Clovis is baptized and the Franks convert to Catholic Christianity
A pagan Frankish king's baptism ties his dynasty to Rome's church
Quick facts
- Location
- Reims, Francia
- Key people
- Clovis I, Clotilda, Bishop Remigius
- Dynasty
- Merovingian
What happened
Clovis I, king of the Franks since 481, married the Burgundian princess Clotilda, a Catholic, while he himself worshipped Germanic gods. According to the bishop and historian Gregory of Tours, Clovis credited a battlefield victory to prayers made in the name of Christ and afterward asked Remigius, bishop of Reims, to instruct him in the faith. Clovis was baptized along with several thousand of his soldiers, choosing Catholic orthodoxy rather than the Arian Christianity most other Germanic kings in the former Roman West had adopted.
Why it matters
Clovis's choice of Catholic rather than Arian Christianity aligned the Franks with the Gallo-Roman population and the papacy rather than against them, giving his Merovingian dynasty a legitimacy other Germanic successor kingdoms lacked. It set a precedent that French kings would be Catholic and closely tied to Rome for the next thirteen centuries.
How we know
Gregory of Tours wrote his account decades after the events using Frankish oral tradition and church records, so exact details and the year (estimates range from 496 to 508) are debated by historians, but the core fact of Clovis's conversion to Catholic Christianity is corroborated by contemporary letters, including one from Bishop Avitus of Vienne congratulating him.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Clovis I · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Gregory of Tours: The Conversion of Clovis · Primary source (author-declared)sourcebooks.fordham.edu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineHistory of France34 events · From Vercingetorix's last stand at Alesia to a Fifth Republic in the EU, the long story of one country rebuilding itself again and againView all →