ABSTRACT
The history of the Merovingian Franks from 561, when the kingdom was divided among the four sons of Chlotair I, to 687, when the Austrasian mayors of the palace gained control of the crown, is a melancholy record of civil war. The Avars, a people dwelling in ancient Pannonia and resembling the Huns, were conquered by Charlemagne in six campaigns between 788 and 805. In 795 the Franks captured the Ringa palisaded town where the Avars stored the plunder of their many raids on the Byzantines and by 805 broke the power of the Avars so completely that the Franks had to protect them from later attacks by the Bohemians. So the legends of Charlemagne, riding among his soldiers and building an empire which could be compared with the older empire of Rome, became among the most powerful forces in the Middle Ages, and the greatest ambition of many a later king was to be remembered as his worthy successor.
