the Roman army and rose to positions of command. Franks could be found in Roman
service in Spain, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia.
During the decline of Roman imperial government in the 5th century, the defenses of
the Rhine collapsed and the Ripuarian Franks established a strong kingdom centered on
Cologne. The band of Salian Franks around Tournai began to rise to prominence under its
leaders, the Merovingians Childeric I and his son Clovis I. Clovis brought all of the
Frankish tribes under his dominion, along with the neighboring Alemanni and
Thuringians and almost all of Gaul. Although he moved his capital first to Soissons and
then to Paris, accompanied by his entourage, few other Franks moved with him. The
kingdom of the Franks was ruled by a Salian Frank with his mostly Frankish companions
and army, but its population and culture were mixed, with Franks themselves forming
only a small part of its ethnic composition, though they were dominant in northeastern
Gaul and the lower and middle Rhine.
Thus, the kingdom of the Franks, the ensemble of lands subject to the Merovingian
kings, including Aquitaine and Burgundy, must be distinguished from the land of the
Franks, Francia, which ran from northern Gaul through the Salian and Ripuarian
territories—the regions of Neustria and Austrasia. The small numbers of Franks scattered
throughout Neustria soon assimilated with the Gallo-Roman population and left little
ethnic imprint on the region’s culture, other than the Salic Law and an identification as
Franks. The word “Frank” lost its ethnic significance during the 6th century and came to
be synonymous with “free man”; in France, it came to denote someone from north of the
Loire, a Neustrian. In Germany, the Frankish territories preserved their ethnic identity as
Franconia (one of the five German “stem-duchies”), while the heart of Lorraine was
Austrasia, the land of the Ripuarian Franks.
Steven Fanning
[See also: CHILDERIC I; CLOVIS I; GREGORY OF TOURS; MEROVINGIAN
DYNASTY]
Bachrach, Bernard S., trans. Liber historiae Francorum. Lawrence: Coronado, 1973.
Gregory of Tours. History of the Franks, trans. Lewis Thorpe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.
James, Edward. The Franks. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.
Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. The Barbarian West, A.D. 400–1000: The Early Middle Ages. 2nd ed. New
York: Harper and Row, 1962, chaps. 4–5.
Wood, Ian. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751. London: Longman, 1994.
FRAUD, COMMERCIAL
. Definitions of ethical wrongdoing in medieval France varied according to the legal
system, canon, civil, or customary law, or royal legislation under consideration. As a rule
in matters of trade, town governments and guilds policed weights and measures and
ensured quality control of merchandise for export and local sale. There was concerted
effort to protect consumers from fraud. In the south of France, where Roman law
formulae, such as sine dolo and sine ulla fraude, appeared in 12th-century documents, a
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