Faramund* K of Franks

• Death: 0427

• Reference: 2222

1. Chlodion* K of Franks

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|--Faramund* K of Franks
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|__|
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   |__|
      |      __
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         |   __
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Notes

A good introduction to the Merovingian Franks is found in Gene Gurney's,

"Kindoms of Europe", on pages 52-54 :

"That race of people which had been driving the Celts westward for six

or seven hundred years was finally making its way into Gaul. They had

been held back only by Roman Skill. This race as a general name was

called Teutonic, but it divided into many different nations. The people

were large-limbed, blue-eyed, and light-haired. They all spoke a

language like rough German, and all had the same religion, beleiving in

the great warlike gods, Odin, Thor, and Frey.They worshiped them at

stone altars, and expected to live with them in the hall of heroes after

death - that is, all so-called who were brave and who were chosen by the

'Valkyr', or 'slaughter-choosing godess', to die nobly in battle. Cowards

were sent to dwell with Hela, the pale, gloomy godess of death.

They had lived for at least five hundred years in the center of Europe ,

now and then attacking their neighbors, when they were harassad by

another, fiercer race, who was pushing them from the east. The chief

tribes were the Goths, who conquered Rome and settled in Spain; the

Longbeards, or Lombards, who spread over the north of Italy; the

Burgundians (burg or town people), who held all the country around the

Alps; the Swabians and Germans, who stayed in the middle of Europe; the

Saxons, who dwelt around the south of the Baltic, and finally conquered

south Britain; the Northmen, who found a home in Scandanavia; and the

Franks, who had been long settled on the Rivers Sale, Meuse, and Rhine.

There were two tribes of Franks - the Salian, from the River Sale, and

the Ripuarian. They were great horsemen and dreadful pillagers, and the

Salians had a family of kings, which, like the kings of all the other

tribes, were supposed to have been descended from Odin. The king was

always of this family, called Meerwings, after Meerwing - or Merovech -

the son of Pharamond, one of the first chiefs."

The anglicised name for the Meerwing would be "Merovingian".

Matman posted to

soc.genealogy.medieval on 28 May 1997:

Subject: Re: PHARAMOND

"Faramund is not mentioned by Roman historians of the 4-5th centuries

or Gregory of Tours (c.570/90), hence most modern historians omit any

reference to him as a historical person. The reason why he turns up in so

many genealogies etc, is that the 8th century _Liber Historiae

Francorum_ (ch.5) says that Faramund was the son of Sunno and father of

Chlodio.

Now Sunno is known from the earlier sources: GT II, 9 quotes (?) a

Roman source which says he was one of the chieftains who invaded Gaul

and were defeated by the Romans (c.389 AD), and elsewhere, GT reports

the tradition that Meroveus was the son of Chlodio.

Historians have tended to regard Faramund as an invention to bridge

the gap between Sunno and Clodio, and so establish a dubious dynastic

continuity."

Luke Stevens comments:

Actually, the _Liber Historiae Francorum_ makes Faramund the son of

Marcomir (Sunno being mentioned as king, but not in the genealogy), in

turn the son of Priam of Troy, in a display of gross confusion. In the

king lists Faramund is almost always reckoned as the first king of the

Franks. All the sources mentioning Faramund are somewhat late, so we

cannot be certain whether he was even real.

Faramund's ancestry is sometimes traced back to Sicambrian kings of

the fifth century BC, or even further, but this is based entirely on a

forged chronicle composed by Johannes Trithemius in the 16th century.