Baptism of Clovis
Clovis, king of the Franks, was baptized by Bishop Remigius at Reims with some 3,000 of his warriors, choosing Catholic Christianity rather than the Arianism of the other Germanic kings.
- Date
- between 496 and 508exact date unknown: an interval is given
- Place
- Reimstoday: Reims, France · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Clovis I, Franks, Saint Remigius
- Threads
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
- Also known as
- Conversion of Clovis; Baptême de Clovis; Обращение Хлодвига
Clovis, who in 486 had destroyed the last Roman enclave in northern Gaul — the realm of Syagrius — at Soissons, married the Catholic Burgundian princess Clotilde. According to Gregory of Tours, he vowed to accept her God during a hard-fought battle against the Alamanni (traditionally placed at Tolbiac, near Zülpich, in 496) and was baptized on Christmas Day together with some 3,000 of his men.
The traditional year is 496, but modern scholars have proposed dates from 498/499 to 506 or 508. The choice of Catholic rather than Arian Christianity won Clovis the support of the Gallo-Roman bishops and aristocracy and helped him conquer most of Gaul; France later saw his baptism as the birth of a Catholic kingdom, and Reims became the coronation city of the French kings.
Connections
Related events
- Theodoric takes Ravenna490 – 5 March 493 · Western and Central EuropeTheodoric married Clovis’s sister Audofleda
Same participants
- Battle of the Catalaunian Plains20 June 451 · Western and Central Europevia Franks
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- Early Slavic cultures: Prague-Korchak, Penkovka and Kolochinc. 450 – c. 700
- Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv: the legendary founding of Kyivbetween 500 and 700
Balkans and Anatolia
- Corpus Juris Civilis7 April 529 – 16 November 534
- Construction of Hagia Sophia23 February 532 – 27 December 537
Africa
- Vandalic WarJune 533 – March 534
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Clovis I
- Wikipedia (English): Battle of Tolbiac
- Wikipedia (Russian): Хлодвиг I
- Wikipedia (Russian): Битва при Толбиаке
- Wood I. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751. — London: Longman, 1994.
- Лебек С. Происхождение франков. V–IX века. — М.: Скарабей, 1993.
- Wikidata: Q60845789