Hot answers tagged franks
17
You neglect the fact that the 'indigenous' population of France before the Great Migrations (of mainly Germanic tribes) was Gallo-Roman, and by the end of the Roman era (5th century AD), the populace spoke a dialect of Vulgar Latin, which evolved into a distinct "Gallic" Latin over the following centuries. Note however that the ancient Celtic (Gaulish) ...
7
During the battle of Tours, the invading Muslim leader, Emir Abd al Rahman was killed, which represented a major setback for them. After winning the battle in 732, the Frankish leader Charles Martel followed up his victory by "cleaning out" Muslim enclaves established in southern France, meaning that they had lost the initiative.
By about 750, the Ummayad ...
5
As backup for Noldorin's point, note that the (French-speaking) Normans conqured England in 1066 and made French the country's official language for centuries. This didn't really change the fact that the vast majority of Englishmen spoke only English, and still do (although with a lot of French loan-words for things mostly of concern to the upper-classes). ...
2
The Merovigians helped start the feudal system. They were actually weak kings. So they relied on a hierarchy of nobles to help them. To reward these people, they "farmed out" pieces of land to them in a manner that we would now call "fiefdoms."
Feudalism was unpopular because it was an expensive, clumsy way of governing. Most people (in the first millenium) ...
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