The Battle of Tolbiac was fought between the Franks, who were fighting under Clovis I, and the Alamanni, whose leader is not known. The date of the battle has traditionally been given as 496, though other accounts suggest it may either have been fought earlier, in the 480s or early 490s, or later, in 506. The site of "Tolbiac", or "Tolbiacum", is usually given as Zülpich, North Rhine-Westphalia, about 60 km east of what is now the German-Belgian frontier. The Franks were successful at Tolbiac and established their dominance over the Alamanni.
"The Battle of Tolbiac" by Ary Scheffer. Galerie des Batailles
Battle of Tolbiac, fresco at the Panthéon, Paris by Joseph Blanc, c. 1881.
Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, from a 12th-century German manuscript at Leiden University Library, Ms. vul. 46, dated 1176/77
Clovis was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of petty kings to rule by a single king and ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. Clovis is important in the historiography of France as "the first king of what would become France".
Baptism of Clovis, ivory book cover from c. 870
Clovis I
Clovis I leading the Franks to victory in the Battle of Tolbiac, in Ary Scheffer's 1836 painting
Frankish territories at the time of Clovis's death in 511