Perhaps Clement’s most important achievement was
the Council of Vienne (1311–1312). It was originally
called to consider the case of the Templars, but it ac-
complished much more, taking measures to ease the
tension between the Spiritual and Conventual factions
in the Franciscan order and to arbitrate disputes between
secular and mendicant clergy. It also addressed the ten-
sion between papal delegates and bishops. The council’s
work was preserved in Constitutiones Clementinae, a
collection of decretals redacted by Clement; this col-
lection was promulgated by Clement’s successor, John
XXII, and became the seventh book of the Decretales
in the church’s Corpus iuris canonici. Clement also
founded the universities of Perugia and Orléans and
established the statutes of the medical faculty at Mont-
pellier. At the urging of Ramon Llull, he commanded
that chairs in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew be established
at Oxford, Paris, Salamanca, and Bologna, in order to
aid mission work in Asia.
During much of his reign Clement was seriously ill,
perhaps with stomach cancer. This may account for his
seeming malleability and his lack of stamina in dealing
with Philip the Fair. His illness also left him incapable of
supervising the papal court for long periods; as a result,
serious corruption developed. Clement had hopes of
returning to Rome after the Council of Vienne, but his
bad health prevented it. He died at Rocquemaure on a
fi nal journey to Gascony.
See also Boniface VIII, Pope;
Henry VII of Luxembourg; Philip IV the Fair
Further Reading
Baluze, Étienne. Vitae paparum Avenionensium, 4 vols., ed.
Guillaume Mollat. Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1914–1927, Vol.
1, pp. 1–106.
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1993.
Delorme, Ferdinand M., and Aloysius L. Tautù, eds. Acta Clem-
entis PP. V. Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1955.
Finke, Heinrich. Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, 2
vols. Münster-in-Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1907.
Gaignard, Romain. “Le gouvernement pontifi cal au travail:
L’exemple des dernières annèes du règne de Clèment V, ler
août 1311–20 avril 1314.” Annales du Midi, 72, 1960, pp,
169–214.
Housley, Norman. “Pope Clement V and the Crusades of 1309–
1310.” Journal of ’Medieval History, 8, 1982, pp. 29–43.
Lizerand, Georges. Clement V et Philippe le Bel. Paris: Hachette,
- Menache, Sophia. Clement V. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
Mollat, Guillaume. The Popes at Avignon, 1305–1378, trans.
Janet Love. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
Müller, Ewald. Das Konzil von Vienne, 1311–1312: Seine Quellen
und seine Geschichte. Münster-in-Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1934.
Renoard, Yves. The Avignon Papacy, 1305–1403, trans. Denis
Bethell. Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1970.
Wenck, Carl. Clemens V. und Heinrich VII. Halle: Niemeyer,
Thomas Turley
CLOVIS I (ca. 466–511)
The most important of the Merovingian kings, Clovis
I was the unifi er of the Franks, the conqueror of most
of Gaul, and the real founder of the kingdom of the
Franks under Merovingian rule. He was also the fi rst
Christian king of the Franks. He is the possessor of a
reputation for astonishing ruthlessness, brutality, and
unscrupulousness.
Upon the death of his father, Childeric I, in 482,
Clovis succeeded as chieftain over the group of Salian
Franks settled around Tournai, in modern Belgium.
He began his conquests in 486 by defeating Syagrius,
an independent ruler over northern Gaul. This victory
made Clovis the master of Gaul north of the Loire, the
later Neustria, and he transferred his capital to Soissons,
accompanied by his Frankish entourage.
The chronology and sequence of events of most of
the rest of Clovis’s reign are unclear and highly de-
bated. Essentially, he became the sole Frankish king by
eliminating the kings of other bands of Salian Franks
through attack, treachery, and deceit. By similar means,
he also rose to mastery over the Ripuarian, or Rhineland,
Franks. Through a series of bitter and closely contested
battles, he brought the Alemanni and Thuringians under
his authority as well.
In the course of one of his battles against the Ale-
manni, at Zü lpich (Tolbiac) in the mid-490s, Clovis con-
verted to orthodox Christianity. This was not a sudden
move, however. Like his father, Childeric, Clovis had
been careful to maintain good relations with Christian
authorities in his lands, and he had also married an
orthodox Christian, the Burgundian princess Clotilde.
The conversion of Clovis and some of his followers had
little immediate effect on their pagan and polygamous
habits, nor did it immediately christianize the Frankish
people, but it did make Clovis the hero of orthodox
Christians in Gaul.
Clovis exploited this position to gain his greatest
victory. He attacked the Arian Visigoths, who controlled
Gaul south of the Loire as well as Spain. In 507, Clo-
vis defeated their army at Vouillé, near Poitiers, and
in the ensuing campaigns his forces swept over most
of southern Gaul. Only the military intervention of
Theodoric the Ostrogoth preserved Septimania for the
Visigoths and prevented the Franks from gaining the
Mediterranean. Nonetheless, Clovis was the master of
almost all of Gaul. For a time, he even exacted tribute
from the Burgundians.
After the victory over the Visigoths, Clovis was given
some sort of offi cial recognition by the Byzantine Em-
pire, which began a century-long tradition of Frankish-
Byzantine cooperation, and he moved his capital to
Paris. The years after 507 saw two of his most notable
achievements. It was he who probably issued the Salic
Law for his Salian Franks and all those living north ofCLEMENT V, POPE