Franks

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Kingdom of the Burgundians in around 500

Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum) were a group of Germanic peoples[1] whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.[2] Later the term was associated with Romanized Germanic dynasties within the collapsing Western Roman Empire, who eventually commanded the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine.

Variants

Jat clans

Etymology

The name Franci was not a tribal name, but within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the original peoples who constituted them. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm,[4] the name of the Franks has been linked with the English adjective frank, originally meaning "free".[5] There have also been proposals that Frank comes from the Germanic word for "javelin" (such as in Old English franca or Old Norse frakka).[6] Words in other Germanic languages meaning "fierce", "bold" or "insolent" (German frech, Middle Dutch vrac, Old English frǣc and Old Norwegian frakkr), may also be significant.[7]

Eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures: Ubi nunc est illa ferocia? Ubi semper infida mobilitas? ("Where now is that ferocity of yours? Where is that ever untrustworthy fickleness?").[8] Latin feroces was used often to describe the Franks.[9] Contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. The formulary of Marculf written about 700 AD described a continuation of national identities within a mixed population when it stated that "all the peoples who dwell (in the official's province), Franks, Romans, Burgundians and those of other nations, live … according to their law and their custom." [10] Writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that "the word 'Frankish' quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have been considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest (except Bretons); Romani (Romans) were essentially the inhabitants of Aquitaine after that".[11]

History

The Franks imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms and Germanic peoples. Beginning with Charlemagne in 800, Frankish rulers were given recognition by the Catholic Church as successors to the old rulers of the Western Roman Empire.[12]

Although the Frankish name does not appear until the 3rd century, at least some of the original Frankish tribes had long been known to the Romans under their own names, both as allies providing soldiers, and as enemies. The new name first appears when the Romans and their allies were losing control of the Rhine region. The Franks were first reported as working together to raid Roman territory. However, from the beginning, the Franks also suffered attacks upon them from outside their frontier area, by the Saxons, for example, and as frontier tribes they desired to move into Roman territory, with which they had centuries of close contact.

The Germanic tribes which formed the Frankish federation in Late Antiquity are associated with the Weser-Rhine Germanic/Istvaeonic cultural-linguistic grouping.[13][14]

Frankish peoples inside Rome's frontier on the Rhine river included the Salian Franks who from their first appearance were permitted to live in Roman territory, and the Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks who, after many attempts, eventually conquered the Roman frontier city of Cologne and took control of the left bank of the Rhine. Later, in a period of factional conflict in the 450s and 460s, Childeric I, a Frank, was one of several military leaders commanding Roman forces with various ethnic affiliations in Roman Gaul (roughly modern France). Childeric and his son Clovis I faced competition from the Roman Aegidius as competitor for the "kingship" of the Franks associated with the Roman Loire forces. (According to Gregory of Tours, Aegidius held the kingship of the Franks for 8 years while Childeric was in exile.) This new type of kingship, perhaps inspired by Alaric I,[8] represents the start of the Merovingian dynasty which succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, as well as establishing its leadership over all the Frankish kingdoms on the Rhine frontier. It was on the basis of this Merovingian empire that the resurgent Carolingians eventually came to be seen as the new Emperors of Western Europe in 800.

The terms "Frank" or "Frankish" subsequently developed several different levels, sometimes representing a very large part of Europe, and on the other hand sometimes limited to France. In the High and Late Middle Ages, Western Europeans shared their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church and worked as allies in the Crusades beyond Europe in the Levant. In 1099, the crusader population of Jerusalem mostly comprised French settlers who, at the time, were still referred to as Franks, and other Europeans such as Spaniards, Germans and Hungarians. French knights made up the bulk of the steady flow of reinforcements throughout the two-hundred-year span of the Crusades, in such a fashion that the Arabs uniformly continued to refer to the crusaders and West Europeans as Franjī caring little whether they really came from France.[15] The French Crusaders also imported the French language into the Levant, making French the base of the lingua franca (lit. "Frankish language") of the Crusader states.[16] This has had a lasting impact on names for Western Europeans in many languages.[17][18]Western Europe is known alternatively as "Frangistan" to the Persians.[19]

Following the Treaty of Verdun in 843, the Frankish Realm was divided into three separate kingdoms: West Francia, Middle Francia and East Francia. In 870, Middle Francia was partitioned again, with most of its territory being divided among West and East Francia, which would hence form the nuclei of the future Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire respectively, with West Francia (France) eventually retaining the choronym.

Jat History

Franks (Vrikas) migrated from the Sapta Sindhu to the Scandanavian countries in ancient times.[20]

Migration of Jats from Sapta Sindhu

Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria)[21] mentions....Just see the remarkable parallels between the functioning of the Germans and the Indian Jat tribal "Khaap" and "Sarvakhaap" panchayats. This further reminds us of the Vedic republican communities (the Panchajatah or Panchajna), who are, as we shall have occasion to show in the next chapter, considered by us as the common ancestors of the Indian Jats and the German Goths or Gots.

Before concluding, we may go into the question of identity of the Teutons and the Swedes. The Teutons were Aryans including High and low Germans and Scandanavians, and to be more specific Goths (Gots, Getae, Jats, Juts), Lombards (Lampaka or Lamba), Normans, Franks (Vrkas), Saxons (Sacae Getae) and Angles274b The Suevis (Sivis) including the Vilka (Virkas), the Manns (Mans) the Schillers (Chhilller)275 etc. who, as we shall note (infra), migrated from the Sapta Sindhu to the Scandanavian countries in ancient times.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Drinkwater, John Frederick (2012). "Franks". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191735257.
  2. ↑ H. Schutz: Tools, Weapons and Ornaments: Germanic Material Culture in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400-750. BRILL, 2001, p.42.
  3. ↑ Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria): The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/An Historico-Somatometrical study bearing on the origin of the Jats,p.159
  4. ↑ Perry, Walter Copland (1857). The Franks, from Their First Appearance in History to the Death of King Pepin. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts. p. 42.
  5. ↑ Examples: "frank". American Heritage Dictionary. "frank". Webster's Third New International Dictionary. And so on.
  6. ↑ Robert K. Barnhart, ed. Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (Bronx, NY: H. W. Wilson, 1988), 406.
  7. ↑ Murray, Alexander Callander (2000). From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader. Broadview Press. p. 1. "The etymology of 'Franci' is uncertain ('the fierce ones' is the favourite explanation), but the name is undoubtedly of Germanic origin."
  8. ↑ Howorth, Henry H. (1884). "XVII. The Ethnology of Germany (Part VI). The Varini, Varangians and Franks. Section II". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Trübner & Co. 13: 213–239. doi:10.2307/2841727. JSTOR 2841727. p. 217
  9. ↑ Perry, Walter Copland (1857). The Franks, from Their First Appearance in History to the Death of King Pepin. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts. p. 43.
  10. ↑ James, Edward (1988). The Franks. The Peoples of Europe. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-17936-4. p. 187.
  11. ↑ Wickham, Chris (2010) [2009]. The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400–1000. Penguin History of Europe, 2. Penguin Books. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-670-02098-0.
  12. ↑ "Holy Roman Empire | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com.
  13. ↑ R.L. Stockman: Low German, University of Michigan, 1998, p.46.
  14. ↑ H. Schutz: Tools, Weapons and Ornaments: Germanic Material Culture in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400-750. BRILL, 2001, p.42.
  15. ↑ Jean-Benoit Nadeau; Julie Barlow (8 January 2008). The Story of French. St. Martin's Press. pp. 34–. ISBN 978-1-4299-3240-0.
  16. ↑ Jean-Benoit Nadeau; Julie Barlow (8 January 2008). The Story of French. St. Martin's Press. pp. 34–. ISBN 978-1-4299-3240-0.
  17. ↑ Angeliki Laiou; Henry P. Maguire (1992). Byzantium: A World Civilization. Dumbarton Oaks. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-88402-200-8.
  18. ↑ Richard W. Bulliett; et al. (2011). The Earth and Its Peoples. Cengage Learning. p. 333. ISBN 978-0-495-91310-8.
  19. ↑ Arteaga, Deborah L. (2 November 2012). Research on Old French: The State of the Art. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 206. ISBN 9789400747685.
  20. ↑ Hukum Singh Panwar (Pauria): The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/An Historico-Somatometrical study bearing on the origin of the Jats, p.159-160
  21. ↑ The Jats:Their Origin, Antiquity and Migrations/An Historico-Somatometrical study bearing on the origin of the Jats,p.159
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