Clovis I

Clovis I (Latin: Chlodovechus; reconstructed Frankish: *Hlodowig; c. 466 – 27 November 511) was the first Frankish king to unite the Franks, changing the form of leadership from a group of petty kings to rule by a single king, and ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. Clovis is an important figure in the history of France. According to Charles de Gaulle, he was "the first king of what would become France."

Clovis succeeded his father, Childeric I, as a king of the Salian Franks in 481, and eventually came to rule an area extending from what is now the southern Netherlands to northern France, corresponding in Roman terms to Gallia Belgica (northern Gaul). At the Battle of Soissons (486), he established control over a rump state of the fragmenting Western Roman Empire, which was under the command of Syagrius. By the time of his death in 511, Clovis had conquered several smaller Frankish kingdoms in the northeast of Gaul, stretching into what is now Germany. Clovis also conquered the Alemanni in eastern Gaul and the Visigothic kingdom of Aquitania in the southwest. These campaigns added significantly to his Frankish domains and established his dynasty as a major political and military presence in western Europe.