Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks (Latin: Ripuarii or Ribuarii) were one of the two main groupings of early Frankish people, and specifically it was the name eventually applied to the tribes who settled in the old Roman territory of the Ubii, with its capital at Cologne on the Rhine river in modern Germany. Their western neighbours were the Salii, or "Salian Franks", who were named already in late Roman records, and settled with imperial permission within the Roman Empire in what is today the southern part of the Netherlands, and Belgium, and later expanded their influence into the northern part of France north of the Loire river, creating the Frankish empire of Francia.
Both the Salii and Ripuarii were new names and represented new groupings of older tribal groups on the Roman Rhine border. The ancestors of the Ripuarii originally lived on the right bank of the Rhine, where there had been a long history of friendly and unfriendly contact. Under pressure from their northern enemies, the Saxons, they were first able to infiltrate the left bank of the Rhine in 274 AD. In the chaotic years after the definitive collapse of Roman power in western Europe, they managed to occupy the Roman city of Cologne and the lower and middle Rhineland in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia.
Few historical details are known before the Rhineland kingdom eventually became an important part of the Merovingian Frankish empire in the sub-kingdom known as Austrasia, which also included the original Germanic speaking Salian region. Austrasia included not only the Rhineland-Palatinate, but apparently the whole of the Germania Inferior (re-named in the late Roman empire as Germania II) and Gallia Belgica II. The border between Austrasia and Neustria was the Silva Carbonaria in modern Wallonia, but the exact definition of this forest region is now unclear.
On the right bank of the Rhine, the Ripuarian Franks had control over the river basin of the Main, in later years also called Franconia, one of the five stem duchies, from which in the middle of the 9th century the kingdom of Germany was formed.
In the 7th century a law code for Austrasia was published as the Lex Ripuaria. After the reign of the last capable Salian Frankish king, Dagobert I in 639, the Carolingian Austrasian mayordomos gradually took over power, transforming Austrasia into the heartland of the Carolingian Empire.
Name
The name Ripuarii clearly has a meaning of "river people", but the exact way in which the name developed is unclear and may have involved both Latin and Germanic.
The regular Latin form would be Riparii, meaning "[men] of the river bank". The term "milites rip(ari)ensis" was a Latin term used for border soldiers on river frontiers, at least on the Danube and Rhône. Jordanes referred to soldiers described this way from Gaul, fighting under Aetius, but Eugen Ewig has argued that these soldiers can be found in the Notitia Dignitatum based on the Rhône river. In the 7th century, the country around Cologne was described as "ripa Rheni", and so it seems clear that the Latin word for a riverbank was sometimes used to describe the region.[1]
The form Ripuarii is irregular, however, and has been explained by a hypothetical native (Germanic) name underlying the Latin. This hypothetical self-designation might be restored as either *hreop-waren, *hrepa-waren "river[-bank] people".[2] or *hreop-wehren, *hrepa-wehren "river[-bank] defenders".[3]
Conversely, the form Ripuarii may also be due to a loan of the Latin Riparii into Germanic.[4] This view is based on a word-pair given in the Summarium Heinrici, an 11th-century revision of Isidore of Seville, stating the Old High German equivalents of some Latin words, including Ripuarii: Riphera. The latter is textually reconstructed to *ripfera, except that "phonetically *ripf- cannot come from rip-;"[5]
A third possibility is that the name Ripuarii was a mixed word to begin with, perhaps *ripwarjoz.[6] It seems to be analogous to the later formation, Ribuarius, in which Gallo-Roman *ribbar replaces Roman ripa. From the Gallo-Roman came the French rive, "bank," and a group of words based on it.
History
The term Franks first appears in the 3rd century on the right bank of the Rhine. Tribes who had lived in the same area in Roman times included the Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chattuarii, and Tencteri. The Franks replaced those older tribes in the record and most probably represent a new alliance of all or some of them.
These independent Franks crossed the Rhine frequently to establish bases there from which they raided further into the Roman empire. The Romans eventually bought peace by exchanging freedom to settle on the left bank for cooperation in maintaining the peace. Many of these Franks rose to high office in the empire.
Agrippina, mother of Cologne
In the area of the Ripuarii, the Rhine had been defined as a border of the Roman empire under the early emperors. The Romans created two provinces: Upper and Lower Germany. The dividing line was marked and maintained by a major base at Mainz. Lower Germany, which faced the Ripuarii, later became Germania Secunda. Roman cities in this region included Castra Vetera (Xanten), Cologne, and Bonn.
Long before the Franks, the Romanized Ubii had been the main Germanic people within the region of Cologne since early Roman imperial times. They had been allowed to move from the other side of the Rhine. Colonia Agrippinenses (Cologne) was placed among them as a Roman colony to assist them "keep the gate against intruders."[7] While the Ubii had moved under pressure from the Suebi to their east, other related tribes under similar pressure from more distant neighbours had moved in to replace them on the right bank of the Rhine, including the Bructeri, Tencteri, Sicambri and Usipetes. These remained in contact with the province of the Ubii, as is described by Tacitus concerning the Batavian revolt. It is thought that all of these relatively Romanized Germanic tribes may have contributed to the origins of the Ripuarii in later centuries.
The Ripuarian Franks lost their independence almost as soon as they entered the historical record, being subsumed in the Frankish core province of Austrasia. Apart from Roman military lists and mention by Jordanes in Getica of some unknown Ripuarii who fought as auxiliaries of Flavius Aetius in the Battle of Chalons in 451,[8] the first mention of the Ripuarii comes from Gregory of Tours, in Historia Francorum. He says that the Salian Frank Clovis, first king of all the Franks and first king to convert to Christianity, subjected the previously independent Ripuarians. Without naming the people as Ripuarian, but referring to Cologne and its vicinity, Gregory of Tours explains how they voluntarily gave up their sovereignty to Clovis. The region of Cologne was under the rule of Sigobert the Lame, an old campaigner who had fought side by side with Clovis in the wars against the Alamanni. He was called "the lame" because of a wound he had received at the Battle of Tolbiac, 496, the same year as Clovis' conversion to Catholicism. Clovis believed he had won by calling on the name of Christ and now had a mandate from God to Christianize all Neustria. This was a long process not free from resistance.
In 509 he sent a messenger to Chloderic to state that if his father, Sigobert, were to die, he, Clovis, would ally himself to Chloderic. Whatever Clovis may have meant, as Sigobert was sleeping at noon in his tent in the forest across the Rhine from Cologne after a walk, Chloderic's hired assassins killed him. Chloderic sent to Clovis offering some of Sigobert's treasury as enticement. Clovis sent messengers refusing the treasure but asked to see it. Complying with their request to sink his arms into it so that they could see how deep it was, Chloderic was dispatched by the blow of an axe, unable to defend himself.
Arriving in person Clovis assembled the citizens of Cologne, denied the murders, saying "It is not for me to shed the blood of one of my fellow kings, for that is a crime …" He advised them to place themselves under his protection, after which he was shouted into office by a voice vote and raised up on their shields in a ceremony of installation.[9] Thus the independent kingdom of the Ripuarian Franks was voted out of existence by the people at a single assembly in 509.
Gregory says[10] "after the death of Theudebald (ca. 555), Lothar took over the lands of the Ripuarian Franks." Evidently Theudebald had possessed them. He was the son of Theudebert,[11] who was the son of Theuderic,[12] a son of Clovis,[13] as was Lothar. Clovis (died 511) had left his kingdom to his four sons, Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert and Lothar. Part of that inheritance was the country of the Ripuarian Franks. The fact that it was attacked by Saxons,[14] who entered it from their own country and "laid waste as far as the city of Deutz," identifies the country around Cologne as being in their territory.
After the death of Lothar (561) his four sons inherited the kingdom jointly. Sigibert received the share formerly Theuderic's (Austrasia) and set up a capital at Rheims.
There are no direct attestations of the early Frankish language. Of some 1,400 Latin inscriptions in Roman Germania Inferior a little over 100 are from the rural lands of the Germanic Ubii, into whose lands the Ripuarii would move. The inscriptions are most frequent in the 3rd century. Most are from the major cities of Germania Inferior.[15] The right bank of the Rhine, where the Ripuarii originated, does not have such a wealth of Latin inscriptions. The High German consonant shift occurred south of an east-west zone called the Benrath Line. The Rhine crosses it in the vicinity of Düsseldorf. The section of the Rhine including Cologne forms the so-called "Rhenish Fan", where dialects are found which form intermediate stages between Dutch and High German.[16]
In the first half of the 7th century the Ripuarians received the Ripuarian law (Lex Ripuaria), a law code applying only to them, from the dominating Salian Franks. The Salians, following the custom of the Romans before them, were mainly re-authorizing laws already in use by the Ripuarians, so that the latter could retain their local constitution.[17]
↑ Zoepfl, Heinrich (1844). Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte: Ein Lehrbuch in zwei Bänden (in German). Vol.Erster Band (2nd expanded & improveded.). Stuttgart: Verlag von Adolph Krabbe. p.30.; Larned, Josephus Nelson; Reiley, Alan C. (1895). History for ready reference. Springfield, Ma.: The C. A. Nichols Co., Publishers. p.1435.; corresponding to an Anglo-Saxon word, hreopseta, "settlement on a bank (or river)." The -waren would be from Germanic *weraz, "people" Köbler, Gerhard (2000). "*uei-(3)"(PDF). Indogermanisches Wörterbuch (in German) (3rded.).
↑ The -wehren would be from Germanic *warjan, "defend," Köbler, Gerhard (2000). "*uer-(5)"(PDF). Indogermanisches Wörterbuch (in German) (3rded.).
↑ Köbler, Gerhard (1993). "Rifera"(PDF). Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (in German) (4thed.).
↑ Springer, Matthias (1998), "Riparii - Ribuarier - Rheinfranken", in Geuenich, Dieter (ed.), Die Franken und die Alemannen bis zur "Schlacht bei Zülpich" (496/97) (in German), Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, p.211 "Lautergesetzlich kann *ripf nicht aus rip entstanden sein."
↑ Springer, M. (1968–2007) [1900], "Ribuarier", in Jankuhn, Herbert; Hoops, Johannes (eds.), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (in German), Berlin: de Gruyter, p.570
↑ see also Derks, Ton; Jefferis, Christine (1998). Gods, temples and ritual practices: the transformation of religious ideas and values in Roman Gaul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp.86–90.
The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (Visurgis), whose name might mean "pursuers". They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder and Fulda regions, a district approximately corresponding to Hesse-Kassel, though probably somewhat more extensive. They settled within the region in the first century BC. According to Tacitus, the Batavians and Cananefates of his time, tribes living within the Roman Empire, were descended from part of the Chatti, who left their homeland after an internal quarrel drove them out, to take up new lands at the mouth of the Rhine.
The Rhineland is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Kingdom of the Franks from the 6th to 8th centuries, ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine, and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the Franks, including both the so-called Salians and Rhineland Franks, which Clovis I, King of the Franks (481–511) conquered after first taking control of the bordering part of Roman Gaul, which is sometimes described in this period as Neustria.
Germania, also called Magna Germania, Germania Libera, or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a historical region in north-central Europe during the Roman era, which was associated by Roman authors with the Germanic peoples. The region stretched roughly from the Middle and Lower Rhine in the west to the Vistula in the east. It also extended as far south as the Upper and Middle Danube and Pannonia, and to the known parts of Scandinavia in the north. Archaeologically, these peoples correspond roughly to the Roman Iron Age of those regions. While apparently dominated by Germanic peoples, Magna Germania was also inhabited by other Indo-European peoples.
The Kingdom of the Franks, also known as the Frankish Kingdom, the Frankish Empire or Francia, was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era.
The Bructeri were a Germanic tribe in Roman imperial times, located in northwestern Germany, in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia. Their territory included both sides of the upper Ems and Lippe rivers. At its greatest extent, their territory apparently stretched between the vicinities of the Rhine in the west and the Teutoburg Forest and Weser river in the east. In late Roman times they moved south to settle upon the east bank of the Rhine facing Cologne, an area later associated with the Ripuarian Franks.
Gallia Belgica was a province of the Roman Empire located in the north-eastern part of Roman Gaul, in what is today primarily northern France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, along with parts of the Netherlands and Germany.
The Istvaeones were a Germanic group of tribes living near the banks of the Rhine during the Roman Empire which reportedly shared a common culture and origin. The Istaevones were contrasted to neighbouring groups, the Ingaevones on the North Sea coast, and the Herminones, living inland of these groups.
Chlodio, also Clodio, Clodius, Clodion, Cloio or Chlogio, was a Frankish king who attacked and then apparently ruled Roman-inhabited lands around Cambrai and Tournai, near the modern border of Belgium and France. He is known from very few records.
The Salian Franks, also called the Salians, were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Lower Rhine in what was then the Roman Empire and today the Netherlands and Belgium.
The Franks were originally a Germanic people who lived near the Lower Rhine, on the northern frontier of the late Roman Empire, but they successfully expanded their power and influence during the Middle Ages, until much of the population of western Europe, particularly in or near France, were commonly described as Franks, for example in the context of their joint efforts during the crusades starting in the 11th century. This expansion came about because the romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire first became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine, and then subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire.
The Texandri were a Germanic people living between the Scheldt and Rhine rivers in the 1st century AD. They are associated with a region mentioned in the late 4th century as Texandria, a name which survived into the 8th–12th centuries.
Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium was the Roman colony in the Rhineland from which the city of Cologne, now in Germany, developed.
Silva Carbonaria, the "charcoal forest", was the dense old-growth forest of beech and oak that formed a natural boundary during the Late Iron Age through Roman times into the Early Middle Ages across what is now western Wallonia. The Silva Carbonaria was a vast forest that stretched from the rivers Zenne and the Dijle in the north to the Sambre in the south. Its northern outliers reached the then marshy site of modern Brussels.
For around 450 years, from around 55 BC to around 410 AD, the southern part of the Netherlands was integrated into the Roman Empire. During this time the Romans in the Netherlands had an enormous influence on the lives and culture of the people who lived in the Netherlands at the time and (indirectly) on the generations that followed.
North Rhine-Westphalia was established by the British military administration's "Operation Marriage" on 23 August 1946 by merging the Rhine Province with the Province of Westphalia. On 21 January 1947, the former Free State of Lippe was merged with North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Civitas Tungrorum was a large Roman administrative district dominating what is now eastern Belgium and the southern Netherlands. In the early days of the Roman Empire it was in the province of Gallia Belgica, but it later joined the neighbouring lower Rhine River border districts, within the province of Germania Inferior. Its capital was Aduatuca Tungrorum, now Tongeren.
The Kingdom of the Burgundians or First Kingdom of Burgundy was established by Germanic Burgundians in the Rhineland and then in eastern Gaul in the 5th century.
The Netherlands in the early Middle Ages was inhabited by various Germanic tribes, including the Frisians, who played a significant role in the development of the region and its Christianisation and eventual incorporation into the Frankish Empire.
Pfister, M. Christian (1911), "(B) The Franks Before Clovis", in Bury, J.B. (ed.), The Cambridge Medieval History, vol.I: The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms, London: Cambridge University Press
Rivers, Theodore John. (1986) Laws of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks. New York: AMS Press, 1986.
Wiggers, Heiko (2007). Reevaluating diglossia: Data from Low German (Dissertation). Ann Arbor: ProQuest.
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