Franks
formed one of several west Germanic tribes who entered the late Roman_Empire from Frisia as ''foederati'' and established a lasting realm in an area that covers part of today's France, and Germany (Franconia), forming the historic kernel of both these two modern countries. The Frankish realm underwent many partitions and repartitions, since the Franks divided their property among surviving sons, and lacking a broad sense of a '' and then the Carolingians. The word ''frank'' meant "free" in the ("salty") and the Ripuarian ("river") Franks. By the 9th_century, if not earlier, this division had in practice become virtually non-existent, but continued for some time to have implications for the legal system under which a person could go on trial. See FrisiansThe earliest Franks
The earliest Frankish history remains relatively unclear. Our main source, the Gallo-Roman chronicler Gregory_of_Tours, whose ''Historia Francorum'' (''History of the Franks'') covers the period up to 594, quotes from otherwise lost sources like Sulpicius_Alexander and Frigeridus and profits from personal contact with many Frankish notables known to Gregory personally. Apart from Gregory's ''History'' there exist some earlier Roman sources, such as Ammianus and Sidonius_Apollinaris Modern scholars of the period of the migrations have suggested that the Frankish people emerged from the unifications of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups inhabiting the Rhine valley and lands immediately to the east, a social development perhaps related to the increasing disorder and upheaval experienced in the area as a result of the war between Rome and the Marcomanni, which began in 166 C.E., and subsequent conflicts of the late 2nd_century and the 3rd_century C.E. For his part, Gregory states that the Franks originally lived in Pannonia, but later settled on the banks of the Rhine. A region in the northeast of the modern-day Netherlands -- north of the erstwhile Roman border -- bears the name Salland, and may have received that name from the Salians. Around 250 CE a group of Franks, taking advantage of a weakened Roman Empire, penetrated as far as Tarragona in present-day Spain, plaguing this region for about a decade before Roman forces subdued them and expelled them from Roman territory. About forty years later, the Franks had the Scheldt region under control and interfered with the waterways to Britain; Roman forces pacified the region, but did not expel the Franks.Foundation of the Frankish kingdom
In 355 - 358 the later Emperor Julian once again found the shipping lanes on the Rhine under control of the Franks and again pacified them. Rome granted a considerable part of Belgica to the Franks. From this time on they become ''foederati'' of the Roman Empire. A region roughly corresponding to present-day Flanders and the Netherlands south of the rivers remains a Germanic-speaking region to this day. (The West_Germanic language known as Dutch predominates there now.) The Franks thus became the first Germanic people who permanently settled within Roman territory. See this
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