"Western civilization? I think that's a wonderful idea."
(Mahatma Gandhi)
The Merovingians:
The Franconians (or Franks) were a Germanic tribe that originally lived in the Rhineland, around 350AD the Roman emperor Ragnentius allowed the Franconians to settle in the Kempen region near Henegouwen and Haspengouw in northern Belgium.
In 432AD the Franconian king Chlodio annexed the rivervalleys of the Schelde and Leie which expanded Franconian control over north- and western Belgium, a short time later the Franconians conquered big parts of northern Gaul (Belgium and northern France) that was bounded by the rivers Rhine and Somme, as their capital they chose Turnacum (these days known as Doornik (Dutch) or Tournai (French).
The Romans became nervous from the growing Franconian power and sent Aetius with an army to make clear that the Romans were still in charge, the Franconians decided to settle down in order not to anger the still powerful Romans and their king Childerik (the successor of Chlodio) renewed the friendly bonds with the Romans and even teamed up with them to fight the Visigoths and Alemannians.
The reign of Chlodovech:
The son of Childerik was the 16 year old boy Chlodovech; he would become so powerful that the name Chlodovech was later adopted by many European rulers as Lodewijk, Ludwig, or Louis, a later name for Chlodovech is Clovis.
In 481AD Chlodovech succeeded his father and became one of the most powerful Franconian kings, he did not care about the Romans and used tricks and deceit to unite the Franconian kingdoms; he signed alliances with other kings and made an agreement with them to conquer land, after that he secretly assassinated those kings and took the land of the dead king as well as the land they had conquered together, with this trick he quickly expanded his territory and power over Germania and Gaul while the Romans could do nothing because they were too busy fighting off attacks on their borders.
When Chlodovech conquered the area around Paris (the former Roman city of Lutetia) he moved the Franconian capital from Doornik/Tournai to Paris, the Roman governor Syagrius left Paris just in time and he fled to the Visigothic king Alarik II, the Visigoths had not forgotten about the way the Romans had treated them but they received him in a very hospitable way, afterwards they extradited him (after diplomatic pressure) to the Franconians who killed him; this may sound weird to our modern ears but in Germanic society hospitality was very important, even to enemies.
The Franconians were heathens as well as their king Chlodovech, but his wife Clothilde was Christian; during a difficult war against the Alemannians in the Alsache he was almost defeated and desperately he prayed to the god of his wife and promised that he and his men would baptize themselves if they would win the battle, the Franconian army emerged victorious and so the Franconian empire became Christian.
In 496AD Chlodovech and 3000 of his warriors were baptized by the bishop of Reims who spoke the now famous words; "Worship what you once burned, and burn what you worshipped".
Expansion of the empire:
After their conversion the Franconians tried to be good Christians but it took some time before they had lost their old roots, some Franconians even brought sacrifices to Jesus Christ and believed that he was a wargod who would grant them victory if they made enough offerings, despite this the pope was very happy about their conversion and he politically and financially supported them in their quest to expand their empire.
At a certain moment Chlodovech could not expand his empire further to the south because he had reached the borders of two powerful kingdoms; the Visigothic empire of Alarik II (southern France and Spain) and the Ostrogothic empire of Theodorik the Great (Italy and the Alps).
Theodorik the Great wanted to unite all Germanic tribes into one big empire but Chlodovech was not prepared to work on a good relationship between the tribes, instead he tried to expand his own empire by taking the lands of other kings.
Chlodovech attacked the Visigoths and defeated them at Vouglé, Alarik II died in battle and large parts of southern Gaul were added to the "Frankenland", only a small strip of land remained in Visigothic hands because Theodorik the Great of the Ostrogoths had amassed an army and threatened to attack the Franconians if they did not stop the war.
By this time the name "Gaul" was not used anymore and had changed into "Frankenland" or "Francia" as the Franconians themselves called it, this name has survived until this day in most languages as "France", another name was "Frankish Empire", which has survived in the modern words "Frankreich" (German), "Frankrijk" (Dutch), "Frankrike" (Danish) and "Frankrig" (Norwegian/Swedish).
From approximately 350AD to 750AD the Franconian empire was ruled by the Merovingian dynasty (named after king Merovech) who used Christianity as a political tool and a way of binding the people together, he expanded it over large parts of Europe and because of this the Franconian empire eventually Christianized most of the Germanic tribes they had subjected.
Around this time most of the original heathen tradition was either destroyed or Christianized by mixing it with Christian elements, people who refused to abandon their old religion were killed; an atrocity that is unfortunately still descibed as a "victory of civilization" in our modern history books.
The Karolingians:
On November 27, 511AD king Chlodovech died and the empire was split into 4 parts that were divided under his sons; this was a typical example of the Germanic succession right in which someone's property was equally divided under his relatives, one of the weaknesses of this system was that big empires could be reduced to nothing if a king had many sons, family was very important in the Germanic culture but not to Merovingian kings; if often happened that the most powerful son simply killed his brothers so that the empire would remain undivided and he would get all the power over it.
The Merovingian kings were assisted by "Hofmeiers" (Royal advisors) who performed the tasks that were "below the king's dignity", one of this tasks was quelling rebellions and subduing heathen tribes like for instance the Frisians; hofmeier Pippin II was sent to Frisia in 689AD and after defeating the Frisians he annexed the southern territories of Frisia and forced their king Radbod to allow the preaching of Christianity in his country.
The Frisians did not like this one bit and after Pippin's death they chased the Christian missionaries out of their country and invaded the Franconian empire in such a swift way that they even reached the city of Cologne (Köln) in the Rhineland, despite this victory they were defeated in 717AD by the Franconian hofmeier Karl Martel, who was an excellent general.
Eventually the power of the Merovingian kings faded, at some point in history the actual power was mostly in the hands of their hofmeiers, one of them was Karl Martel (or "Charles Martel" in English) who officially served the Merovingian king Chlotarius IV, but in reality he posessed the actual power over the empire while Chlotarius had nothing to say.
Karl Martel was a skilled ruler who managed to keep the empire together and even defeated an invading Muslim army at Poitiers, when Chlotarius IV died in 737AD Karl Martel took over the Franconian throne which created a new dynasty; the Karolingians, who were named after him.
The reign of Charlemagne:
The son of Karl Martel was Pippin III the Short who reunited large parts of the old Franconian empire, in 768AD he was succeeded by his son Karl the Young, who would later receive the name "Karl the Great", for people who are interested; his full name was Carolus Magnus Charlemagne.
During his reign Charlemagne conquered large areas of land and restored the Franconian empire to its former glory, the Langobardians were subjected in 774AD and their last king Desiderius was imprisoned in a monastery, after a reoganization of the empire he was crowned emperor by the pope in 800AD.
Charlemagne had sworn an oath to protect Christianity and with this excuse he attacked the last big heathen Germanic tribes to convert them to Christianity, especially the Frisians and the Saxons were severely procecuted and thousands of innocent people died in the name of Christianity, our modern history books portray Charlemagne as a very good man, an excellent ruler, and a great Christian, but the truth is a little less rosy...
The reign of Louis the Pious:
In 814AD Charlemagne died in the German city of Aachen and was succeeded by Louis the Pious (or "Ludwig den Fromme" in German), Louis was not called "the Pious" for nothing; he was strictly Christian and he even sent his sister to the monastery because he was afraid she would be spoiled by the immodest world around her, he also replaced his court with monks.
Lious was an admirer of the old Roman culture and he hated everything that was of Germanic origin since that was "barbaric" in his eyes, he burned the large collection of Germanic legends and epics that many writers had saved for future generations and he replaced the Germanic names of the months with the Roman ones (which we still have today), he also ordered his soldiers to stab out the eyes of heathens and lock them up in dungeons; the "very pious" Louis even killed some of his own familymembers.
The treaty of Verdun:
After the death of Louis the Pious his sons fought many wars with eachother to gain control over the empire, during this wars Lotharius did some major concessions to the heathens in exchange for their help, he allowed Rorik the Viking to keep the area around Dorestad (that he had conquered in the years before) and Walcheren was given to the Viking leader Harald, he even promised the Saxons that they could live under their own laws again and that they would be allowed to return to their heathen religion, but to their disappointment the treaty of Verdun was signed in 843AD, the empire was divided into 3 parts; the Western Franconian empire under Charles II the Bold (Charles le Chauve) that would later become modern France, the Middle Franconian empire under Lotharius I that would later fall apart, and the Eastern Franconian empire under Louis the German (Ludwig den Deutscher) that would later become modern Germany.
The reign of Chlodovech:
The Karolingians:
The reign of Louis the Pious: