Trevor Bloom – Author

Returning from France we passed the Normandy beaches, site of the allied landings (codenamed Operation Overlord) in 1944 and I got to wondering whether some military planner with a strong sense of history had named the landing after Clovis, the first Overlord of the Franks.

I first came across Clodovech (or Clovis as the French call him) while researching The Half-Slave. I was determined to make him a character in the novel and had a lot of fun imagining him as a very edgy, slightly psychotic and fiercely ambitious teenage ruler. On the continent he’s seen as a cross between King Arthur and King Alfred, and was a much bloodier and more ruthless Overlord than anything you’ll find in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 Overlord game.

Clovis the Merovingian

The real Clovis/Chlodovech became Overlord of the Franks – a Germanic tribe living around the mouth of the Rhine – in 481 AD at a time when the Roman Empire in the west was rapidly disintegrating. Over the next thirty years Clovis overran the last Roman territory in Gaul, established his capital at Lutetia Parisi (modern Paris) and overran the barbarian tribes who had occupied Gaul, taking over their territories. On the way, he eliminated any Franks who he felt might threaten his rule, including members of his own extended family. He was the first and one of the most successful post-imperial rulers and the early mediaeval state he created would become modern France.

Saxon raiders had terrorized the coastline of Britain and Gaul since the 3rd century. By the middle of the 5th century the politically fragmented British were no longer able to to resist the northern raiders and the Saxons, Jutes and Engle were able to settle and colonize the eastern part of Britain. But across the Channel, the northerners found the former province of Gallia under unified political control. The strong political and military continuity that Clovis brought to Gaul in the wake of the Roman collapse was a major factor in ensuring that Saxons did not land and settle in northern France as they had across the Channel.

I’ve often wondered whether, if there had been no Clovis, and the Saxons had consequently succeeded in settling on both sides of the Channel, would the people of Belgium and northern France today speak English as their mother tongue.

Frankish ruler raised on his shield