The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]

[55 B.C.-732 A.D.]

It is well known that the name of “Frank” is not to be found in the long list of German tribes preserved to us in the Germania of Tacitus.b Little or nothing is heard of them before the reign of Gordian III. In 240 A.D. Aurelian,[119] then a tribune of the sixth legion stationed on the Rhine, encountered a body of marauding Franks near Mogontiacum, and drove them back into their marshes. The word “Francia” is also found at a still earlier date, in the old Roman chart called the Charta Peutingeria, and occupies on the map the right bank of the Rhine from opposite Coblenz to the sea. The origin of the Franks has been the subject of frequent debate, to which French patriotism has occasionally lent some asperity. At the time when they first appear in history, the Romans had neither the taste nor the means for historical research, and we are therefore obliged to depend in a great measure upon conjecture and combination. It has been disputed whether the word “Frank” was the original designation of a tribe, which by a change of habitation emerged at the period above mentioned into the light of history, or that of a new league, formed for some common object of aggression or defence by nations hitherto familiar to us under other names.

We can in this place do little more than refer to a controversy, the value and interest of which has been rendered obsolete by the progress of historical investigation. The darkness and void of history have as usual been filled with spectral theories, which vanish at the challenge of criticism and before the gradually increasing light of knowledge.

[55 B.C.-12 A.D.]

We need hardly say that the origin of the Franks has been traced to fugitive colonists from Troy; for what nation under heaven has not sought to connect itself, in some way or other, with the glorified heroes of the immortal song? Nor is it surprising that French writers, desirous of transferring from the Germans to themselves the honours of the Frankish name, should have made of them a tribe of Gauls, whom some unknown cause had induced to settle in Germany, and who afterwards sought to recover their ancient country from the Roman conquerors. At the present day, however, historians of every nation, including the French, are fairly agreed in considering the Franks as a powerful confederacy of German tribes, who in the time of Tacitus inhabited the northwestern parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine. And this theory is so well supported by many scattered notices, slight in themselves but powerful when combined, that we can only wonder that it should ever have been called in question. Nor was this aggregation of tribes under the new name of Franks a singular instance; the same took place in the case of the Alamanni and Saxons.

The actuating causes of these new unions are unknown. They may be sought for either in external circumstances, such as the pressure of powerful enemies from without, or in an extension of their own desires and plans, requiring the command of greater means, and inducing a wider co-operation of those whose similarity of language and character rendered it most easy for them to unite. But perhaps we need look no further for an efficient cause than the spirit of amalgamation which naturally arises among tribes of kindred race and language, when their growing numbers, and an increased facility of moving from place to place, bring them into more frequent contact. The same phenomenon may be observed at certain periods in the history of almost every nation, and the spirit which gives rise to it has generally been found strong enough to overcome the force of particular interests and petty nationalities.

The etymology of the name adopted by the new confederacy is also uncertain. The conjecture which has most probability in its favour is that adopted long ago by Gibbon,d and confirmed in recent times by the authority of Grimm,e which connects it with the German word frank (free). The derivation preferred by Adelungf from frak (in modern German frech, bold), with the inserted nasal, differs from that of Grimm only in appearance. No small countenance is given to this derivation by the constant recurrence in after times of the epithet truces, feroces, which the Franks were so fond of applying to themselves, and which they certainly did everything to deserve. Tacitusb speaks of nearly all the tribes, whose various appellations were afterwards merged in that of Frank, as living in the neighbourhood of the Rhine. Of these the principal were the Sugambri (the chief people of the old Istævonian tribe), who, as there is reason to believe, were identical with the Salian Franks. The confederation further comprised the Bructeri, the Chamavi, Ansibarii, Tubantes, Marsi, and Chasuari, of whom the five last had formerly belonged to the celebrated Cheruscan league, which, under the hero Arminius, destroyed three Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest.