Frankish

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic peoples who inhabited the Roman province of Gaul and neighboring regions from the 3rd to 8th centuries. They formed a powerful kingdom under the Merovingians after Clovis I's conversion to Catholicism in the late 5th century, uniting many Frankish tribes and consolidating Christian rule. The Carolingians replaced the Merovingians in the 8th century, culminating in Charlemagne, King of the Franks (768-814), expansion and the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of learning and administration.

After Charlemagne's death, the empire was divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 into East Francia, West Francia, and Middle Francia. East Francia evolved into the core of the Holy Roman Empire and later Germany; West Francia developed into the dominant precursor of the French state.

The Frankish language was a West Germanic speech used by the Franks from the 5th through the 8th centuries. It left a lasting imprint on neighboring tongues, notably in northern Gaul and the developing Old French, and on place names and certain lexicon in Dutch and German dialects. By the 9th century Frankish ceased to exist as a separate language, having diversified into the various West and East Franconian dialect groups that contributed to modern German and Dutch, while its contact with Romance-speaking Gaul contributed to the lexical landscape of Old French.

The Franks’ political and cultural legacy helped shape medieval European structures: the fusion of Germanic military organization with Christian institutions, the emergence of the Frankish realm as a core predecessor of France and to some extent of the German lands, and the term Francia that underpins the modern name France.