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History

In 486 Clovis I, the son of Childeric, defeated Syagrius, a Roman military leader who competed with the Merovingians for power in northern France. He won the Battle of Tolbiac against the Alemanni in 496, according to Gregory of Tours, Clovis adopted his wife Clotilda 's Orthodox—i.e., Nicene — Christian faith at a time when other Germanic tribes were largely Arian. He subsequently went on to decisively defeat the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouillé in 507. After Clovis's death, his kingdom was partitioned among his four sons. This tradition of partition continued over the next century. Even when several Merovingian kings simultaneously ruled their own realms, the kingdom—not unlike the late Roman Empire —was conceived of as a single entity ruled collectively by these several kings (each ruling one section much as the late Roman Empire had been divided between up to four emperors). The death of one or more of these kings could result in the reunification of the whole kingdom under a single ruler. Even when divided under different kings, the kingdom maintained unity and conquered Burgundy in 534.

Upon Clovis's death in 511, the Merovingian kingdom included all of Gaul except Burgundy and all of Germania magna except Saxony. After the fall of the Ostrogoths, the Franks also conquered Provence. After this their borders with Italy (ruled by the Lombards since 568) and Visigothic Septimania remained fairly stable.