CLO'VIS, CIILODWIC, or ('iiLODOyEd11 ). A king of the Franks, of the line of the Merovingians. By the death of his father, in 431, he became King of the Salian Franks, whose capital was at Tournai, in what is now the Belgian Province of Hainault. Pis first achieve ment was the overthrow, in 486, of the Gallo Romans under Syagrius. near Soissons, after which he extended his conquests to the Loire. Clovis did not dispossess the inhabitants, as the Franks were only few in numbers. and the public lands were sufficient for them. About 493 Clovis married Clotilda, daughter of a Bur gundian prince. Clotilda was a Christian, and earnestly desired the conversion of her husband, who, like most of the Franks, was still a heathen. In a great battle with the Alemanni, in 496, Clo vis was hard pressed, and. as a last resource, invoked the God of Clotilda, vowing that he would become a Christian if he obtained the vic tory. The Alemanni were routed, and on Christ mas day of the same year Clovis and 3000 of his army were baptized by Remigius, Bishop of Rheims. Love of conquest concurring with zeal for the Orthodox faith. Clovis marched to the
southwest of Gaul against the heretic Visigoth, Alaric II.. whom lie defeated and slew at Voui116, taking possession of the whole country as far as Bordeaux and Toulouse (507-10). Clovis now took up his residence in Paris. where he died in His great aim had been the subjugation of all the Frankish princes and the union of the whole Frankish people into a single powerful kingdom. The means he employed to secure this end were cruel and unscrupulous; hut the end itself would have been beneficial, if lie had not frustrated it at his death by redividing the newly organized realm among his four sons, and expos ing it to the very perils from which he himself had rescued it. An account of the deeds of Clovis may be found in Gregory of Tours, His toric Franrorum, Book II., edited by Gone et and Turanne (Paris, 1336-33). Consult. also. Jung haus, Geschichle der friin•1srhcn Konige Childt rich and rhlodirig (GOttingen, 1837).