Sorbs
Sorbs known by their former autonyms Lusatians and Wends, are a West Slavic ethnic group predominantly inhabiting Lusatia, a region divided between Germany and Poland. According to Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, Lusatians have the same origin as Serbs from the Balkan Peninsula who inhabited the areas between the rivers Elbe and Saale, on the southern coast of the Baltic sea. Sorbs traditionally speak the Sorbian languages related to the Polish, Kashubian and Slovak. Sorbian is an recognized minority language in Germany. Sorbs are genetically closest to the Czechs and Poles. Due to a gradual and increasing assimilation between the 17th and 20th centuries all Sorbs spoke German by the late 19th century and much of the recent generations no longer speak the language; the community is divided religiously between Roman Lutheranism. The former Prime Minister of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, is a Sorb; the ethnonym "Sorbs" derives from the medieval ethnic groups called Sorbs. The original ethnonym, was retained by the Sorbs and Serbs in the Balkans.
By the 6th century, Slavs occupied the area west of the Oder inhabited by Germanic peoples. The Sorbs are first mentioned in the 7th century, it is a fact that the other Slavs call them the ″Lusatian Serbs″, the Sorbs call the Serbs ″the south Sorbs″. In the 19th century the autonym of the Slavic population of Lusatia was "Lusatians"; the name "Lusatia" was applied only to Lower Lusatia, inhabited by Slavs known as Luzici, who may be regarded ancestors of the Lower Sorbs, while Upper Lusatia was inhabited by Slavs known as Milceni, the supposed ancestors of Upper Sorbs. According to a genetic study published in May 2011, Sorbs show the greatest genetic similarity to Poles, followed by Czechs, consistent with their West Slavic language, they less than Sardinians and French Basques. Estimates of demographic history of the Sorb population since 1450: Sorbs are divided into two ethnographical groups: Upper Sorbs, who speak Upper Sorbian. Lower Sorbs, who speak Lower Sorbian; the dialects spoken vary in intelligibility in different areas.
Sorbs arrived in the area extending between the Bober and Oder rivers to the East and the Saale and Elbe rivers to the West during the 6th century. In the north, the area of their settlement reached Berlin; the earliest surviving mention of the tribe was in 631 A. D. when Fredegar's Chronicle described them as Surbi and as under the rule of a Dervan, an ally of Samo. According to some historians, the Sorbian principality was mythical White Serbia and some think that the migration of Serbs to the Balkans was in this period; the Annales Regni Francorum state that in 806 A. D. Sorbian Duke Miliduch was killed. In 840, Sorbian Duke Czimislav was killed. In 932, Henry I conquered Milsko. Gero II, Margrave of the Saxon Ostmark, reconquered Lusatia the following year and, in 939, murdered 30 Sorbian princes during a feast; as a result, there were many Sorbian uprisings against German rule. A reconstructed castle, at Raddusch in Lower Lusatia, is the sole physical remnant from this early period. Lusatian tribes are noted in the work of the Bavarian Geographer.
The document contains a list of the tribes in Central-Eastern Europe east of the Elbe and north of the Danube to the Volga rivers to the Black and Caspian Sea most of them of Slavic origin. Having settled by the Elbe and Neisse in the 6th century, Sorbian tribes divided into two main groups, which have taken their names from the characteristics of the area where they had settled. Sorbs living on the swampy broads of the Lower Spree have taken their name from the word marsh; the Milceni settled on fertile soil around Upper Spree, the name derives from the word měl’. The two groups were separated from each other by a uninhabited forest range; the rest of the tribes settled themselves between the Saale. Among the many Slavic tribes, the Bavarian Geographer noted a few Lusatian tribes: Glomacze - Dolomici, Milceni and Sitice; the Israeli Slavic linguist Paul Wexler has argued that the Yiddish language structure provides "compelling evidence of an intimate Jewish contact with the Slavs in the German and Bohemian lands as early as the 9th century," and has theorized that Sorbs may have been contributors to the Ashkenazic Jewish population in Europe from the same period.
During the reign of Boleslaw I of Poland in 1002-1018, three Polish-German wars were waged which caused Lusatia to come under the domination of new rulers. In 1018, on the strength of peace in Bautzen, Lusatia became a part of Poland. However, this German rule is not to be understood in a national sense. At that time, Lusatia was part of Bohemia which itself was part of the Roman-German Empire but was ruled by a powerful indigenous slavic dynasty. There was a dense network of dynastic and diplomatic relations between German and slavic feudal lords, e.g. Wiprecht of Groitzsch rose to power through close links with the Bohemian king and his marriage into slavic nobility; the slavic-governed Bohemia remained a loyal and politically influential member of the Roman-German Empire but was in a constant power-struggle with neighbouring Poland. From the 11th to the 15th century, agriculture in
Chlothar II
Chlothar II, called the Great or the Young, was King of Neustria and King of the Franks, the son of Chilperic I and his third wife, Fredegund. He started his reign as an infant under the regency of his mother, in an uneasy alliance with Clothar's uncle Guntram, King of Burgundy. Clothar assumed full power over Neustria upon the death of his mother, in 597, he continued his mother's feud with Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia with equal viciousness and bloodshed achieving her execution in an brutal manner in 613, after winning the battle that enabled Chlothar to unite Francia under his rule. Like his father, he built up his territories by moving in after the deaths of other kings, his reign was long by contemporary standards, but saw the continuing erosion of royal power to the nobility and the church against a backdrop of feuding among the Merovingians. The Edict of Paris in 614, concerned with several aspects of appointments to offices and the administration of the kingdom, has been interpreted in different ways by modern historians.
In 617 he made the Mayor of the Palace a role held for life, an important step in the progress of this office from being first the manager of the royal household to the effective head of government, the monarch, under Pepin the Short in 751. Chlothar was forced to cede rule over Austrasia to his young son Dagobert I in 623. Unusually for a Merovingian monarch, he practised monogamy, though deaths meant that he had three queens, he was an ally of the church and inspired by the example of his uncle Guntram, his reign seems to lack the outrageous acts of murder perpetrated by many of his relations, the execution of Brunhilda excepted. The domain of Clothar II was located in the territorial and political framework derived from the Frankish kingdom present at 561 at the death of Clothar, son of Clovis and grandfather of Clothar II. On the death of Clovis in 511, four kingdoms were established with capitals at Reims, Soissons and Orléans, Aquitaine being distributed separately. In the year 550, Clothar I, the last survivor of four brothers reunited the Frankish kingdom, added Burgundian territory by conquest.
In 561, the four sons of Clothar I followed the events of 511 and split the kingdom again: Sigebert I in Reims, Chilperic I in Soissons, Charibert I in Paris, Guntram in Orleans, which included the Burgundian kingdom territory. They divided Aquitaine separately again. Sigebert moved his capital from Reims to Metz, while Guntram moved his from Orléans to Chalon. On the death of Charibert in 567, the land was again split between the three survivors, of greatest importance Sigebert received Paris and Chilperic received Rouen; the names Austrasia and Neustria seem to have appeared as the names of these kingdoms for the first time at this point. In 560, Sigebert and Chilperic married two sisters, daughters of the Visigoth king of Spain Athanagild; however Chilperic was still much attached to his lover and consort, causing Galswintha to wish to return to her homeland in Toledo. In 570 she was murdered and within days, after a brief period of grieving, Chilperic married Fredegund and elevated her to a queen of a Frankish kingdom.
"After this action his brothers thought that the queen mentioned above had been killed at his command..."Chilperic agreed, at first, to pay a sum of money to end the feud, but not soon after decided to embark on a series of military operations against Sigebert. This was the beginning of what is called the "royal feud " which did not end until Brunhilda died in 613; the main episodes until the assassination of Chilperic in 584 were as follows: the assassination of Sigebert, the imprisonment of Brunhilde and her marriage to a son of Chilperic, the return of Brunhilda to her son Childebert II, successor of Sigebert. Moreover, Fredegund strove to ensure her position, since she was from lower origins, by eliminating the sons that Chilperic had with his previous wife Audovera: Merovech and Clovis, her own children, died at a young age and appeared to be by foul play. When Fredegund had a son in the spring of 584, he would have been the future successor of Chilperic I, if he had lived long enough.
The main sources from the time are the chronicles of the Chronicle of Fredegar. It is possible, that the authors contain a degree of bias in their works; the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours in the late sixth century only recounts up to 572. It is favorable to Queen Brunhild and Chilperic but hostile to Fredegund; the Chronicle of Fredegar, beginning in 584, on the other hand is hostile to Brunhild. That chronicle includes: The Biography of Clothar II Clothar II deals with the Lombards Under Frankish customs, newborns did not receive names in order not to spread concern related to the symbolic name of the Merovingian. Wanting to choose a name based on the development of unrest in the kingdom of the Franks, his father did not baptize him immediately. Chilperic and Fredegund desired to protect their child, since their four older sons may have been victims of murder, there was much political intrigue at the time, he was raised in secret in the royal villa in Vitry-en-Artois to avoid detection.
In September 584, Chilperic I was murdered after a hunt near his villa of Chelles on the order of Queen Brunhilda. This event produced general unrest. In this time Austrasians plundered parts of N
History of Slovakia
This article discusses the history of the territory of Slovakia. Discovery of ancient tools made by the Clactonian technique near Nové Mesto nad Váhom attests that Slovakia's territory was inhabited in the Palaeolithic. Other prehistoric discoveries include the Middle Palaeolithic stone tools found near Bojnice, a Neanderthal discovery at a site near Gánovce; the Gravettian culture was present principally in the river valleys of Nitra, Ipeľ, Váh and as far as the city of Žilina, near the foot of the Vihorlat and Tribeč mountains, as well as in the Myjava Mountains. The best known artifact is the Venus of Moravany from Moravany nad Váhom. Neolithic habitation was found in Želiezovce and the Bukové hory massif, the Domica cave, at Nitriansky Hrádok. Bronze Age was marked by the Čakany and Velatice cultures, the Lusatian culture, followed by the Calenderberg culture and the Hallstatt culture; the Celts were the first population in the territory of present-day Slovakia who can be identified on the basis of written sources.
The first Celtic groups came from the West around 400 BC. Settlements of the La Tène culture indicate that the Celts colonized the lowlands along the river Danube and its tributaries; the local population was either subjected by the Celts or withdrew to the mountainous northern territory. New Celtic groups arrived from Northern Italy during the 2nd century BC; the Celts lived in tiny huts – 4 by 3 metres in size – which either formed small villages or were scattered across the countryside. Some of the small hill forts which were built in the 1st century BC developed into important local economic and administrative centers. For example, the hill fort at Zemplín was a center of iron-working. Coins from Bratislava bore inscriptions like Nonnos; the fort at Liptovská Mara was an important center of the cult of the bearers of the Púchov culture of the Northern Carpathians. Burebista, King of the Dacians, invaded the Middle Danube region and subjugated the majority of the local Celtic tribes around 60 BC.
Burebista's empire collapsed. Archaeological sites yielding painted ceramics and other artefacts of Dacian provenance suggest that Dacian groups settled among the local Celts in the region of the rivers Bodrog and Nitra; the spread of the "Púchov culture", associated with the Celtic Cotini, shows that the bearers of that culture started a northward expansion during the same period. The Romans and the Germanic tribes launched their first invasions against the territories along the Middle Danube in the last decade of the 1st century BC. Roman legions crossed the Danube near Bratislava under the command of Tiberius to fight against the Germanic Quadi in 6 AD, but the local tribes' rebellion in Pannonia forced the Romans to return. Taking advantage of internal strifes, the Romans settled a group of Quadi in the lowlands along the Danube between the rivers Morava and Váh in 21, making Vannius their king; the Germans lived in rectangular houses, rather than square ones, cremated their dead, placing the ashes in an urn.
Although the Danube formed the frontier between the Roman Empire and the "Barbaricum", the Romans built small outposts along the left bank of the Danube, for instance, at Iža and Devín. During the same period, the Germanic tribes were expanding to the north along the rivers Hron, Ipeľ and Nitra. Roman troops crossed the Danube several times during the Marcomannic Wars between 160 and 180. Emperor Marcus Aurelius accomplished the first chapter of his Meditations during a campaign against the Quadi in the region of the Hron River in 172; the "Miracle of the Rain" – a storm which saved an exhausted Roman army – occurred in the land north of the Danube in 173. Roman troops crossed the Danube for the last time in 374, during Emperor Valentinian I's campaign against the Quadi who had allied with the Sarmatians and invaded the Roman province of Pannonia. In the 4th century AD, the Roman Empire could no longer resist the attacks by the neighboring peoples; the empire's frontier started to collapse along the Danube in the 370s.
The development of the Hunnic Empire in the Eurasian Steppes forced large groups of Germanic peoples, including the Quadi and the Vandals, to leave their homelands by the Middle Danube and along the upper course of the river Tisza in the early 5th century. Their lands were occupied by the Heruli, Scirii and other Germanic peoples. However, the Carpathian Basin was dominated by the nomadic Huns from the early 5th century and the Germanic peoples became subjects to Attila the Hun. Disputes among Attila's sons caused the disintegration of his empire shortly after his death in 453; the Germanic peoples either left the Carpathian Basin. Warriors' graves from the next century yielded large number of swords, arrow heads and other weapons. Other archaeological finds, including a glass beaker from Zohor, shows that the local inhabitants had close contacts with the Frankish Empire and Scandinavia. Regarding the early history of Slavs, Slavic texts or a record written by a Slav dating from before the late 9th century are not known.
The foreign sources about Slavs are inconsistent. According to a scholarly theory, the first Slavic groups settled in the eastern region of present-day Slovakia in the 4th century; the 6th-century Byzantine historian Jordanes wrote that the funeral feast at Attila's burial was called strava. Scholars who identify that word as a Slavic expression say that Jordanes' report proves tha
Belgium
Belgium the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, the North Sea to the northwest, it has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; the sovereign state is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organisation is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds, it is divided into three autonomous regions: Flanders in the north, Wallonia in the south, the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita. Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups or Communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 59 percent of the population, the French-speaking Community, which comprises about 40 percent of all Belgians. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons.
The Brussels-Capital Region is bilingual, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Belgium was part of an area known as the Low Countries, a somewhat larger region than the current Benelux group of states that included parts of northern France and western Germany, its name is derived after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, the area of Belgium was a prosperous and cosmopolitan centre of commerce and culture. Between the 16th and early 19th centuries, Belgium served as the battleground between many European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened by both world wars; the country emerged in 1830 following the Belgian Revolution. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa.
The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fueled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders. Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, as well as a seat of the European Parliament in the country's capital, Brussels. Belgium is a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, WTO, a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts several of the EU's official seats as well as the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.
Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has high standards of living, quality of life, education, is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index, it ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world. The name "Belgium" is derived from Gallia Belgica, a Roman province in the northernmost part of Gaul that before Roman invasion in 100 BC, was inhabited by the Belgae, a mix of Celtic and Germanic peoples. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings. A gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire; the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the region into Middle and West Francia and therefore into a set of more or less independent fiefdoms which, during the Middle Ages, were vassals either of the King of France or of the Holy Roman Emperor. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 15th centuries.
Emperor Charles V extended the personal union of the Seventeen Provinces in the 1540s, making it far more than a personal union by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 and increased his influence over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. The Eighty Years' War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands; the latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. Following the campaigns of 1794 in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Low Countries—including territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liège—were annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region; the reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, after the defeat of Napo
Thuringia
Thuringia the Free State of Thuringia, is a state of Germany. Thuringia is located in central Germany covering an area of 16,171 square kilometres and a population of 2.15 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest German state by area and the fifth smallest by population. Erfurt is the state capital and largest city, while other major cities include Jena and Weimar. Thuringia is surrounded by the states of Bavaria, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony. Most of Thuringia is within the watershed of the Saale, a left tributary of the Elbe, has been known as "the green heart of Germany" from the late 19th century due to the dense forest covering the land. Thuringia is home to the Rennsteig, Germany's most well-known hiking trail, the winter resort of Oberhof, making it a well-known winter sports destination with half of Germany's 136 Winter Olympic gold medals won through 2014 having been won by Thuringian athletes. Thuringia is home to prominent German intellectuals and creative artists, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, is location of the University of Jena, the Ilmenau University of Technology, the University of Erfurt, the Bauhaus University of Weimar.
Thuringia was established in 1920 as a state of the Weimar Republic from a merger of the Ernestine duchies, except for Saxe-Coburg, but can trace its origins to the Frankish Duchy of Thuringia established around 631 AD by King Dagobert I. After World War II, Thuringia came under the Soviet occupation zone in Allied-occupied Germany, its borders altered to become contiguous. Thuringia became part of the German Democratic Republic in 1947, but was dissolved in 1952 during administrative reforms, its territory divided into the districts of Erfurt and Gera. Thuringia was re-established in 1990 following German reunification, with different borders, became one of the Federal Republic of Germany's new states; the name Thuringia or Thüringen derives from the Germanic tribe Thuringii, who emerged during the Migration Period. Their origin is unknown. An older theory claims that they were successors of the Hermunduri, but research rejected the idea. Other historians argue that the Thuringians were allies of the Huns, came to central Europe together with them, lived before in what is Galicia today.
Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus first mentioned the Thuringii around 400. The Thuringian Realm existed until after 531, the Landgraviate of Thuringia was the largest state in the region, persisting between 1131 and 1247. Afterwards the state known as Thuringia ceased to exist. After the Treaty of Leipzig, Thuringia had its own dynasty again, the Ernestine Wettins, their various lands formed the Free State of Thuringia, founded in 1920, together with some other small principalities. The Prussian territories around Erfurt, Mühlhausen and Nordhausen joined Thuringia in 1945; the coat of arms of Thuringia shows the lion of the Ludowingian Landgraves of 12th-century origin. The eight stars around it represent the eight former states; the flag of Thuringia is a white-red bicolor, derived from the white and red stripes of the Ludowingian lion. The coat of arms and flag of Hesse are quite similar to the Thuringian ones, because they are derived from the Ludowingian symbols. Symbols of Thuringia in popular culture are the Bratwurst and the Forest, because a large amount of the territory is forested.
Named after the Thuringii tribe who occupied it around AD 300, Thuringia came under Frankish domination in the 6th century. Thuringia became a landgraviate in 1130 AD. After the extinction of the reigning Ludowingian line of counts and landgraves in 1247 and the War of the Thuringian Succession, the western half became independent under the name of "Hesse", never to become a part of Thuringia again. Most of the remaining Thuringia came under the rule of the Wettin dynasty of the nearby Margraviate of Meissen, the nucleus of the Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony. With the division of the house of Wettin in 1485, Thuringia went to the senior Ernestine branch of the family, which subsequently subdivided the area into a number of smaller states, according to the Saxon tradition of dividing inheritance amongst male heirs; these were the "Saxon duchies", among others, of the states of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Eisenach, Saxe-Jena, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Gotha. Thuringia accepted the Protestant Reformation, Roman Catholicism was suppressed as early as 1520.
In Mühlhausen and elsewhere, the Anabaptists found many adherents. Thomas Müntzer, a leader of some non-peaceful groups of this sect, was active in this city. Within the borders of modern Thuringia the Roman Catholic faith only survived in the Eichsfeld district, ruled by the Archbishop of Mainz, to a small degree in Erfurt and its immediate vicinity; the modern German black-red-gold tricolour flag's first appearance anywhere in a German-ethnicity sovereign state, within what today comprises Germany, occurred in 1778 as the state flag of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, a principality whose lands were located within m
Francia
Francia called the Kingdom of the Franks, or Frankish Empire was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks during the Early Middle Ages, it is the predecessor of the modern states of Germany. After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, West Francia became the predecessor of France, East Francia became that of Germany. Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era before its partition in 843; the core Frankish territories inside the former Western Roman Empire were close to the Rhine and Maas rivers in the north. After a period where small kingdoms inter-acted with the remaining Gallo-Roman institutions to their south, a single kingdom uniting them was founded by Clovis I, crowned King of the Franks in 496, his dynasty, the Merovingian dynasty, was replaced by the Carolingian dynasty. Under the nearly continuous campaigns of Pepin of Herstal, Charles Martel, Pepin the Short and Louis the Pious—father, grandson, great-grandson and great-great-grandson—the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire was secured by the early 9th century, by this point dubbed as the Carolingian Empire.
During the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties the Frankish realm was one large kingdom polity subdivided into several smaller kingdoms effectively independent. The geography and number of subkingdoms varied over time, but a basic split between eastern and western domains persisted; the eastern kingdom was called Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse, expanding eastwards into central Europe. It evolved into the Holy Roman Empire; the western kingdom Neustria was founded in Northern Roman Gaul, as the original kingdom of the Merovingians it came over time to be referred to as Francia, now France, although in other contexts western Europe could still be described as "Frankish". In Germany there are prominent other places named after the Franks such as the region of Franconia, the city of Frankfurt, Frankenstein Castle; the Franks emerged in the 3rd century as a term covering Germanic tribes living on the northern Rhine frontier of the Roman Empire, including the Bructeri, Chamavi and Salians.
While all of them had a tradition of participating in the Roman military, the Salians were allowed to settle within the Roman Empire. In 357, having been living in the civitis of Batavia for some time, Emperor Julian, who forced the Chamavi back out of the empire at the same time, allowed the Salians to settle further away from the border, in Toxandria; some of the early Frankish leaders, such as Flavius Bauto and Arbogast, were committed to the cause of the Romans, but other Frankish rulers, such as Mallobaudes, were active on Roman soil for other reasons. 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. 422. Around 428, the king Chlodio, whose kingdom may have been in the civitas Tungrorum, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum and the Somme.
Though Sidonius Apollinaris relates that Flavius Aetius defeated a wedding party of his people, this period marks the beginning of a situation that would endure for many centuries: the Germanic Franks ruled over an increasing number of Gallo-Roman subjects. The Merovingians, reputed to be relatives of Chlodio, arose from within the Gallo-Roman military, with Childeric and his son Clovis being called "King of the Franks" in the Gallo-Roman military before having any Frankish territorial kingdom. Once Clovis defeated his Roman competitor for power in northern Gaul, Syagrius, he turned to the kings of the Franks to the north and east, as well as other post-Roman kingdoms existing in Gaul: Visigoths and Alemanni; the original core territory of the Frankish kingdom came to be known as Austrasia, while the large Romanised Frankish kingdom in northern Gaul came to be known as Neustria. Chlodio's successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I his grandson, ruled a Salian kingdom from Tournai as a foederatus of the Romans.
Childeric is chiefly important to history for bequeathing the Franks to his son Clovis, who began an effort to extend his authority over the other Frankish tribes and to expand their territorium south and west into Gaul. 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 Kingdom of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni and established Frankish hegemony over them. Clovis defeated the Visigoths and conquered all of their territory north of the Pyrenees save Septimania, conquered the Bretons and made them vassals of Francia, he conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine and incorporated them into his kingdom. He incorporated the various Roman military settlements scattered over Gaul: the Saxons of Bessin, the Britons and the Alans of Armorica and Loire valley or the Taifals of Poitou to name a few prominent ones. 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 th
Pannonian Basin
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin in Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more used for the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only the lowlands, the plain that remained when the Pliocene Epoch Pannonian Sea dried out, it is a geomorphological subsystem of the Alps-Himalaya system a sediment-filled back-arc basin. Most of the plain consists of the Great Hungarian Plain and the Little Hungarian Plain, divided by the Transdanubian Mountains; the Pannonian Basin lies in the southeastern part of Central Europe. It forms a topographically discrete unit set in the European landscape, surrounded by imposing geographic boundaries - the Carpathian Mountains and the Alps; the Rivers Danube and Tisza divide the basin in half. It extends between Vienna in the northwest, Bratislava in the northeast, Ostrava in the north, Zagreb in the southwest, Novi Sad in the south and Satu Mare in the east. In terms of modern state boundaries, the basin centres on the territory of Hungary, but it covers regions of western Slovakia, southeastern Poland, western Ukraine, western Romania, northern Serbia, the tip of northeast Croatia, northeastern Slovenia, eastern Austria.
The name "Pannonian" comes from a province of the Roman Empire. Only the western part of the territory of modern Hungary formed part of the ancient Roman Province of Pannonia. In English-language, the terms "Pannonian Basin" and "Carpathian Basin" are used synonymously; the name "Pannonian" is taken from that of a province of the Roman Empire. The historical province was not coterminous with the geographical plain or basin. Pannonia Inferior covered much of the western half of the basin, as far as the Danube. Pannonia Superior included the western fringe of the basin as well as part of the Eastern Alps, as far as Virunum; the southern fringe of the basin was in Moesia. The eastern half of the basin was not conquered by the Romans and was considered part of Sarmatia, inhabited by the Iazyges; the parts north of the Danube were not in the empire. The term Pannonian Plain refers to the lowland parts of the Pannonian Basin as well as those of some adjoining regions like Lower Austria and Silesia; the lands adjoining the plain proper are sometimes called peri-Pannonian.
The term Carpathian Basin is used in Hungarian literature, while the West Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian languages, German language, Romanian language use Pannonian: in Hungarian the basin is known as Kárpát-medence, in Czech. The East Slavic languages, namely Ukrainian, use terms Tisa-Danube Basin or Middanubian Basin In Hungarian geographical literature various subdivisions of the Carpathian Mountains are considered parts of the Carpathian Basin on the basis of traditional geopolitical divisions. Julius Pokorny derived the name Pannonia from Illyrian, from the Proto-Indo-European root *pen-, "swamp, wet". Although rain is not plentiful, it falls when necessary and the plain is a major agricultural area. For its early settlers, the plain offered few sources of metals or stone, thus when archaeologists come upon objects of obsidian or chert, copper or gold, they have unparalleled opportunities to interpret ancient pathways of trade. The Pannonian plain is divided into two parts along the Transdanubian Mountains.
The northwestern part is called Western Pannonian plain and the southeastern part Eastern Pannonian plain. They comprise the following sections: Western Pannonian Plain: Vienna Basin Little Hungarian Plain Eastern Pannonian Plain: Great Hungarian Plain Pannonian Island Mountains Transdanubian Mountains Drava–Mura lowlandsNote: The Transylvanian Plateau and the Lučenec-Košice Depression and some other lowlands are sometimes considered part of the Pannonian Plain in non-geomorphological or older divisions. Large or distinctive areas of the plain that do not correspond to national borders include: Bačka/Bácska Šajkaška Telečka Gornji Breg Banat Pančevački Rit Veliki Rit Gornje Livade Baranya/Baranja Burgenland, Austria Crişana Jászság Kunság Little Hungarian Plain Mačva Međimurje Moravia, Czech Republic Moslavina Podravina Podunavlje Pokuplje Pomoravlje, around M
