonic principality which the Alemanni had
recently established in the country now known as Suabia. This victory
was the occasion of his conversion to Christianity. The legend goes
that, in the crisis of the final battle, Clovis appealed to the God of
his pious wife: "I have called on my gods and they have forsaken me. To
Thee I turn, in Thee will I believe, if Thou wilt deliver me." He kept
his word, and was baptised by St. Remi, the Bishop of Rheims, thus
becoming a member of the orthodox communion, and the hope of all the
Gallic clergy, who had hitherto submitted with an ill grace to the
heretical rulers of the Visigoths and the Burgundians. A crafty and
ambitious savage, the King of Tournai quickly realised the advantage of
alliance with the native Church. In the year 500 he turned upon the
Burgundians in the hope of making them his tributaries. He failed in his