The Franks resisted the Arianism of the Goths, holding fast to their pagan beliefs and customs. By the late fifth century, the Merovingian family became dominant among the Salian Franks, and in the year 482 the grandson of Merovech became king. Clovis (466–511) was only fifteen years old when he ascended the throne. The son of King Childeric I (436–482) and Basina, Queen of Thuringia, he became the most powerful political and military ruler in Western Europe. Clovis embodied his name (which means “noble warrior”) but was known to be ruthless, even to his own warriors.
When Clovis became king of the Salian Franks, he received a letter from Remigius (Remy), a Gallo-Roman bishop in the city of Reims. Remigius focused much of his episcopacy on the conversion of the Franks to the Catholic faith, recognizing that if they became Arian like the other Germanic tribes the Church would suffer and perhaps be extinguished in large parts of the world. Remigius desired Clovis’s conversion for this reason, but he also wanted to be on friendly terms with the warlike chief who intended to conquer all of Gaul. So, Remigius’s letter was diplomatic and calculating, containing flattery and advice on ruling well to ensure a long, successful reign:
Great news has reached us. You have just been placed at the head of the Frankish armies. None are surprised to see you become what your fathers were. Take for counselors those whose choice does honor to your discernment. Be prudent, chaste, moderate; honor bishops and do not disdain their advice. As long as you live on good terms with them, the affairs of state will prosper. Raise up the souls of your peoples, relieve the widows, feed the orphans. Later on they will serve you, and thus you will conquer the hearts of the very ones who fear you. Let justice be done both in your heart and by your lips. To your pleasures and games invite, if you like, young men of your own age, but only discuss business matters with the elders. It is thus that you will reign gloriously.146
Remigius continued to pray for Clovis’s conversion and strove to keep the Church on good terms with his administration.
Within a few years of Remigius’s letter, Clovis’s armies had conquered most of Gaul. The Franks defeated the Gallo-Romans at the Battle of Soissons in 486, which gave them control of most of northern Gaul. Clovis marched on the important town of Paris, but, like Attila the Hun before him, his plans were thwarted by the saintly Geneviève. This beautiful woman of God had vowed that pagans would never set foot in her beloved city, and despite the Frankish siege, she maintained that resolve. When the city’s food situation became critical, Geneviève courageously commanded twelve ships up the Seine River, loaded supplies onboard, and sailed back to Paris. Eventually, the Frankish siege lost momentum, and Clovis was forced to retreat. Once again, Geneviève had saved Paris. She devoted the few remaining years of her life to praying for Clovis’s conversion. Despite the setback at Paris, by the early sixth century Clovis’s dream of a Frankish kingdom, where all tribes were united under his leadership and that of his progeny, was realized.
Clotilda and the Conversion of Clovis
Saint Clotilda (474–545) is one of the most important saints in Church history but is, sadly, not well-known outside of France.147 Born a Burgundian princess, Clotilda was pledged in marriage to Clovis of the Franks, who was a few years her senior, to strengthen the alliance between the two peoples. They married in the late fifth century. Clotilda was Catholic, despite the fact that most Burgundians were Arian. Raised by her Catholic mother, Clotilda held strongly to the Faith and prayed constantly for Clovis’s conversion. She also tried to reason with Clovis: “The gods whom you worship are no good. They haven’t even been able to help themselves, let alone others. They are carved out of stone or wood or some old piece of metal. The very names, which you have given them were the names of men, not gods. You ought instead to worship him who created at a word and out of nothing heaven, the earth, the sea.”148
Clovis was not swayed by Clotilda’s reasoning. He gave a rather weak response, arguing that God “can do nothing, and, what is more, there is no proof that he is God at all.”149 Clovis’s intransigence only motivated Clotilda all the more. She continued to argue with, reason with, and, most importantly, pray for her husband. One prayer was answered when Clovis agreed to allow the baptism of their firstborn son, but the boy died shortly after receiving the sacrament. Clovis viewed his son’s death as proof that Clotilda’s God was false, arguing that “if he had been dedicated in the name of my gods, he would have lived without question.”150 The saintly Clotilda answered this charge with abiding faith:
I give thanks to Almighty God, the Creator of all things, who has not found me completely unworthy, for he has deigned to welcome to his Kingdom the child conceived in my womb. I am not at all cast down in my mind because of what has happened, for I know that my child, who was called away from this world in his white baptismal robes, will be nurtured in the sight of God.151
Despite the tension in her marriage and the death of her son, Clotilda did not waver from her love of God and the Church.
Toward the end of the fifth century, Clovis led his army in a campaign against the Alemanni, another Germanic tribe that obstructed the consolidation of his power in Gaul. In the pivotal battle of the campaign, the Alemanni gained the upper hand and Clovis recognized his troops’ desperate situation. Near the edge of despair, Clovis reached out to the heavens, invoking Clotilda’s God.152 Almost immediately the battle swung in his favor as the Franks defeated the Alemanni. When he returned home, Clovis told Clotilda what had occurred, and she quickly dispatched a message to bishop Remigius to come and instruct Clovis in the Faith so he could receive baptism. During his baptismal preparation, Clovis had one overarching concern: How would his warriors react? Clovis was anxious that his troops might overthrow him for rejecting their ancestral gods, or they might allow his conversion but not accept the Faith themselves, which would cause division in the tribe. So, Clovis called his warriors together. He informed his warriors of his intention to convert, and asked their opinion. The king was overjoyed to learn that the soldiers not only agreed with his plan but accepted conversion as well. On Christmas Day 496, the prayers of Clotilda, Remigius, and Geneviève were answered. Clovis, King of the Franks, was baptized in Reims, along with three thousand Frankish warriors. Legend holds the cathedral was so packed with people that the cleric holding the sacred chrism could not get through the crowd, but Remigius looked to heaven and saw a dove descending with a vial of oil. Remigius took the oil from the dove and used it to anoint Clovis. This holy oil was used for the next 1,300 years to anoint the kings of France. After his baptism, Clovis worked to establish a strong relationship with the Church in several ways, such as instituting reforms and recognizing the independence of the Church in his territory.153
The kingdom of the Franks, according to custom, was divided among the sons of Clovis upon the great king’s death. But the brothers quarreled, and Queen Clotilda witnessed bloody infighting among her sons over Gaul.154 The saintly wife of Clovis outlived him by thirty-four years — decades she spent financing the construction of churches and monasteries and living a penitential life of prayer, first in Paris and then at the Shrine of Saint Martin of Tours. By her prayers, exemplary Christian living, and wifely vocation, she changed the course of Church history.
The impact of Clovis’s conversion on the Church was immense.155 He was the only Catholic king in the west, and his conversion legitimatized the Faith in the eyes of his people, who had previously viewed it as the religion of the weak and conquered Gallo-Romans. The Franks would dominate the Continent for centuries, which contributed to the eventual conversion of the Arian Germanic tribes.
1. Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, Book II, 30, trans. Lewis Thorpe (New York: Penguin Books, 1974), 143.
2. There are two main sources for the vision. Eusebius records the vision in his Life of Constantine, written twenty years after the battle but told to him by Constantine himself, who provided the account to Eusebius under oath. The other source is provided by Lactantius in his De mortibus persecutorum. Some authors believe that the sign was a natural event known as a “halo-phenomenon”