Gaul Under the Merovingians

Not content with bringing the Gallo-Romans under his sway, Clovis waged war also with the barbarian peoples in the neighborhood of his kingdom. In the year 491 he forced the Thuringians on the left bank of the Rhine to submit to him, and enrolled their warriors among his own troops. He also invited other barbarian auxiliaries to march under his standards as well as the Roman soldiers who had been placed to guard the frontier, and in this way he formed a very strong army. 


The fame of Clovis began to spread abroad. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who had almost completed the conquest of Italy, asked the hand of his sister Albofleda in marriage, and Clovis himself, in 493, espoused a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, daughter of Chilperic, who had died not long before, and niece of the kings Gundobad and Godigisel. 


Clotilda was an orthodox Christian and set herself to convert her husband—it would be possible to trace the influence of women in many of those great conversions which have had important political consequences. Half won-over, the king of the Franks allowed his children to be baptized, but he hesitated to abjure for himself the faith of his ancestors. He did not make up his mind until after his first victory over the Alemans.