CLOVIS, CLODOVEUS, and CHLODIVIG in old German, whence Ludwig, the Latinised form Ludovicus, and Louis are derived, was born A.D. 467. He was the son of Childeric, the grandson of Illero wig, who gave his name to the Merovingian dynasty. Tournay was then the capital of the Saliau Franks, who had occupied the north-east part of Gaul, and extended their incursions as far as Paris. After the death of Childeric in 481, Clovis attacked Siagrius, the Roman com mander. defeated him near Soissons, took him prisoner, and beheaded him. Having conquered the whole country, south and west, as far as the Seine, he fixed his residence at Suissons. He afterwards got rid, by force or treachery, of the other Frankish chiefs, his own relatives, who held various parts of North Gaul : Siegbert, king of Cologne, Cararic, king of tho Morini, Ranacarius, king of Cambrai, and others, all perished by his hand.
In 493 Clovis married Clotilda, the daughter of Childeric, king of the Burgundians, who was a Christian. Clovis and most of the Franks were still Pagans. In 496 Clovis fought a great battle at Toibiac, near Cologne, against the Alemanni, who had advanced to the Rhine and threatened Gaul. In the most critical moment of the fight, it is said that he made a vow to acknowledge the God of Clotilda if he remained conqueror. The Alemanni were completely defeated, and Clovis and most of his soldiers were christened on Christmas day of the same year, by Remi, archbishop of Rheims. The Gauls and Romans of the western provinces, as far as the mouth of the Loire, submitted voluntarily to Clovis.
He next turned his arms against Alaric IL, king of the Visigoths, in the south-west part of Gaul, whom he defeated in the battle of Vouilli, near Poictiers, in 507; Alaric fell, and Clovis took possession of the whole country as far as the Pyrenees. Theodoric, king of the Goths
in Italy, coming to the assistance of his countrymen, defeated Clovis near Arles, in 509, after which peace was made between the Goths and the Franks. Anastasius I., emperor of Constantinople, bestowed upon Clovis the titles of Patrician' and Augustus, and in 510 sent him a crown of gold and a mantle of purple. Clovis now fixed his residence at Paris. In 511, at the Council of Orleans, the rights called Regalia, by which on every vacancy of a see, the revenues devolved on the kiug, who had the right of nomination, were acknowledged by the bishops as vested in the kings of the Franks. Clovis caused the laws and customs of the Salian Franks to be compiled and arranged to serve as a code for his Frankish subjects. His Gaulish and Roman subjects were subject to the Theodosian Code. In 511 Clovis died at Paris, after a reign of thirty years, and was buried in the church of St. Peter and Paul, afterwards called Sainte Genevieve. When the old church of Sainte Genevieve was pulled down on May 10, 1807, two sarcophagi of stone were found with the remains of Clovis and his wife Clotilda, as well as an epitaph upon the former, written long after his death. They are preserved in the Muses: des Monumens Francais,' as well as a statue of Clovis, erected to his memory by King Robert, towards the beginning of the 11th century. Clovis left four sons, among whom he divided his monarchy. [CLorainz I.] Clovis first reduced the Franks to the condition of a united and partly civilised nation. His conversion to Christianity conciliated the clergy as well as his Roman and Gaulish subjects, most of whom had embraced that faith.