Post 175. The Franks.

Franks-:

Gibbon suggests that this is the name of a Confederacy of german tribes, that was formed around 250 A.D., in the days between the death of Decius (249-251) and the reign of Gallienus (253-268), occupying Lower Germany, that is the lands through which the Lower Rhine and the Weser rivers flowed.

Digression.
Y-DNA-haplogroup blood-testing carried out today on individuals of celtic and gothic ancestry, shows the existence of migrations of people of both the R and the E haplogroups that occurred at various stages during the times of the melting of the vast glaciers spread at all high altitudes between, say, for the purpose of this article, the Caspian/Black Seas and the Arctic Circle. The melting of the ice began effectively in about 11,000 B.C., from a point of view of the occurrence of ice-free corridors during very short summers, allowing movements through central and western Europe up to the northern islands, that afforded relatively ice free areas owing to the surrounding seas Although limited movements of the gatherers/hunters of the E, I, J, and mostly R haplogroups had been already possible since 35,000 B.C., the ice barriers began to form again during a period from 23,000 to 11,000 B.C. called the Last Icing Maximum ( LIM) that caused groups that had moved before 23,000 to become isolated for a long time from those who followed in 11,000. Up to and until the times around 1,000 B.C. when sizable communities of Celts ( i.e., La Thiene, Iron-smelting Civilisation in Austria) and Goths began to coalesec and achieve relatively long periods of settled living with some agricultural activities being carried out together with the herding of domesticated animals, the later any of these groups moved from the South-East into Europe and depending on the quality of and difficulties with encounters and experiences the group had had with the people encountered along the route, the more developed, emancipated and flexible the group would have been. Thus one could say that the Romans, a group which like the Celts and the Goths belonged to the language-group of the indo-european races, was stronger than the Celts the Romans began to struggle against in about 400 B.C. in Gallia Cisalpina, or North Italy.
Although the Franks were neither Celts, nor Goths, but a Confederation of germanic people along the roman frontiers, their leaders were of Hebraic-Scythian origins, another mix of hebraic and indo-european bloods, originally pure Scytians from a group that had probably experienced confrontations with the most formidable, cunning and harsh fighters on earth-------during their migrations since 6,000 B.C., originally towards the East, then when retreating from the counter-attacks of Turks, Huns and Chinese.
Sir Laurence Gardner speaks about these Scythians in chapter eleven from his work “ Bloodline of the Holy Grail ”, and I quote-:
During the latter years of the declining Empire, the greatest of all threats to the Roman Church arose from a Desposynic royal strain in Gaul. They were the Merovingians dynasty-male line descendants of the Fisher Kings, corresponding also to a Sicambrian female heritage. The Sicambrians took their name from Cambra, a tribal queen of about 380 B.C. They were originally from Scythia, north of the Black Sea and were called the Newmage ( New Kindred )..........................................................
[Fredegar, a Burgundian scribe, narrates in his Chronicles,] how the Sicambrian line of ‘ Franks ‘----- from whom France took its name-----were themselves first so called after their chief Francio ( a descendant of Noah ) who died in 11 B.C. Prior to their Scythian days, Francio’s race originated in ancient Troy, after which the French city of Troyes was named ( in what is now north-western Turkey [ please note the Romans’ similar claim to have descended from Aeneas, one of the sons of Priam. Also note that Emperor Julian, although devastating the Franks, soon made of them the best Roman allies after the celtic/german Swiss ]). The city of Paris ( established by 6th century Merovingians; [ expanded from the small village of Lutetia on the island in the Seine river by Emperor Julian, see page 289 of volume I of Gibbon ]), likewise bears the name of prince Paris the son of King Priam of Troy whose liaison with Helen of Sparta caused the Trojan War. In the 4th century the Sicambrian Franks were in the Rhineland, to which they had moved from Pannonia ( west of the Danube ), in 388
[ the migration from Pannonia must either have occurred at earlier times as the Huns arrived on the Danube at about 350 A.D., or these Scythians followed the Huns] under their chiefs Genobaud, Marcomer and Sunno. Settling into the region of Germania they established their seat at Cologne. Over the next century, their armies invaded Roman Gaul and overran the area that is now Belgium and northern France. It was at this stage that Genobaud’s daughter Argotta married the Fisher King Faramund ( or Pharamond, reigned 419-430 ), who is often cited to have been the patriarch of the French Monarchy. Faramund was the grandson of Boaz ( Anfortas, to whom we shall return ) in the direct Messianic succession from Josue’s son Aminadab ( Jesus’ line ) who married King Lucius’ daughter Eurgen ( Arimatheac line, i.e. Jame’s line ).
Faramund however, was not the only marital partner with a Messanic heritage. Argotta was herself descended from King Lucius’ sister Athildis, who married the Sicambrian chief Marcomer ( 8th in descent from Francio ) in about 130 A.D.
Thus the Merovingian succession which ensued from Faramund and Argotta was dually Desposynic.
Argotta’s father Genobaud, Lord of the Franks, was the last male of his line, and so Faramund and Argotta’s son Clodion duly became the next Guardian [ a typically Merovingian title in lieu of King, representative of Holy Grail’s ethics] of the Franks in Gaul.
Clodion’s son Meroveus was in due time proclaimed Guardian ( Lord ) at Tournai in 448 and it was after him that the line became noted as the mystical dynasty of the Merovingians, as they rose to prominence as Kings of the Franks....................................
[[ The Merovingian Kings maintained a Nazarite tradition, by which they seeked to live according to ethical standards of scriptural purity, in accordance to Mosaic Law. There is something suspect in the History of Roman Catholicism that has always found such ideals in secular persons of a suspect origin, rather placing more value in the outward shows of piety through attendance to and the partaking of, say, the Eucharistic Sacrament. I am not demeaning the Sacrament but am criticising its abuse through the importance attached by the Catholic Priests, many of whom are sarcophiles and paedophiles and the taking of IT even by a notorious, serial, unrepentant criminal. In fact, even the murderers of innocent Templars and of St. Jeanne of Arc were Eucharist partakers! Wake up Rome before it is too late!
The overt importance given to external ritual and signs by Roman Catholicism and other Religions can be compared to the overt reliance of the Pharisees on the outward observance of the Law. See Juan Luis Segundo S.J.’s volume III, ‘The Humanist Christology of Paul ” of the five volumes series “ Jesus of Nazareth Yesterday and Today ”.
Let me quote briefly from pages 26,27-:
................................As a synonym for the creaturely condition, therefore, the term ‘Flesh’ [i.e., the human being’s awareness of its creaturely condition] could have either a negative or positive meaning. It was negative when it turned into an element of secularisation, positive when it became an element of religiosity.
When we look at the term in the letters to the Galatians and Corinthians, however, we are surprised to find that it seems to refer to an excess of religiosity. We are forced to conclude that the human being’s deep awareness of its creaturely condition leads it to place religion above itself, to use the religiousrealm as an intermediary between the intangible transcendent on the one hand and the insecurity of its condition as a creature on the other. The creature tries to lay hold of the transcendent and use it for human purposes. For Paul, then, the term ‘Flesh’ means just the opposite of a tendency to secularisation.
It was Jesus’ criticism of the religion of the Pharisees that enabled Paul, an ex-Pharisee, to effect this revolution in the terminology of the Old Testament. Flesh now signifies that the creature is afraid to confront God with criteria ( ontological and epistemological premises )deriving from the human being.
Thus it is opposed to an authentically religious faith, seeking to use the religious realm ideologically and placing that realm under the enslavement ( and the mechanisms ) of Sin [ a compromise with injustice with a deterioration of human relations ].
It is important that we discover what this mechanism concertely comprises for human existence. Otherwise its anthropological antidote, Faith, as used in Paul’s text, will come across to us as a merely magical element [the ancient dictum of Martin Luther: sola fides ] with supernatural efficacy and without any connection to a transformation of the whole human being...............................................................................
Unquote from Juan Luis Segundo S.J. ]]
Regardless of their ultimate Jewish descent the Merovingians were not practising Jews, but neither were other non-Roman Christians whose beliefs had sprung from Judaic origins. The Catholic Gregory of Tours described them as ‘ followers of idolatrous practices ’, but the priestly Merovingians were not pagan in any sense of being unenlightened. Their spiritual cult was not disssimilar to that of the Druids, and they were greatly revered as esoteric teachers, judges, faith-healers and clairvoyants.
Although closely associated with the Burgundians, the Merovingians were not influenced by Arianism, and their unique establishment was neither Gallo-Roman nor Teutonic. Indeed, it was said to be something enirely new, the culture seeemed to appear from out of nowhere.
[ This is another passage from Sir Laurence Gardner which needs evaluation and synthesis as it cannot be accepted. Is Gardner seriously advocating a return to the religion of the Druids?
As we have seen, the Merovingians were not only of Christine descent, but were descended from James
( Joseph of Arimathea ) through both the sister and the daughter of King Lucius.......................................................
When Meroveus’ son Childeric died in 481, he was succeeded by his son Clovis, the most prominent of all Merovingian kings and the essential founder of the French
Monarchy.
[Gardner does not ask the question as to why Clovis appears to have no notion of his illustrious Desposynic anscestors, or perhaps he did, and so, readily married a Roman Catholic and adopted Roman Catholicism].............. .......................................................................................................
At that time the Roman Catholic Church greatly feared the increasing popularity of Arianism in Gaul. Catholicism was dangerously close to be overrun in Western Europe, where the majority of active bishoprics were Arian. Clovis was neither Catholic nor Arian. It therefore occurred to the Roman hyerarchy that the rise of Clovis could be used to their advantage. As it transpired, Clovis aided them when he married the Burgundian Princess Clotilde [ who although a Burgundian, a totally committed to Arianism nation, was however a Roman Catholic ]. The couple were firts united at the Black Madonna centre of Ferrieres.......................................................................

Unquote
from the “ Bloodline of the Holy Grail ”

End of Digression from page 1.
In ca. 250 A.D. the tribe of the Chauci, that of the Cherusci, who still remembered their leader Arminius who had opposed and had been defeated by Gaius Julius Caesar, that of the Catti, famous for their determined and firm/standfast infantries, and several other minor tribes occupied the territories now being called Westphalia, Hesse, Brunswick and Luneburg, which in those ancient times contained vast and frequent areas of boggy ground, which the Romans found very hard to penetrate. Like the Swiss Confederacy, the tribes of the Franks maintained their independent tribal leaders, but consulted one another about the common policy to adopt as a Confederacy, or rather to use a more exact term, Federation.
However, unlike the Swiss who had been keeping faith to the peace-treaty they had entered with the Romans for 200 years, since the days of Caesar, the Franks showed ” an incostant spirit, the thirst for rapine, and a disregard for the most solemn treaties ”
( Gibbon, I, p.103 ).
We know of course that all these tribes were offshoots from branches of the indo-european migrations from the Caspian Sea, which had begun in approximately 4,000 B.C., and comprised both celtic and germanic people. While the Celts soon became civilised Romans, the Goths lagged at least 1,000 years behind these. As already mentioned, some Scythian groups, also migrated to eastern Europe probably arriving there at about 100 A.D. on their way back from their original movements towards the East, since 6,000 B.C., driven by the Huns, and the eastern Turks( originating from the Kamchatka peninsula lying between the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk prior to the Scythians' occupation of the Altai Plateau in western Mongolia), their greatest enemies, in turn driven by the Chinese. The Huns arrived in the area of the Ukraine in about 350 A.D. immediately engaging and overwhelming the Scythians in that area, the Goths, who were then leading all Barbarians on the Roman borders, and all other opponents in the area, trying to stop them in succession at the rivers Ural, Volga, Don, Dnieper, Dniester, and Danube, where the Romans finally confronted the Huns.
The words “ liberty, freedom and free” were the most popular and frequent on the lips of the members of the above-mentioned Federation ( 250 A.D.), located in Germany, and their name, Franks, may have actually meant “ Free-men ”, although Gardner suggests that their name came from their ancient king Francio.
The annals of Roman history in the days of Valeriano (253-259), who was sixty years of age when invested with the purple, and Gallienus (Caesar:253-259; Augustus: 259-268) his son, are full of praises for the victories of Posthumus, their capable general, who later usurped power from Gallienus, the latter having been, according to Gibbon’s sources, effeminate and inept. At this time the Empire was harassed contemporaneously by Franks , Suevi, also known as Alemanni, Goths and Persians, all formidable enemies. The Franks in particular, in spite of the formidable barrier of the Rhine river, and of the Pyrenees mountains, were able to repeatedly invade Gaul and carry their destructive raids as far and deep as the provinces of Spain, where as late as the fifth century, spanish towns still showed ruins caused by the raids of the Franks during the twelve years of the reign of Gallienus. The daring and initiative of the Franks was such as to incite them to even capture vessels in spanish harbours and carry their raids to Africa, once and whenever Spain becane depleted of wealth and resources sufficient to provide spoils of war to be carried back to Germany. The only excuse possible for the inability of Procopius to utterly break their back in a decisive victory is the impossibility to concentrate all available Roman forces against the borders of the Rhine due to the distraction caused by the Goths and the Heruli who had invaded the Balcanic regions, threatened the lines of communication through the sea of Marmara, and by the Persians’
( Shapur of the Sasanids Dynasty who had legendary cavalries, the famous cataphracts with both rider and horse covered with mailed coats, the powerful horses being bred from Bactrian stocks ) threats to the safety of the Empire in the Middle East. It is important to mention in relation to the Persian wars that emperor Valerian ( 253-259 ) was the only Roman Emperor to die in chains, as a prisoner of war, owing to the treachery of Shapur, the Persian monarch, who had abused the Roman Emperor’s trust, by agreeing to attend a meeting in which he captured the Roman Emperor, who had not taken precautions for his safety. It is universally recognised that the Roman Empire fell, under Gallienus’ mismanagement to one of its lowest levels of anarchy and disunity due to the rise of pretenders against the established authority of the lawful Emperor, and the number of barbaric invasions threatening the borders of the Empire.
The disunity of the Empire was finally remedied by emperor Aurelianus (270-275) to whom the title was given of Restitutor Orbis.
I do not personally entirely accept Gibbon’s opinions regarding Gallienus’ ineffectiveness, since he appears to me to have done everything possible to overcome the overwhelming adversities which affected his government, in view of the unusually heavy, dramatic and tragic atmosphere of treason surrounding him, his young son Salonino ( murdered in 259 ) and his father Valerian, ( treacherously captured by Shapur ) from every quarter. It also appears that Gallienus had to reform the inadequate structure of command of the Roman legion that did not provide for a separate chain of command, complete of staff and liaising officers for the cavalry
( ala millaria ) consisting from between 500-1000 troopers, led by ten praefecti, but required the general to directly control the ten praefecti ( the equivalent of the legion’s centurions ), an impossible task, while already encumbered as he was by the control of the 6000 men of the infantry. I would imagine the Roman cavalries, that consisted of a large proportion of provincial auxiliaries and mercenary barbarians, to have felt as being considered to possess inferior status to and to be not worthy of the required care, briefing and direction the infantry received. When one considers that several legions joined a battle, one can appreciate the difficulty of keeping everyone in the cavalry under order. Gallienus is reputed to have reformed and corrected this organisational dysfunction ( see Miklos Jankovich “ They Came into Europe ”, published by George G. Harrap & Co. LTD., 1971). It suffices to add in relation to my defence of Gallienus, that at a certain time there were four Emperors competing for power-: Gallienus (253-268), Posthumus, Macrianus and Valente together with a number of minor usurpers risen while Gallienus, Posthumus ( 258-267) and Tetricus (258-274) still reigned, before the nomination of Claudius, the vanquisher of the Goths (268-273) who had to compete also with Tetricus (258-274). The additional number of usurpers included-: Ingenuus ( nominated in 258 ), Cajo Quieto, a son of Macrianus ( executed in 262), Balista a colleague of Macrianus (executed in 262), Publio Regaliano, Alessandro Emiliano, Odenato II, ruler of Palmira, who had been nominated dux Orientis by Gallienus, Piavonio Vittorino ( associate of Posthumus ), Cornelio Ulpio Leliano, Marco Aurelio Mario, and finally Aureolo.
Tetricus who had been forced by the legions of the provincials of Gaul to usurp the title against his will, eventually bargained for his life with Aurelianus (270-275) and deserted his troops at the beginning of the battle near Chalons-sur-Marne (274). His troops consisted of provincial legions from Gaul, and of Franks and Batavians who kept on fighting valiantly against Aurelianus, even after their leader abandoned them. Franks and Batavians were subsequently persuaded to return to their lands beyond the Rhine.

How could anyone be effective under such circumstances?

The list of Rome’s enemies at the time of the valerian Emperors (253-268) is impressive-: The Bavari and Quinquegentanei of Numidia; the confederation led by the Franks ( a Federation ) that included Camavi, Chatti, Batavi, Sigambri, Brutteri, Ampsivarii, threatening Gaul and Spain; to the south of these the Alemanni who threatened Rezia, Rhetica and Italy; the Marcomanni who invaded Pannonia, crossing the high Danube; similarly, the Goths of the south-east who moved toward Byzanthium, through Macedonia and Greece. Not to forget the Huns moving towards the Balcans, pressed by the Chinese, to appear on the Danube in about 350 A.D.

While Crinitus, an extremely capable and loyal general supported Gallienus and re-established order along the Danube just north of Macedonia, in ca. 256, leaving the Franks and a few rebels in Gaul to the care of Posthumus, Licinio Valerianus, although in his sixties, moved against the Goths, the Heruli and the Persians.
Eventually it was emperor Claudius II ( 268-273 ) who critically defeated, without however totally destroying their capacity for future raids both the Goths and the Alemanni.

Aurelianus ( 270-275 ) continued the struggle against the Franks and was given by his soldiers, when still a tribune, the appellation of manus ad ferrum. He then ( ca. 270 ) fought the cavalries of the Jutungi who, having crossed the Danube, were advancing toward the italian borders; and once again the Vandals who were threatening Pannonia ( modern Hungary) and were thrown back into the steppes, while 2000 of these invaders were recruited into the Roman army. In ca. 271, when the Goths had invaded Moesia, the Jutungi and Alemanni crossed the Alps again and reached the Marche in central Italy. Aureliano defeated them twice although falling in but surviving one of their ambushes, pursued the Goths beyond the Danube killing Cannabante the King of the Goths.
Dacia was abandoned to the Visigoths, the borders re-established along the Danube and Dacia’s provincial populations and garrisons concentrated in Moesia with capital Sardica ( Sofia ).
After the Roman insurrection that resulted when Aurelian decided to solve the problem of defective coinage, the Roman mint being controlled by Felicissimo, a corrupt civil servant, the Emperor went again to Gaul to fight Franks and Alemanni, after having re-established order in Rome with the loss of 7000 soldiers. The Franks were vanquished on the lower Rhine by general Probo, Cloro defeating the Alemanni near Windonissa ( Windish ). The city of Genabo was then fortified and became called Civitas Aureliana
( the modern Orleans ). It was at this time that the Romans, who unlike the Chinese, were reluctant to rely on fortifications, began to fortify towns and strategical borders. However, owing to the decline of the economy of the Empire, that had already become chronic, the fortification of the borders was never to become effective.

Probus ( 276-282 ), like Claudius and Aurelianus was also a native of Illyricum and of peasant stock. He repelled the Franks who kept on raiding Gaul with their allies the Frisians and the Batavians, thus delivering from their domination seventy cities of Gaul. The Franks had in fact already occupied in the days of Probus the flat morasses of the Rhine valley, entering into a permanent alliance with the Frisians and the Batavians. He also fought the Burgundians, a vandalic nation who had moved from the Oder to the Seine, the Alemanni whom he pursued as far as their territory in the valley at the sources of the Neckar, and the Lygii or Lygians ( Arii ) who had come from the borders between Silesia and Poland.
At that time, 16,000 recruits from the germanic tribes were distributed among the Roman legions in various parts of the Roman Empire.

Probus fortified with stone walls and a series of towers at regular intervals the simple trenches and earth-enbankments previously built by Hadrian ( 117-138 A.D.) from the sources of the Rhine and the Neckar to the Danube, a distance of approximately 200 miles.
He also fought the Blemmi who, from Nubia harassed Egypt, and the Isauri, the brigands of Anatolia, settling retired soldiers as colonists at the outlets of the ravines ( uadis ) cutting the hills to which the brigands had been confined.

Since, as the result of the continuous losses, the Illyricum, Britain, and the Lower Danube had become depopulated, Probus moved 100,000 Bastarnae to Tracia and Moesia, Vandals to Britain ( Cambridgeshire ), Franks and Gepidae ( Goths ) to the Bosphorus area in order to resist the inroads of the Alani-cavalries.
These measures were eventually to prove damaging to the Empire because the process of romanisation was slowed down, while the barbarians acquired an understanding of the weacknesses of the Empire.
For example, the most adventurous among the Franks of the Bosphorus captured ships and sailed back to the mouth of the Rhine, not before raiding and looting several ports and harbours on the Mediterranean among which Siracuse, where they massacred a large number of the population.
Probus also tried to impose the policy of carrying out public works by using the Roman armies during times of peace, but the soldiers rebelled and killed him. Aurelio Caro ( 282-283 ), another Illyrian Emperor, having nominated his two sons, Carino and Numerian Caesars, sent the former against the Franks and Alemanni, and together with the latter fought the Quadi and CONTINUED AT FOLLOWING POST 176.