Catholic Church in France
The French Catholic Church, or Catholic Church in France is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope in Rome. Established in the 2nd century in unbroken communion with the bishop of Rome, it was sometimes called the "eldest daughter of the church".
Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris
Baptism of Clovis
Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, given a late Gothic setting in this illumination from the Livre des Passages d'Outre-mer, of c. 1490 (Bibliothèque nationale)
The papal palace in Avignon, where the popes resided from 1309 to 1376
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