Salians

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

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Salians were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Lower Rhine in what was then the Roman Empire and today the Netherlands and Belgium.

Variants

• Salian Franks
• Salii (Latin)
• Salioi (Greek: Σάλιοι)
• Sallii
• Salian

Jat clans

• Salial
• Salyan
• Hala
• Halai
• Hali

Etymology

Various etymologies are proposed. The ethnonym is unrelated to the name for the dancing priests of Mars, who were also called Salii. In line with theories that the Salians already existed as a tribe outside the Roman Empire, the name may have derived from the name of the IJssel river, formerly called Hisloa or Hisla, and in ancient times, Sala, which may be the Salians' original residence. Today this area is called Salland.

Alternatively, the name may derive from a proposed Germanic word *saljon meaning friend or comrade, indicating that the term initially implied an alliance. In that case, the name may have originated in the empire itself, or the river and/or region might be named after the inhabitants (rather than the reverse).

Origins

The Salians, unlike other Franks, first appear living inside the Roman Empire, living in the Rhine delta in the modern Netherlands. Although often treated as a tribe it has also been argued by Matthias Springer that this might represent a misunderstanding. All of the classical mentions of them seem to derive from one mention by Ammianus Marcellinus of "Franks, those namely whom custom calls the Salii".Ammianus, who served in the Roman military, reported that the Salii were pushed from their home in Batavia (the civitas of Nijmegen), into Toxandria (both within the empire), by the non-Roman Chamavi. The account implies that they entered into the civitas of Tongeren. The first historian to say that the Salians had been pushed into the empire from outside was Zosimus, but his description of events seems to be confused and derived from others.

The account of Zosimus, that the Salians had been pushed into the empire as a single tribe, is still often accepted. In this case, their homeland may have been between the Rhine and the IJssel in the modern day Dutch region of the Veluwe, Gelderland, and they may have given their name to the region of Salland. It has also been proposed that the Salii might have been one of the peoples making up the large nation of the Chauci during the Roman Empire, most of whom apparently became Saxons. (The difference between Saxons and Franks in the earliest records which mention them is not clear.)

In 358, the Salians came to some form of agreement with the Romans, which allowed them to keep settlements south of the delta in Toxandria, between the rivers Scheldt, Meuse, and Demer, roughly the area of the Campine, which contains the modern Dutch province of North Brabant, and adjacent parts of the two bordering Belgian Limburg and Antwerp Provinces.