How the Franks Conquered Gaul (486-532 AD)

If you have any questions, feel free to comment them below!

P.S. I know that Odoacer was not pronounced like that at the time, none of the names were. I anglicized them, except for one that I pronounced in the French way (wasn’t sure which one to go with at the time). It was a deliberate choice for the sake of simplicity.

Music:
Serenade for Strings in E minor by Antonín Dvořák
Symphony N. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 - 1 Largo - Allegro Moderato by Sergei Rachmaninoff
Swan Lake: Swan Theme by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The Four Seasons: Summer by Antonio Vivaldi
"Devil's Trill Sonata" by Giuseppe Tartini
String Quartet N. 6 in F minor, Op. 80 by Felix Mendelssohn
Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114 - 3 Adagio by Béla Bartók
Argonne by Zachariah Hickman
Symphony No.7 in A major op.92 - 2 Allegretto by Ludwig van Beethoven

Sources:
The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 by Ian Wood

[dorderre]

Considering the lack of written surviving sources (dark ages for a reason), this is a quite well put together video about this time period. Lots of people cover the "end" of the roman empire, but hardly anyone deals with the things that happend at the same time more or less close by.
Thank you for this and please continue :)
On a side note:
This is also the time period when the events portrayed in the Nibelung Song supposedly took place. Among the main characters are the last kings of the burgundians, several merovingian queens and the hun king Attila. It's either 13th century fan fiction about the "heroic age" of the german peoples or it has it's roots in actual events but has been changed and embellished a LOT by continuous oral retelling over the course of like 1500 years. So what you described in this video is, from a german point of view, a VERY interesting time period :)

[geordiejones]

Note about Syagrius that gets overlooked: he successfully defended his father's territory for over twenty years before he was defeated by Clovis. While the rest of the West fell all around him, including Marcellinus in Dalmatia, and Ricimer in Italy, he held down the last territory of the Romans and considered himself not as a king, but as a hereditary Master of Soldiers for Gaul and defended his position until his demise. He served under his father during Majorian's reign and they split off from Italy after Majorian's execution, and that experience allowed him to compel sufficient Roman authority on his own. The fiefdom of the Soissons lasted twenty five years between Aegidius and Syragrius. Even after their deaths, their surviving family prospered as Romano-Gallic nobility under the Merovingian dynasty.

[Alrek]

"Finding exactly which territory each son took is frankly impossible". I see what you did there. Good video

[sophiepedigree]

Sigilbert: "I used to be a king like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee."

[egay]

The Franks are pigs, and treat everybody else like pigs. But that is excusable because they treat themselves like pigs.
--Alaric II

[Nick-rktp]

The Frankish succession system is the most counter productive system I've seen of so far

[coryfice]

Honestly there's probably a weird timeline where Syagrious is remembered as the founder of some modern roman esque nation and Franks are just a blip in a wikipedia article.

[nashedanonino]

fun fact today many of romantic languages call germans by the name of alemanes or alemans or simply comming from the depiction of the germanic people being alemanni

[Joanna-ilur]

The Merovingians didn’t end well. There was some king of life limiting genetic condition down the Y chromosome, so many of their kings died in their late twenties (Clovis only made it to 45). So child kings were run by three people: their mothers, the head of the household (major domo) and the local archbishop (of Metz). The major domo got to be hereditary, and so did the bishops (priests could still marry, so they had kids before becoming a Bishop). Then the MD and bishops families merged (the pippinids and the arnulfings). The outcome of all this was the illegitimate Charles, who was not allowed to be MD, so was put in charge of the army. In 732, the Muslims of Spain attacked Francia and Charles defeated them at Poitiers, killing nearly everyone except a handful shoved back over the border to tell their masters. After that he was nicknamed Martel, hammer. He ruled Francia without a tame Merovingian to front it for many years. His son, Pippin, inherited the job and the last Merovingian was his brother in law. Pippin wrote to the Pope ‘there is one who is called king, but has no power. I have the power, but am not called king. What is to be done?’ The Pope, being no fool, replied ‘The kingship and the power belong together’. Pippin took this as a hint to seize the throne. He simply, y pensioned off his brother in law

[DiscipleFiveActual]

I just want to say that your specific choice of classical music selections is great, and thanks for actually having them in the description.

[jasonscarborough]

4:57 so that's the true origin of Skyrim's "arrow to the knee" meme

[lobstervortex]

Great explanation to an often overlooked part of history! I would like to see it continued because I'm curious how the Merovingian dynasty ended.

[martinbeckdorf]

Why didn’t they make a series about these fellas a-la-Vikings?

[alperensahinkaya]

Very underrated channel, i wish you many more views

[dshock]

I am curious what the situation of all these kingdoms armies were. Did they promise land like the Romans had? Were they recruiting conscripts? Mercenaries? Were there Roman military veterans/warlords joining these kingdoms?

[Tommi]

What a captivating storyteller accompanied by great visualisations. Please do keep on posting!

[juliankillsgoats]

This was an excellent video and a great introduction for me to this topic! Please continue with the Merovingian and Frankish history! I am very interested in this early medieval societies and how they tried to imitate the Roman Empire and fought for its legacy!

[tonyhawk]

Being Burgundian I love to learn more about the foundation of my region. 😌

[georgefitzhugh]

Excellent! Please continue the history of the Franks.

[toastertoaster]

The name Odoacer is supposed to be said with a hard C. Odoacer is from the gothic *Audawakrs.