Excerpt from History of the Franks

Published in Readings in European History, 1905

"And seizing his ax, he cast it on the ground. And when the soldier had bent a little to pick it up the king raised his hands and crushed his head with his own ax. 'Thus,' he said, 'didst thou to the vase at Soissons.'"

When one studies the relationship between medieval European kingdoms and the Catholic Church, it is hard to imagine a time when the kings of Western Europe were not Christians, or at least not Catholic. But before the time of Clovis (c. 466–511; ruled 481–511), tribal kings accepted a number of different faiths. Hence Clovis's conversion to Christianity in 496, an event recorded by Gregory of Tours (TOOR; 538–594) in his History of the Franks, was an event of key importance.

In Clovis's time, the Western Roman Empire lay in ruins, and a variety of invading tribes...