franks
appearance: c. 241
differentiation: c.
ascendancy: west germans[1]
the franks were actually a large confederation of small tribes, the dominant one appearing to be the chatti or hessians. other probable early components of the franks are the chamavi, the bructeri, the amsivarians, the chattuarii and the sicambri. it is probable that the franks were only part german and part celtic. i am in fact skeptical as to whether their eventual dominant ruling class - the sicambrians - is even german. it seems more likely that they were celts.
one idea about the name 'frank' is that it means 'free'. i have been a little skeptical of this up to now. however, it really does kind of makes sense. under this hypothesis what happened, basically, is that when the empire collapsed the people living in northern france, belgium, luxembourg, the netherlands and western germany finally became.....well....free from a roman colonial occupation. however, this means that the franks were basically just the sum of the conquered peoples of northern europe and not an identifiable "tribe" in any way whatsoever. some of these people would have been celts, some germans and some perhaps even iranians, slavs, thracians or who knows whom else. one thing that is certain is that the franks were following a gallo-greek religion when history sets in. to follow this train of thought consider that the franks did not butcher their way southwards like the tribes around them although they did of course cross the rhine with everyone else. however, they seem to have been put in power as opposed to having seized it. now, recognize that most of western europe spent the entire roman occupation fighting against italy and even managed to win a short lived independence from time to time under different gallo-roman leaders who wished to create a united, celtic empire. it is true that there were 'mercenaries' under roman control but these seem to have primarily been defectors - neither germany nor france nor britain nor spain ever really accepted roman rule and they all revolted at every possible opportunity. the (primarily celtic) resistance certainly lasted until the empire was in it's last stages of collapse. so, if there were certainly celtic elements within the franks, their religion was essentially gallic and the leaders seem to have come from either within gaul (my memory says belgium) or just over the river.....
nonetheless, the riparians and salians seem to have been identifiable germans, the free germans on one side of the rhine and the free germans on the other. i'm not so sure about the sicambrians who may actually be the free celts.....and may eventually give them a celtic descent. what is the link between sicambri and cimbri? was cambrai built by the cimbri/sicambrians? if so, we must accept that they were celts, no? this is another question that i don't know the answer to at this point. however, the early legends say that the first semi-historical frankish king "captured" cambrai from the romans. could the family have really been living there all along? could the cimbri have simply been the celts from around cambrai? could they have been the germans that displaced the cambrian celts? hrmmmn.
oh.....and of course the cimmerians were not the cimbri although sicambri/cimmerian may perhaps be the source of this myth that the franks were cimmerians, which is all it is. note that if the cimmerians really were thracians, it makes the trojan/cimmerian legends almost rational as the trojans may have actually been very early thracians........and very early thracians were really just cimmerians.
descendancy: riparian [1]
descendancy: salian [1]
descendancy: sicambrian [4]
[1]: the role of migration in the history of the eurasian steppe, andrew bell-fialkoff, 2000
[2]: the germanic invasions, lucien musset, 1965
[4]: will certainly be a detailed book on accepted early frankish history
page last updated june 1, 2005