Francia

The Kingdom of the Franks (Latin: Regnum Francorum), also known as the Frankish Kingdom or Francia, was the largest post-Roman kingdom in Western Europe. It was established by the Franks, one of the Germanic peoples. During the Early Middle Ages, the kingdom was ruled by the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. In 800, it evolved into the Carolingian Empire, thus becoming the longest lasting Germanic kingdom from the era of Great Migrations.

Originally, the core Frankish lands inside the Western Roman Empire were located close to the Rhine and Meuse rivers in the north, but Frankish chiefs such as Chlodio expanded their influence within Roman territory as far as the Somme river in the 5th century.

Childeric I, a Salian Frankish king, was one of several military leaders commanding Roman forces of various ethnic affiliations in northern Roman Gaul. His son, Clovis I, succeeded in unifying most of Gaul under his rule following the collapse of Roman dominion by notably conquering Soissons in 486 and Aquitaine in 507, as well as subduing all the Frankish kingdoms on or near the Rhine frontier; thus founding what became known as the Merovingian dynasty. The dynasty then gained control over a significant part of what is now western and southern Germany.

It was by building upon the basis of these Merovingian deeds that the subsequent Carolingian dynasty—through the nearly continuous campaigns of Pepin of Herstal, his son Charles Martel, grandson Pepin the Short, and great-grandson Charlemagne—secured the greatest expansion of the Frankish state by the early 9th century. Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800, thus creating the Frankish-Roman Empire, also referred to as the Carolingian Empire.

Francia was one large polity, generally subdivided into several smaller kingdoms ruled by different members of the ruling dynasties. Whilst these kingdoms coordinated, they also regularly came into conflict with one another. The old Frankish lands, for example, were initially contained within the kingdom of Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse. The bulk of the former Gallo-Roman territory to its south and west was called Neustria. The borders and number of these subkingdoms varied over time, until a basic split between eastern and western domains became persistent.

After various treaties and conflicts in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, West Francia came under control of the Capetian dynasty, becoming the Kingdom of France, while East Francia and Lotharingia came under the control of the Saxon Ottonian dynasty, becoming the Kingdom of Germany (which would conquer Burgundy and Italy to then form the medieval Holy Roman Empire). Competing French and German nationalisms in later centuries would claim succession from Charlemagne and the original kingdom, but nowadays both have become seen by many as pan-European symbols.