Salian Franks

The Salian Franks, or Salians, sometimes referred to using the Latin word Salii or Sali, were a Frankish people who lived in what is now the Netherlands in the fourth century. They are only mentioned under this name in historical records relating to this one period, when they came into conflict with Roman forces led by Julian the Apostate in 358 AD, during the period when Julian ruled in Gaul as Caesar, under his cousin the emperor Constantius II. In modern historiography, they are traditionally believed to be ancestral to the Franks who became the rulers of much of present day northern France in the 5th century - at first under the leadership of Chlodio, and later under the leadership of the Merovingian dynasty.

Roman sources describing the events of 358 AD indicate that the Salians were a Frankish people who had entered the empire from across the Rhine some time earlier, and settled with Roman acceptance in Batavia, which is a large island in the Rhine delta, that lay on the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. They had subsequently been settling in the relatively unpopulated and infertile area of Texandria, south of the delta, which was still considered to be under direct Roman control. They were also one of the tribes of this region who were being paid off by the Roman government to allow the safe passage of grain shipments up the Rhine, along with another people, the Chamavi. Julian, seeking to end the payments, entered the region with military force. After defeating both peoples and taking hostages he proclaimed new agreements with them, authorizing the Salians to keep any lands they had settled without fighting, but forcing many of the Chamavi to return to their homeland. He also obliged both peoples to contribute soldiers to the Roman military. Consistent with this, Julian is known to have created several military units named after the Salians.

Until the 1950s it was also generally accepted that the Salians subsequently expanded their territories to the south, and became one of two large divisions among the Franks in the fifth century, along with another large group, the Ribuarian Franks, living to their east. This is not directly attested in any historical evidence, but the reasoning was based on the names of two distinct legal codes used by the Franks after they were united under Merovingian rule. The older one, the so-called Salic Law (Lex Salica) was valid in what is now northern France, and its name might be related to the name of the earlier Salians, although this is no longer considered certain. The later one, the Lex Ripuaria, in contrast, is associated with the region near Cologne in what is now Germany. In the 21st century, scholars no longer generally accept that the term "Salic" in Salic law referred to any tribe by the 5th century, and some historians argue that it never did. It is also no longer widely accepted that the two Frankish legal codes imply two distinct Frankish peoples.

Many etymologies for the word Sali have been proposed, but the origins of the name remain uncertain. One of the challenges is that the name is so short, which means that there are many similar sounding words. When considering the possible etymologies, scholars are also confronted with questions about whether the word is related to much later terms including Frankish Salic law, the Frankish legal concept of terra salica (the demesne lands of the lord of the manor), the regional name Salland north of the river delta in the Netherlands, or the name of the river IJssel which flows through Salland.

The proposal of Norbert Wagner and Matthias Springer [de] is that the name has a Germanic etymology, related to such modern words as German Geselle, meaning a companion or journeyman. It was argued by Wagner that these terms are furthermore related to Saal, meeting house or hall, because companions share accommodation. For scholars who accept such proposals the Salians in 358 AD may simply have been calling themselves a group of confederates or friends, and the much later Salic law may have had a meaning equivalent to "civil law". Less widely accepted, Springer has even argued that the term Salii in 358 AD was misunderstood by Roman authors, and was actually a Germanic term for the Franks in general.

Other possible etymologies include these:

Only Zosimus, who wrote around 500 AD, gives information about the Salians before 357 AD. He describes them as a people detached or separated from the Franks (Φράγκων ἀπό-μοιρον), who had been expelled from their own country by the Saxons and settled at some time prior to 357 AD on the large island of Batavia, between two branches of the Rhine. Although Batavia was within the boundaries once governed by the Romans, the Salians were governing it by 357 AD. He describes the Saxons who forced them there as the strongest of all the barbarians dwelling near that Rhine delta region. A more contemporary source, Ammianus Marcellinus, also associated the Salians with the Franks, calling them Franks "whom custom calls the Salii".

The Romans had inconsistent and incomplete control of the Rhine delta since the crisis of the third century. The population and agricultural activity had decreased dramatically, and the Romans had given it up as an area for normal taxation and governance. Some modern scholars believe the Salians attacked by Julian to be descendants of the Frankish dediticii who Constantius Chlorus allowed to remain in Batavia around 293-294 AD, when the Romans reasserted themselves there after the revolt of Carausius. They were probably also descended from the Franks who were later allowed to settle in Texandria by the brother of Constantius II, his co-emperor Constans, already in 342 AD, after fighting there in 341 AD. Julian also associated the usurper Magnentius, who had killed Constans and ruled the region in 350-353 AD, with the Franks and Saxons of this region. At the Battle of Mursa Major in 351 AD in present day Croatia many Roman soldiers with Frankish and Saxon backgrounds died fighting in this Roman civil war. Like Magnentius himself one of his main commanders Silvanus, who defected to Constantius, had Frankish ancestry. He was given the task of rebuilding defences in Gaul, but killed as a rebel in 355 AD. In the same year Julian was given the rank of Ceasar, and assigned to rule Gaul under his cousin Constantius, and rebuild the Rhine defences against the Franks and Saxons who Magnentius had apparently coordinated with.