Early France A.K.A Gaul

Back in the day, before Italy was Italy, and Spain was Spain, there was a country called Gaul. The inhabitants of the country consisted mostly of Franks, and the Romans controlling them. The Romans had overthrown Gaul, and had organized the Frankish territories into independent tribes along the Rhine River. To control the tribes, (but report to Roman Generals) were kings, or leaders. The first early king was the leader of the Merovingian Frankish tribe, and his name was Merovich. However, the most well known early Frankish King, was his grandson, Clovis I.

Clovis became the King of the Salian Franks when he was only 15 years old in 481 AD. Even at that young age he proved to be a very capable military leader because of his tactics and quick thinking. In 486, (when he was 20 years old) he stopped reporting to his Roman General and rebelled against the Romans. This Roman General did not taking Clovis seriously, thinking he was too young to try and kick the Romans out of Gaul. The general therefore ignored Clovis, which was a mistake, because Clovis started a battle that the Romans were not prepared for, which caused them to flee the country.

After this, Clovis began expanding his territory until 509, when he had become king of all Franks except for the tribe of Burgundy who continued to be independent for quite some time. Clovis owned most of Gaul, and because of this, he claimed the country be named France. By this time, Clovis had a christian wife named Clotilde, and she was the niece of the King of Burgundy. Clotilde tried to get her husband to convert to christianity, and he finally did after he prayed to God before going into battle, and then won an important victory.

Clovis died in 511, and Burgundy was added to the kingdom 17 years after his death. Clovis was the most successful early French King, for he reunited Gaul ti help it become the France it is today. This paper was mainly focused on him because he was a large part of the history of France, and he was the first king entire country. His story also interests me, because he wasn't taken seriously, but he ended up turning Gaul, into France.