American Reacts The Franks: the Birth of Modern Europe 

1:40 barbarian defines all non roman for the romans. The idea for making a defeted rival a monk is that he's forced to renounce every title, as a monk cannot claim a crown. 19:00 Nantes is a city in Western France. Rolland was the ruller of Nantes. 22:00 when you come to a place and conquer the people, teach them to fear a higher power, and tell them you and now them are on that higher power's team and that you are actually chosen by that power, you make it easier to control them.

The Romans called them barbarians, doesn't mean they were barbarians ;)

Be careful, this video is historically outdated or approximate. At 2:30 the flag of Clovis is anachronistic, the "fleur de lys" appears during the 8th century. At 5:45 the narrator says that "the kings of this dynasty were noted for their incompetent rulers" That's completely false, this is propaganda from the caroligian's narrative (the next dynasty) to justifie their autority. At 8:10 "the arab invaded the frankish territories on iberian peninsula" False again, it was not frankish territories but visigothic territories on iberian peninsula. And at this time the Aquitaine was an indepentant duchy ruled by "Eudes d'Aquitaine", an ennemy of the Franks. Al-andalous did not try to invade the frankish kingdom, Al-andalous try to invade the duchy of Aquitaine many times. They failed severly in 721 at Toulouse, Eudes d'Aquitaine defeated them severely. Al-andalous tried again in 732 and this time they defeated Eudes d'Aquitaine, he was forced to ask help from his old ennemi Charles Martel. Charles Martel defeated the arab/berber army and claim his autorithy over Aquitaine, Eudes has no choise but to recognise him as suzerain. The rivalty between Eudes d'Aquitaine and Charles Martel is a fascinating story, you should study it if you can. 30:00 Fun fact, the name "Louis" is a deformation of "Clovis", so technically the "firsts Louis" are the merovingian's Clovis kings, but for political reasons, the carolingians separated the "Louis" from the "Clovis" in their official "king counting classification" (sorry for my poor English)

The name of the Frankish ruler was not Clovis. This is a simplification for the French tongue of later centuries. In fact, his name was more likely Chlodowech or Hludawig. He was a Germanic prince when neither France nor Germany existed. In later times, the name changed in France to Louis, in Germany to Ludwig. There are other versions of the name in other languages: Lodewijk in Dutch, Luigi in Italian, and more.

Long hair was considered a sign of power. If they were shaved, not only did they lose their dignities, but making them monks in a monastery allowed them to be controlled. They no longer had any reason to be in power, since they had to demonstrate poverty (not personal wealth) and obedience to God, in addition to chastity (which removed the power of having a dynasty).

Aquitaine was brought under English rule through marriage of the ruling Duchess, Eleanor to King Henry II of England in the 1150s, almost 100 years after William the Bastard (or Conqueror) led the Norman invasion of England. It is all very convoluted and quite interesting if such a thing tickles you. Seperate fun fact; The French are sometimes still referred to as Franks and the term for a lover of the French would still be a Frankophile, similar to an Anglophile being a lover of the English.

Charlemagne, who was the grandson of the first King of France Charles Martel, is considered to be the founder of Europe. He was not just the emperor, crowned by the pope himself, but he is the only person who ever had been considered to be the king of France as well as the Emperor of Germany. Therefore the French as well as the Germans consider the reign of Charlemagne (or Karl der Große) the beginning of Europe.

The Frankish rule had ONE major consitutional flaw which had detrimental effects for mor than 1300 years: They relied on the "Salic law", which called for an equal splitting of any inheritance among all sons. (see video 4:30.) This was bad for the ordinary man (up until the 19th century there were regions in Germany in which the Salic law was commonly used. The farmlands were thus divided up after each generation making for smaller and smalle farms which became less and less viable to operate. Much of the mass migrations of Germans in the 19th century to America came from those regions). And the Salic Law was a catastrophe for the state. This "Salic law" is the reason why Charlemagne's grandsons had to split up his empire. And it is the main reason why the Holy Roman Empire was eventually subdivided into more than 1000 (!) independent states.

20:10 what became centuries after, Castille and Portugal, did inherit from "local remnants" (Asturian kingdom) as mentioned, protected by the wild frontier that are the Cantabrian Mountains, but I strongly advise to keep in mind that Basque tribes which also kept out Arabic and Frankish influence, did as well their own thing for a long while (they still have nowadays a strong/differentiated inside Spain).

11:40: Making a defeated rival king a monk (and then keeping him locked up in a monastary) was common practice. Charlemagne did the same with the last independent Bavarian King Tassilo for instance. The purpose was to make sure that, as a monk, this king could not have any (legitimate) heirs so his line would die out. And this aim was achieved without having to kill the king - because killing another annointed christian king was something you wanted to avoid if possible because this would undermine your own position as an annointed king.

Tonsuring and monking was a sort of medieval exile.

Its "Nantes Margrave" because there is a city called Nantes (pronunced "Nant") i.e. a Margrave from Nantes. The Franks introduced trial by jury in France/Gaul. Some debate on whether English trial by jury was based on this, introduced by the Normans in 1066, or whether its some sortof mix of the Anglo-Saxon, Frankish and/or Danish juries which had the job of investigating crimes. Regarding the Frankish conquest of Aquitaine, it was partly because of religious tensions with the Visigoths, who were members of a different Christian sect called Arianism, which rejected the idea of the Trinity, believing instead that God had created Jesus Christ who was a separate person. Regarding Childeric's hair being cut, that was because long hair was a traditional sign of kingship in the Merovingian dynasty. Some Aquitanians spoke a language similar to Basque called Aquitanian, which later became the Gascon language, which influenced the Gascon dialect of French. This was also a factor in support for England during the Hundred Years War in this area, as well as problems between the King of France and the local nobility.

If you weren’t a Roman citizen, a slave, or more specifically you weren’t living within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, you were considered a Barbarian. You were living in ‘Barbaricum’ a geographical name used by historical and archaeological experts to refer to the vast area of barbarian-occupied territory that lay, in Roman times, beyond the frontiers or limes of the Roman Empire in North, Central and South Eastern Europe, the "lands lying beyond Roman administrative control but nonetheless a part of the Roman world". This doesn’t mean the same as it does today, it doesn’t mean uncivilised it simply meant that you lived outside of the Roman Empire. The Roman’s did however see these people as being less civilised than themselves and therefore felt that by conquering their lands they were bringing Roman civility and a better life to them…

Thanks for learning, I really appreciate your effort!❤

in Europe we had thousands of wars and hundreds of city-states ... these are our manifestations even today, for example, at football matches - you will never understand it in the US ... we will never be defeated by anyone ... if I do not count the last 70 years, then we have been fighting for more than 4000 years ..you have to learn the history of Europe, your ancestors are from there

in short to: The Holy Roman Empire, Name for the territory ruled by the Roman-German emperors since the 10th century The empire was formed in the 10th century under the Ottonian dynasty from the former Carolingian East Franconian kingdom. With his imperial coronation in Rome on February 2, 962, Otto I, like Charlemagne 162 years earlier, took up the idea of the renewed Roman Empire. His successors adhered in principle to the theory of translatio imperii, which legitimized their claim to universal rule, until the end of the empire. The territory of the East Frankish Empire was first referred to as Regnum Teutonicum or Regnum Teutonicorum in various written sources - but never officially - in the 11th century. The names Sacrum Imperium (1157) and Sacrum Romanum Imperium (1184) are documented for the first time from the time of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, not just from 1254, as older research assumed. The addition of the German nation (Latin nationis Germanicæ or natio Teutonica) was occasionally used from the late 15th century onwards. The scope and borders of the Holy Roman Empire changed considerably over the centuries. From 1033, it consisted of three parts: the Regnum Teutonicum, i.e. the "German" Empire, Imperial Italy and - until its de facto loss at the end of the late Middle Ages - the Kingdom of Burgundy, also known as Arelat. The Kingdom of Bohemia, which also belonged to the Empire, played a special role. At the time of its greatest expansion around 1200, the territory of the empire encompassed present-day Germany as far as the Eider, the Benelux countries with the exception of parts of Flanders, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and northern Italy except Venice, as well as large parts of eastern France and roughly the western third of Poland. Due to various ambiguities in the affiliation with the empire (e.g. concerning the Teutonic Order), it is not possible to clearly depict the territory of the empire; this must also be taken into account in the case of the maps used here. Due to its multi-ethnic, pre- and supranational character and its universal claim, the empire never developed into a modern nation state, but remained a monarchically governed, estates-based association of emperors and imperial estates with only a few common institutions such as the Imperial Diet and the Imperial Chamber Court. From the early modern period onwards, the empire was no longer structurally capable of offensive warfare, expansion of power and expansion. Legal protection and peacekeeping were seen as its main purposes. The empire was supposed to ensure peace, stability and the peaceful resolution of conflicts by containing the dynamics of power: subjects were to be protected from the arbitrariness of the sovereigns and smaller imperial estates from infringements of the law by more powerful estates and the emperor. As neighboring states had also been integrated into its constitutional order as imperial estates since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the empire also fulfilled a peacekeeping function in the system of European powers. The Holy Roman Empire emerged from the East Frankish Empire. It was a pre-national and supranational entity, a feudal kingdom and personal union state that never developed into a nation state such as France or Great Britain and never wanted to be understood as such for reasons of the history of ideas. Twelve different languages were spoken within the borders of the empire in the early modern period, including Danish, Czech, Slovenian, Italian, French and Dutch. The most common was German, which was also spoken outside the empire, especially in East-Central and South-East Europe. The competing contrast between the consciousness of the tribal duchies and later the territories and the supranational sense of unity was never resolved in the Holy Roman Empire, and an overarching sense of national identity did not develop. Why the name Holy Roman Empire The name was used to lay claim to the succession of the ancient Roman Empire and thus, as it were, to universal rule. At the same time, it was feared that the prophecies of the prophet Daniel, who had predicted that there would be four world empires and then the Antichrist would come to earth (four kingdoms doctrine), would come true - the apocalypse would begin. As the (ancient) Roman Empire was counted as the fourth empire in the four empires doctrine, it was not allowed to fall. The elevation through the addition of "Holy" emphasized the divine grace of the empire and the legitimation of rule through divine law.

Great video! Keep them up.

I love watching that video very much

Nevermind Russell bloody Crow Connor, The Drunken English legend that is Oliver Reed was in Gladiator, in fact it was his final film as he died whilst filming. 😢

"Barbarians" simply refers to peoples who are different. Who do not live according to Roman or Greek customs

Hi Connor, at the time all Non Romans were called barbarian as they were not "civilised" in Roman eyes...

Normandy has nothing to do with this. I believe it's mainly the Danes that settled there and even then they remained a (ruling) minority. Also, saying they "conquered" isn't totally wrong but it's simplifying history, as that land was given by the king of France so that the "normen" protect France from their fellow vikings. Normandy was still France, the duke of Normandy a vassal, but by that time each province in France had a lot of independance (or was actually independent), the kings meant very little and the nobles of the different provinces had the real power. Aquitaine has even less to do with this. The kings of England (the Plantagenets) just had that land, through Eleanor of Aquitaine, before they even got England itself. So it was an ancestral land for the Plantagenet dynasty. It's unrelated to any struggle they had with some Carolingian kings centuries earlier.

31:58 While Louis the Pious was indeed the 1st Louis for France, that Louis II is not the 2nd Louis of France as he's king of east Francia, not west Francia, and he's not emperor either. He belongs to the bunch of future "Louis" of the HRE (Louis the Pious is the first one for BOTH France and the HRE). On the other hand, Louis II in France will be the son of Charles II, so not his brother, so it's the next generation here.

Between France and Spain are the Pyrenees, high mountains like the Alps, though they're older. That would have been a problem, I guess, back then. With Aquitaine and the English, that was because of Aliénor (1122 - 1204) who was first married to the king of France (Louis VII), then to the king of England (Henry II). She was also the duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, so Henry had a claim to the duchy (I think also that she only had 2 daughters with the French king (which were declared illegitimate after the annulment of the marriage), but sons with the English (Richard 1st among others).

20:20 they ware Frankish/Germans, the first Portuguese king was of Burgundy descent, Castile offered them land to protect the south border

One issue I have with the Video is that he uses no historical sources for image relying on what looks like 19. Century images mixed in with AI art. I always dislike it for distorting our view of the time period...

Hello from France 😉my avatar is Clovis,the founder of France 💪💪♥️

The Franks (Franken in German) were Germanic tribes, who were migrated from North and East of the Rhine into the west regions in modern day west of Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. The Franks included other smaller tribes but were all classified as Franks main tribe. The Franks were the ones who first often had wars and clashes with Rome. Years gone by, they were partners and allies of Rome. Under Karl der Großer (Charles the Great), he tried to rally other Germanic tribes to the east and north of the Rhine not yet under the influences of the Franks to come under his kingdom that always led to wars wars wars especially with their other Germanic tribe the Saxons. The Geography of France and West Germany was ruled by the Germanic Franks under Charles the great. The modern France was only came about after the death of Charles the Great through his inertance of power to Louis King of France - this was the birth of what we know as France since. To the other Confederation of Germanic tribes, they came under the same power through King Ludwig(power inheritance through Charles the Great).

20:54 Those areas where mountainous and difficult to take and hold. The Visigoths did rule those areas, but the population was a mix of several ethnic groups as Christians fleed other parts of Spain for those areas. The Franks wheren't really among them.

The benefit for religion was power, that and justification for wars (and gain support/alliances among other nations of your faith). Among other things offc. In almost all religions, a power structure (I always see at as like a second 'kind of government especially in past times, not so more anymore) is prevalent. So that should not be ignored.

As a Frenchman having most of my family coming from Soissons, I lived in Paris (not original I give you that) I live now in Frankfurt. Funny to seen all these pinpoints conquered by the Merovingians in the video

13:12 "[Pepin's] oldest son, Charlemagne" Yep, they'd already called him great, casually. 😂

Fitting that the power of Europe returned to the region where it all began. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union, and that really makes sense when you know this history.

Stupid question, this is another big reaction to European history vid, I was wondering, have you ever heard of the Crusader Kings video game series? OK vid game... BUT with this one, I am amazed the number of historical facts I learned through playing.

I live pretty much near the Süntel were the saxons defeated the franks in battle. Thats why I love living in Europe, you have history all around you

1:22 They are referred as barbaric because that how Romans referred to them and we have mostly roman sources about them.

Religion is a powerful tool not only to conquer but also organise society, it can act like a great filter, without religion it may be impossible to gather that many human beings and create enough order. Could be why religions appeared in multiple places just like writing

We can't speak of " France " at the period of Clovis. This is anachronic.

Belisarius lived in the early 500s compared to Charlemagnes later 700s-early 800s.

Yes that was louis I!

About your thoughts about religion: I would say that the most important change, that Christian religion brought to Europe is intertwined with Constantine. He was a very influential Ceasar of the Roman Empire. He achieved the feudal system in Europe, by intertwining this revolutionary social structure with Christian theology. You really should keep an eye up for any good video about Emperor Constantine. Because, he is one of the most important persons, ever lived 😉

The first french King was born in the current Belgium country.... how ironic 😂

Franks are Belgians. Belgium has always been powerfull.

Nice!

Barbarian is the greek word for "Foreigner" or People Who talk like "Bar bar ba bar bar" (because no greek can under stand their words).

The barbarians was the name used by the Romans to call all those who were not part of the Roman Empire. As they were enemies that the Romans fought, the Romans called them the barbarian tribes. The name today sounds tough. We imagine fierce and bloodthirsty tribes. Like some kind of criminal gangs today, you know... But not really. Some of them were civilized people. They just didn’t submit to Rome. Precisely because the Romans considered that they were civilization, and they said they fought barbarism. So today, the word barbaric is the antithesis of civilization, it's the opposite. The word "barbarian" is associated with negative concepts for us, while the word "civilization" is associated with positive concepts. But in reality, there were peaceful peasants on both sides... and fierce warriors on both sides too. Romans and barbarians ;)

The spanish and portugese are visigothic and suebi germans overlaid into the celtic and roman natives with some moorish thrown ontop

I enjoyed that video very much and some of them Europeans from them countries must have come over to England

Actually Avar khaganate is destroyed by Khan Krum of Bulgaria.

Meanwhile Brittany lives its life quietly and remains independent :)

22:19 interesting question regarding religion. Arguably, Religion is a form of controlling populations. It creates a rules based order to live by. Laws and social hierarchy are established by religions. Moral codes and ways to live life are also established. It’s a form of government in essence. Interestingly, Christianity forms the basis of modern law and constitutional theory in western countries.

My Germans came from that Middle Frankish kingdom of Lothair.

You're far too early for the claim of england on france, that's in 1102 when Guillaume the Conqueror conquered england and initially kept his title as the duke of normandy

1:20 The problem with most period films like "Gladiator" is the depiction of "barbarians". They are more or less shown as fantasy cavemen from the Stone Age. Moviemakers seem to believe this were the best way to tell them apart from the allegedly more civilized Romans. This is a ludicrous misrepresentation that unfortonately has shaped most people's imagination of these peoples until today. 8:29 Do you mean the Caliphate of Córdoba? 33:30 Now you are mixing things up completely. First of all: The Saxons didn't conquer Normandy. The Saxons, Angles and Jutes settled in Britain, blocked out and also partially assimilated the native Celts and finally founded their Seven Kingdoms, which later became England. But that happened during the 5th and 6th century AD (300 years before the Frankish expansion on the continent took place). In the 9th century it was the Norsemen (vikings) who raided Normandy (later named after them). In the 10th century, after some stop-go policies, the Franks accepted the Norsemen as new settlers and gave them the new founded Duchy of Normandy as their quasi autonomous territory. Step-by-step the Norsemen got Frankisized and became what we consider the actual Normans. And in the 11th century the Normans under their Duke William invaded England and defeated the Anglo-Saxons. Here you are! 🙂

Love the Franks!

React to German Federal States fro Geography Now!

la loi salique est appelle en france la loi des males

barbarian a word invented by the greeks for anyone not greek this inclodes the maceadonens the eygiptians and the romans.

The name Barbarian came from the Romans who couldn't really understand the languages of the various tribes, to them the language sounded likea mumbling Bar..Bar...Bar, hence barbarians!

Yes indeed Louis the pious is Louis the First and now we have Louis XX (not ruler) 1210 years between them.

The Bulgars put an end to the Avars, not the Franks.

The Franks renamed Gaul to France - with Paris being founded by the Parisi tribe, one of the major Gallic tribes of the Britons (now known as Welsh) who went with Magnus Maximus to Europe in order to fight for his birthright to rule The Western Roman Empire. He was the eldest son of Constantine the Great and therefore its rightful ruler. This small how Brittany was founded, they are the Gallic people who were pushed into what became Brittany for the rest of France.

barba mean beard barbarians are men with beards!!! romans got shaved

Clovis was a Gallic ruler who was most likely descend from The Parisi Tribe.

How to know that germans know that france is the right ancestor of Charlemagne they call France Frankreich

If you're not religious, you might struggle to understand the importance of religion to a peoples/nation. I will point to how thw west is collapsing as an example of a lack of, however.

Religion = own group. That was once an evolutionary advantage. But now, as already in the time of Charles the Great, this is no longer the case. Where it once united small groups of hunter-gatherers, it now divides, and has done so for centuries..

Arianism was actually a form Christianity, that's way the pope consider it as an heresy, not paganism. Heretic are Christians, but not of the same canons of Rome.

Arianism were the followers of Arian an early bishop who viewed jesus as a demi-God son of god. A lot of barbarians liked this version as it was more compatible with indo-European pantheonic belief.

its the big fault of history, calling peacefull rulers lackluster or lazy... and calling violence loving idiots who can't leave their neighbors living their lives in peace great...

yeah, religion is a very powerfull second column of power... you can force power by the blade and then make it sound legit with religion... and then religion can play peacebringer and gets defended with the army of the ruler - so religion officially has no power... but empoweres the ruler with its storytelling... two sides of one coin... attracting different kind of people to the system and so getting a bigger base of people acknowledging the rule... Making enemies monks is lets say a big accomplishment of civilisation... if you call your enemy civilised... you don't have to kill him any more.. just let him swear to be monk, and neither he nor his followers can claim civil power again... and its a way not to let the loosing side fight till the end... because the loosing leader has a living way out if he is too weak to be worth of an alliance...

It is sad to see how France was founded and how it is now going downhill

We still dress in animal skins.

This is realy bad history... For instance, taking as a fact the theory of "lazy kings" for the merovingians is so bad. All real historians agree to say that this theory is only Carolingian and Pepinide propaganda. The most important weakness of the Merovingians was the salic law which split the kingdom again and again and weakens the Merovingians and enpower the "maires du palais" ). Maps and animations are however very clean and nice.

I do believe in Jesus and God and people in heaven because when you look at the whole bibles from hundreds of years ago it tells you all about things like that

AI history channels... just pumping out garbage.

At 21:30 you mention religion as having an evolutionary advantage. First let us be clear that there is no genetical mutation and such when people get religious :) You are using the idea in a metaphorical way. Second, that question is a rabit hole to even begin to understand, but it is as you said , used in many ways by many people. Some of it to establish the semantics and authority of a culture and its people. Which in turn will define what is "normal", "just and right", "morals", etc etc In conclusion, it is complicated but it is very important for us humans.