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Ripuarian Franks


Ripuarian Franks (Latin: Ripuarii) were one of the two main groupings of early Frankish people mentioned by a number of 6th-century sources. The Ripuarii originally lived on the right bank of the Rhine in what is today western Germany. Under pressure from their northern enemies the Saxons, starting from 274 AD they were able to infiltrate the left bank of the Rhine. In the chaotic years after the definitive collapse of Roman power in western Europe, in the last days of 406, the Ripuarians were able to conquer and more importantly hold the strategically important river valleys of the Meuse and the Moselle. They managed to occupy the lower and middle Rhineland in present day North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Luxemburg, Wallonia, the modern Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, and the northeastern part of France. On the right bank of the Rhine, the Ripuarian Franks had control over the river basin of the Main, in later years also called Franconia, one of the five stem duchies, from which in the middle of the 9th century the kingdom of Germany was formed.

The other main group of Franks were the Salii, or "Salian Franks", who lived to the west of the Ripuarii in what is today the southwestern part of the Netherlands, the western part of Belgium and the northern and central part of France above the Loire river. The border between the area of the Salian and the Ripurarian Franks was roughly the Silva Carbonaria and the land between the Seine-basin (mostly Salian) and the upper Meuse river (Ripuarian). It's not clear that the whole Seine-basin was Salian, maybe some northern and eastern parts of the Seine-basin were setlled by Ripuarian Franks.


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