Dark Age TV - The Franks

The Franks were a West Germanic confederation, uniting the peoples in Magna Germania north and east of the Lower Rhine River. Modern scholars of the Migration Period are in agreement that the Frankish identity emerged in the first half of the 3rd century out of various Germanic groups, including the Salii, Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chatti, Chattuarii, Ampsivarii, Tencteri, Ubii, Batavi and the Tungri, who inhabited the area between the Zuyder Zee and the river Lahn and extended eastwards as far as the Weser, but were most densely settled around the IJssel and between the Lippe and the Sieg.

From the third to fifth centuries the Frankish armies raided Roman territory and expanded their influence among the Germanic peoples previously living under Roman rule on the left bank of the Rhine. In 358, the Salian Franks came to some form of agreement with the Romans that allowed them to settle in Toxandria (roughly Noord-Brabant, Antwerpen and Vlaams-Brabant).

Each tribe within the Frankish confederation consisted of extended kinship groups centred around a particularly renowned and noble family. The importance of the family bond was made clear by the Salic Law, which ordained that an individual had no right to protection if not part of a family.