1.
Metz
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Metz is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Great East region, located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, the city forms a central place of the European Greater Region and the SaarLorLux euroregion. The city has been steeped in Romance culture, but has strongly influenced by Germanic culture due to its location. Because of its historical, cultural, and architectural background, Metz has been submitted on Frances UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, Metz is home to some world-class venues including the Arsenal Concert Hall and the Centre Pompidou-Metz museum. A basin of urban ecology, Metz gained its nickname of The Green City, as it has extensive open grounds, the historic city centre is one of the largest commercial pedestrian areas in France. A historic garrison town, Metz is the heart of the Lorraine region, specialising in information technology. In ancient times, the town was known as city of Mediomatrici, after its integration into the Roman Empire, the city was called Divodurum Mediomatricum, meaning Holy Village or Holy Fortress of the Mediomatrici, then it was known as Mediomatrix. During the 5th century AD, the name evolved to Mettis, Metz has a recorded history dating back over 3,000 years. Before the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, between the 6th and 8th centuries, the city was the residence of the Merovingian kings of Austrasia. After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Metz became the capital of the Kingdom of Lotharingia and was integrated into the Holy Roman Empire. During the 12th century, Metz rose to the status of Republic, with the signature of the Treaty of Chambord in 1552, Metz passed to the hands of the Kings of France. Under French rule, Metz was selected as capital of the Three Bishoprics, with creation of the departments by the Estates-General of 1789, Metz was chosen as capital of the Department of Moselle. Metz remained German until the end of World War I, when it reverted to France, however, after the Battle of France during the Second World War, the city was annexed once more by the German Third Reich. In 1944, the attack on the city by the U. S, Third Army freed the city from German rule and Metz reverted one more time to France after World War II. During the 1950s, Metz was chosen to be the capital of the newly created Lorraine region, with the creation of the European Community and the later European Union, the city has become central to the Greater Region and the SaarLorLux Euroregion. Metz is located on the banks of the Moselle and the Seille rivers,43 km from the Schengen tripoint where the borders of France, Germany, and Luxembourg meet. The city was built in a place where branches of the Moselle river creates several islands. The terrain of Metz forms part of the Paris Basin and presents a plateau relief cut by river valleys presenting cuestas in the north-south direction
2.
Frankish language
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Frankish, Old Franconian, or Old Frankish was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks between the 4th and 8th century. The language itself is attested, but it gave rise to numerous loanwords in Old French. Old Dutch is the term for the Old Franconian dialects spoken in the Low Countries until about the 12th century when it evolved into Middle Dutch, during the Merovingian period, Frankish had significant influence on the Romance languages spoken in Gaul. As a result, many modern French words and placenames have a Germanic origin, France itself is still known in German as Frankreich and in Dutch as Frankrijk, i. e. the Frankish Realm. The Frankish language as spoken before the Carolingian period is mostly reconstructed from Old French loanwords, a notable exception is the Bergakker inscription, which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. In a modern context, the language is variously called Old Frankish or Old Franconian. In philology, the language spoken by the Salian Franks from around the 5th to the 10th century was called Old Dutch or, sometimes, Old Low Franconian, compare the somewhat analogous usage, in philological versus linguistic contexts, of Old English vs. Anglo-Saxon. The English term Old Frankish is, for reasons, usually not used in the context of the Ripuarian Franks. It is more used in the Salian Frank and Dutch contexts. The language spoken by the Salian Franks has sometimes referred to as Old West Low Franconian. The Germanic languages are divided into three groups, West, East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, the language spoken by the Franks was part of the West Germanic language group, which had features from Proto-Germanic in the late Jastorf culture. The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North, the West Germanic varieties of the time are generally split into three dialect groups, Ingvaeonic, Istvaeonic and Irminonic. While each had its own characteristics, there certainly must have still been a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these dialects. It is speculated that these tribes spoke a range of related Istvaeonic dialects in the West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic. Sometime in the 4th or 5th centuries, it becomes appropriate to speak of Old Franconian rather than an Istvaeonic dialect of Proto-Germanic, very little is known about what the language was like during this period. One older runic sentence is on the sheath of Bergakker which is either the singular direct attestation of the Old Franconian language or the earliest attestation of Old Low Franconian language. Another early sentence from the early 6th century AD is found in the Lex Salica and this phrase was used to free a serf, Maltho thi afrio lito These are the earliest sentences yet found of Old Franconian
3.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
4.
Franks
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Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of Western Europe. The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Dutch, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, respectively, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts, and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is also another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning. Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy
5.
Charlemagne
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Charlemagne or Charles the Great, numbered Charles I, was the King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774 and Emperor of the Romans from 800. He united much of Europe during the early Middle Ages and he was the first recognised emperor in western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state which Charlemagne founded was called the Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne was the oldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. He became king in 768 following his fathers death, initially as co-ruler with his brother Carloman I, carlomans sudden death in 771 in unexplained circumstances left Charlemagne as the undisputed ruler of the Frankish Kingdom. He continued his fathers policy towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy and he campaigned against the Saxons to his east, Christianising them upon penalty of death and leading to events such as the Massacre of Verden. Charlemagne reached the height of his power in 800 when he was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day at Old St. Peters Basilica. Charlemagne has been called the Father of Europe, as he united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman Empire and his rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of energetic cultural and intellectual activity within the Western Church. All Holy Roman Emperors considered their kingdoms to be descendants of Charlemagnes empire, up to the last Emperor Francis II and these and other machinations led to the eventual split of Rome and Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054. Charlemagne died in 814, having ruled as emperor for thirteen years and he was laid to rest in his imperial capital of Aachen in what is today Germany. He married at least four times and had three sons, but only his son Louis the Pious survived to succeed him. By the 6th century, the western Germanic Franks had been Christianised, Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, was the most powerful of the kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire. Following the Battle of Tertry the Merovingians declined into powerlessness, for which they have dubbed the rois fainéants. Almost all government powers were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace, in 687, Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry. He became the governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pepin was the grandson of two important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pepin of Landen, Pepin of Herstal was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel. After 737, Charles governed the Franks in lieu of a king, Charles was succeeded in 741 by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. In 743, the brothers placed Childeric III on the throne to curb separatism in the periphery and he was the last Merovingian king. Carloman resigned office in 746, preferring to enter the church as a monk, Pepin brought the question of the kingship before Pope Zachary, asking whether it was logical for a king to have no royal power
6.
Marches of Neustria
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Originally, one March was created against the Bretons and one against the Norsemen, often called the Breton March and Norman March respectively. In 911, Robert I of France became margrave of both Marches and took the title demarchus and his family, the later Capetians, ruled the whole of Neustria until 987, when Hugh Capet was elected king of the Franks. The subsidiary counts of Neustria had exceeded the margrave in power by that time, after the Capetian Miracle, no further margraves were appointed. The original march of Brittany was created and militarized under the Merovingians in the late 7th or early 8th century. Although its exact extent is unknown and its boundaries do not coincide with the later Breton March, it included the Rennais and Nantais territories, administration centered in Le Mans and the territory eventually went by the name of ducatus Cenomannicus or Duchy of Maine. One of the most famous margraves was Roland, who died at the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778, the Carolingian king of the Franks, Charles the Bald, re-created the Breton March in 861 and appointed Robert the Strong margrave. Hugh the Abbot succeeded to Roberts office and title, in 885, Charles the Fat succeeded to power in West Francia and after Hughs death in 886, Charles gave the title to Robert the Strongs son, Odo. After Charles death in 888, Odo became king of the Franks, Odo died in 898 and was succeeded as king by Charles the Simple who confirmed Roberts titles and possessions. Adalard the Seneschal served as warden of the Norman March from 861 to 865 and his march extended over the county of Le Mans and he was immediately opposed by the Rorgonids, who controlled the city. They intrigued against him and his relatives, also powerful nobles in the region, until Charles revoked his grants to them and placed the Rorgonids at the head of the March. Under a peace, Charles transferred the Norman March to Gauzfrid, Count of Maine, in 885, Charles the Fat came to power in West Francia and named Henry of Franconia margrave of the Norman March. In 886, Henry also died and Charles the Fat replaced him with Berengar II, Berengar died in 896, and it is not known who succeeded him. In 911, Charles the Simple made peace with the Viking leader Rollo in the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Robert I, the margrave of the Breton March, was also granted the Norman March and the two entities became permanently united. Robert took the title of demarchus, a title which Rollo later also took. Robert I was margrave until his death in 922, and was succeeded by Hugh the Great who was margrave until 956, and was followed in turn by Hugh Capet, Rouen was the basis of the future Duchy of Normandy. The Normans gradually expanded their territory and incorporated much of Neustria into it. When Hugh Capet became king of the Franks in 987, the history of the came to an end. Province and Empire, Brittany and the Carolingians, onomastique et Parenté dans lOccident médiéval
7.
Francia
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The kingdom was founded by Clovis I, crowned first King of the Franks in 496. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Most Frankish Kings were buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis, modern France is still named Francia in Spanish and Italian. The Franks emerged in the 3rd century as a confederation of smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Sicambri, Bructeri, Ampsivarii, Chamavi and Chattuarii, in the area north and east of the Rhine. Some of these peoples, such as the Sicambri and Salians, already had lands in the Roman Empire, in 357 the Salian king entered the Roman Empire and made a permanent foothold there by a treaty granted by Julian the Apostate, who forced back the Chamavi to Hamaland. As Frankish territory expanded, the meaning of Francia expanded with it, after the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus. Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it difficult to manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c, around 428 the Salian king Chlodio, whose kingdom included Toxandria and the civitatus Tungrorum, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum and the Somme. The kingdom of Chlodio changed the borders and the meaning of the word Francia permanently, Francia was no longer barbaricum trans Rhenum, but a landed political power on both sides of the river, deeply involved in Roman politics. Chlodios family, the Merovingians, extended Francia even further south, the core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia. Chlodios successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I, possibly his grandson, Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on good terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects. In a thirty-year reign Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Roman exclave of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni, Clovis defeated the Visigoths and conquered their entire kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, and conquered the Bretons and made them vassals of Francia. He conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine, by the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast. The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy, the Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance, dividing their lands among their sons. Cloviss sons made their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul, Theuderic I made his capital at Reims, Chlodomer at Orléans, Childebert I at Paris, and Chlothar I at Soissons. During their reigns, the Thuringii, Burgundes, and Saxons and Frisians were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, the fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, and part of Venetia
8.
Bretons
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The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brittonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain including Cornwall to avoid the invading Germanic peoples and they also descend from the Gauls and in some parts from Vikings. They migrated in waves from the third to ninth century into Armorica, the main traditional language of Brittany is Breton, spoken in Lower Brittany. Today, Breton is spoken by less than 200,000 people, the other principal minority language of Brittany is Gallo, Gallo is spoken only in Upper Brittany, where Breton is less dominant. As one of the Brittonic languages, Breton is related closely to Cornish and more distantly to Welsh, currently, most Bretons native language is standard French. Brittany and its people are counted as one of the six Celtic nations, ethnically, along with the Cornish and Welsh, the Bretons are Celtic Britons. The actual number of ethnic Bretons in Brittany and France as a whole is difficult to assess as the government of France does not collect statistics on ethnicity, the population of Brittany, as of a January 2007 estimate, was 4,365,500. It is said that, in 1914, over 1 million people spoke Breton west of the boundary between Breton and Gallo-speaking regions – roughly 90% of the population of the half of Brittany. In 1945, it was about 75%, and today, in all of Brittany, Brittany has a population of roughly 4 million, including the department of Loire-Atlantique, which the Vichy government separated from historical Brittany in 1941. Three-quarters of the estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Breton speakers using Breton as an everyday language today are over the age of 65, many Breton families have also emigrated to the Americas, predominantly to Canada and the United States. In the late century, large numbers of British auxiliary troops in the Roman army may have been stationed in Armorica. The ninth-century Historia Brittonum states that the emperor Magnus Maximus, who withdrew Roman forces from Britain, nennius and Gildas mention a second wave of Britons settling in Armorica in the following century to escape the invading Anglo-Saxons and Scoti. Modern archaeology also supports a two-wave migration and it is generally accepted that the Brittonic speakers who arrived gave the region its current name as well as the Breton language, Brezhoneg, a sister language to Welsh and Cornish. The Bretons are known for their participation in the Hunt of the Apple of Eden and this took place between 400 and 600 AD. These legends were discovered in Poullia in Italy but have unfortunately been marked as improvable history, as in Cornwall, many Breton towns are named after these early saints. The Irish saint Columbanus was also active in Brittany and is commemorated accordingly at Saint-Columban in Carnac, in the Early Middle Ages, Brittany was divided into three kingdoms — Domnonia, Cornouaille, and Bro Waroch — which eventually were incorporated into the Duchy of Brittany. The first two kingdoms seem to derive their names from the homelands of the tribes in Britain. Neither language has official status under French law, however, some still use Breton as an everyday language, in modern times, a number of schools and colleges have emerged with the aim of providing Breton-medium education or bilingual Breton/French education
"Roland". The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
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