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( Franks)
The Franks or Frankish people (Latin Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an ethnic group living north and east of the Lower Rhine. Under the Merovingian dynasty, they founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire from the 5th century. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of western Europe by the end of the eighth century and the Carolingian Empire and its successor states were Frankish. The Salian political elite were one of the most active forces in spreading Christianity over western Europe. It is traditionally believed that the name Frank is derived from their usage of the javelin, which in Old Germanic is *frankon[1], the same case as the Saxons and their weapon of choice, the seax. The francisca is named after the Franks, because they used this weapon too. Contemporary definitions of the ethnicity of the Franks vary by period and point of view. It is often unclear whether people referred to as Franks referred to themselves as such. Within Francia, the Franks were initially a distinct group with their own culture. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops. Only the Salians formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the Romans after 357. In the climate of the collapse of imperial authority in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians and conquered all of Gaul save Septimania in the 6th century. The mythology of the Franks was probably a form of Germanic polytheism, later adapted and supplanted in the wake of their incursion into the Roman Empire. Like many Germanic peoples, the Franks concocted an origins story to explain their connection with peoples of classical history. In the case of the Franks, these peoples were the Sicambri and the Trojans. An anonymous work of 727 called Liber Historiae Francorum states that following the fall of Troy, 12,000 Trojans led by chiefs Priam and Antenor moved to the Tanais (Don) river, settled in Pannonia near the Sea of Azov and founded a city called "Sicambria". In just two generations (Priam and his son Marcomer) from the fall of Troy (by modern scholars dated in the late Bronze Age) they arrive in the late fourth century at the Rhine. An earlier variation of this story can be read in Fredegar. In Fredegar's version an early king named Francio serves as namegiver for the Franks, just as Romulus has lent his name to Rome.
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