THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 156

The Nomenclature of the Frankish Tribes

10-11. The Nomenclature of the Frankish Tribes

The Franks, then, did not come into Germany from without; and it would be rash to seek their origin in the custom of forming bands. That being so, only one hypothesis remains open. From the second century to the fourth the Germans lived in a continual state of unrest. The different communities ceaselessly made war on one another and destroyed one another. Civil war also devastated many of them. The ancient communities were thus broken up, and from their remains were formed new communities which received new names. Thus is to be explained why it is that the nomenclature of the Germanic peoples in the fifth century differs so markedly from that which Tacitus has recorded.

But neighbouring tribes presented, despite their constant antagonisms, considerable resemblances. They had a common dialect and similar habits and customs. They sometimes made temporary alliances, though holding themselves free to quarrel again before long and make war on one another with the utmost ferocity. In time, groups of these tribes came to be called by generic names, and this is doubtless the character of the names Franks, Alemans, and Saxons, These names were not applied, in the fourth and fifth centuries, to a single tribe, but to a group of neighbouring tribes who presented, along with real differences, certain common characteristics.

It appears that the peoples who lived along the right bank of the Rhine, to the north of the Main, received the name of Franks; those who had established themselves between the Ems and the Elbe, that of Saxons (Ptolemy mentions the Solves as inhabitants of the Cimbric peninsula, and perhaps the name of this petty tribe had passed to the whole group); while those whose territory lay to the south of the Main and who at some time or other had overflowed into the agri decumates (the present Baden) were called Alemans. It is possible that, after all, we should see in these three peoples, as Waitz has suggested, the Istaevones, Ingaevones, and Herminones of Tacitus.

But it must be understood that between the numerous tribes known under each of the general names of Franks, Saxons, and Alemans there was no common bond. They did not constitute a single State but groups of States without federal connexion or common organisation. Sometimes two, three, even a considerable number of tribes, might join together to prosecute a war in common, but when the war was over the link snapped and the tribes fell asunder again.

Documentary evidence enables us to trace how the generic name Franci came to be given to certain tribes between the Main and the North Sea, for we find these tribes designated now by the ancient name which was known to Tacitus and again by the later name. In Peutinger's chart we find Chamavi qui et Pranci and there is no doubt that we should read qui et Franci. The Chamavi inhabited the country between the Yssel and the Ems; later on, we find them a little further south, on the banks of the Rhine in Hamaland, and their laws were collected in the ninth century in the document known as the Lex Francorum Chamavorum. Along with the Chamavi we may reckon among the Franks the Attuarii or Chattuarii. We read in Ammianus Marcellinus (xx. 10) Rheno transmisso, regionem pervasit Francorum quos Atthuarios vacant. Later, the pagus Attuariorum will correspond to the country of Emmerich, of Cleves, and of Xanten. We may note that in the Middle Ages there was to be found in Burgundy, in the neighbourhood of Dijon, a pagus Attuariorum and it is very probable that a portion of this tribe settled at this spot in the course of the fifth century. The Bructeri, the Ampsivarii, and the Chatti were, like the Chamavi, reckoned as Franks. They are mentioned as such in a wellknown passage of Sulpicius Alexander which is cited by Gregory of Tours (Historia Francorum, ii. 9). Arbogast, a barbarian general in the service of Rome, desires to take vengeance on the Franks and their chiefs — subreguli — Sunno and Marcomir. Consequently in midwinter of the year 392 collecto exerdtu transgressus Rhenum, Bructeros ripae proximos, pagum etiam quern Chamavi incolunt depopulatus est, nullo unquam occursante, nisi qttod paud ex Ampsivariis et Catthis Marcomere duce in ulterioribus collium jugis apparuere. It is this Marcomir, chief of the Ampsivarii and Chatti, whom the author of the Liber Historiae makes the father of Pharamond, though he has nothing whatever to do with the Salian Franks.

Thus it is evident that the name Franks was given to a group of tribes, not to a single tribe. The earliest historical mention of the name may be that in Peutinger's chart,supposing, at least, that the words et Pranci are not a later interpolation. The earliest mention in a literary source is in the Vita Aureliani of Vopiscus, cap. 7. In the year 240, Aurelian, who was then only a military tribune, immediately after defeating the Franks in the neighbourhood of Mainz, was marching against the Persians, and his soldiers as they marched chanted this refrain:

Mille Sarmatas, mille Francos semel et semel occidimus; Mille Persas quaerimus.

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