481 - Batavia in the Empire of the Franks
For a time all was quiet on this north-western frontier, until late in the 3rd Century the Franks appeared. In the course of the 5th Century the Salian Franks had occupied a great part of the Netherlands, and when Hlodowig (Clovis) was lifted (481 AD) on his warriors' shields, they were possessors of South Holland, the Veluwe, Utrecht, Brabant, Antwerp, Limburg, Liege, Hainault, Namur, and Luxembourg.
Though Clovis was cruel, he was a wise monarch, and established several just and humane codes. One of these codes was derived from the Ripuarian Franks. Another Code was the Salic Law, derived from the Salian Franks. One of the provisions of the Salic Law has ever since remained in force — that which excludes females from the throne of France. The wives of the Kings of France have always been called queens; but, from the time of Clovis to the very last French monarchy, there has never been a sole reigning Queen of France.
During his last years Clovis rid himself of rivals by deliberately murdering the other Frankish chiefs, some of whom were his Merovingian kinsmen; thus showing that the religion of Christ had no influence in restraining his savage disposition. Clovis finally made Paris the capital of his kingdom, and died in that city in AD 511, leaving his dominions to his four sons - THEODORIC (meaning brave among the people), CHILDEBERT (meaning brilliant warrior), CLODOMIR (meaning celebrated chief), and CLOTAIRE (meaning celebrated and excellent). After the death of Clovis in 511 these Netherlands districts for the most part belonged to the Austrasian kingdom.
Behind the Salians came the Saxons, who had made themselves felt in the Batavian island by the middle of the 4th century; in the course of the 5th and 6th centuries they had settled firmly - in Overysse and Drenthe, lying between the Frisians to the north and the Franks to the south. There they shared, in alliance with the Frisians, the varying fortunes of that struggle against the Frankish power which lasted 400 years, and was ended only by the genius and persistency of Charles the Great.
Although the Merovingian dynasty reached its greatest extent of dominion under Dagobert I, that king had the mortification to see the royal authority enfeebled by the increasing power of the Mayors of the Palace. He died AD 638, after a weak and dissolute reign; but, singularly enough, he was canonized as a saint. The first Christian church in the Netherlands was founded in the time of Dagobert I, who had reduced the Frisians and Saxons at the town of Wiltenberg, afterwards Utrecht, between 612 and 632. The Merovingian successors of Dagobert I were weak and insignificant, being mere phantoms of royalty. They were called “Rois-fainéants” (Do-nothing kings) — a designation fully expressing their character for the next century. The real power in the kingdom was exercised by the bishops and nobles, and particularly by the king’s minister, the Mayor of the Palace.
But the true apostle of the Netherlands was Willibrord the Northumbrian, first bishop of that see (695). Dedicated by his mother and father to a religious life, Willibrord, as soon as he was weaned, was given to the monks of Ripon, where he came under the influence of St. Wilfrid. In his twentieth vear, the fame of the schools and scholars of" Ireland drew him thither, and he spent the next twelve years (677-90) at the monastery of Rathmelsigi with St. Egbert, who in 690 sent Willibrord, after he had been ordained priest, to preach the gospel to the Frisians. Landing at the mouth of the Rhine, Willibrord went thence to Trajectum (Utrecht), but, finding the pagan king Rathbod and his Frisians hostile, he boldly went direct to Pippin of Herstal,' duke of the Franks,' who had just (687) established his power over the Franks by the battle of Testry.
Pippin welcomed Willibrord, and thus identified himself and his house with the conversion of those parts of the German settlements which were still heathen. The alliance between Pippin and Willibrord was the salvation of the new movement. He made Utrecht the center from which Christian light spread across a wide circle of heathendom: and under the protection of Pippin of Heristal, the new faith was so firmly planted in those parts, that when Willibrord died, Limburg, North Brabant, Utrecht, and ether districts had accepted the faith of the Franks.
Willibrord baptised Pippin the Short, grandson of Pippin of Herstal who had first welcomed him, and he foretold that he should overthrow the shadow of Merovingian rule and become king of the Franks. In extreme old age he retired to the monastery of Echternach, where he died and was buried, aged 81, in 738 or 739. Willibrord had been not so much a missionary as the right hand of Pippin and of Charles Martel in their efforts to civilise the lower German tribes. Though indefatigable in the work of his diocese, the establishment of his bishopric at Utrecht, on the borders of the empire, and especially his frequent retirement to Echternach in the very heart of the Frankish region, emphasise this fact. It was in the wake of Frankish armies that his main work in Frisia was done.
After Willibrord, Christianity had in that part of Europe another stout champion, Wolfram of Sens, who had nearly persuaded the Frisian king, Badbod, to bo a Christian; and lastly in 755, St Boniface, "the apostle of the Germans," was martyred at Dokkum in Friesland while preaching among the heathen. Towards the end of the century the stern methods of Charles the Great completed the conversion of the Netherlands.
Teiric d'Autun, comte d'Autun, is also known as : "Teiric", "Theodoric", "Theoderich", "Thierry", "Theuderic", "Makir Theodoric Aymeri", "Makir Theodoric Aymeri De Toulouse Theodoric I of Toulouse", "Theodoric I De Toulouse", "Theodore", "Count of Autun". He was born circa 720 in a Autun, Saône-et-Loire, France, and died December 15, 793 in Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, Midi-Pyrénées, France. His ancestry is not attested by contemporary sources. Traditionally, he was held to have been of Merovingian descent, son of either Bernarius and Chrodelinde (Moriarty, Stuart), or of Childébrand, Duke of Burgundy, and Rolande. In some modern literature he is confused with Théodéric IV, King of the Franks (?-737).
