As the Frankish dominion plays so great a part in European history and geography, a part in truth second only to that played by the Roman dominion, it will be needful to consider the historical position of the Franks. Their dominion was that of a German people who had made themselves dominant alike in Germany and in Gaul. But it was only in a small part of the Frankish territory that the Frankish people had actually settled. ♦The cession of Gaulish possessions.♦ It was only in northern Gaul and central Germany, in the countries to which they have permanently given their name, that the Franks can be looked on as really occupying the land. In their German territory they of course remained German; in northern Gaul their position answered to that of the other Teutonic nations which had formed settlements within the Empire. They were a dominant Teutonic race in a Roman land. Gradually they adopted the speech of the conquered, while the conquered in the end adopted the name of the conquerors. ♦Slow fusion of Franks and Romans.♦ But the fusion of German and Roman was slower in the Frankish part of Gaul than elsewhere, doubtless because elsewhere the Teutonic settlements were cut off from their older Teutonic homes, while the Franks in Gaul had their older Teutonic home as a background. ♦German and Gaulish dependencies of the Franks.♦ Beyond the bounds of these more strictly Frankish lands, German and Gaulish, the dominion of the Franks was at most a political supremacy, and in no sense a national settlement. In Germany Bavaria was ruled by its vassal princes; in Gaul south of the Loire the Frank was at most an external ruler. Aquitaine had to be practically conquered over and over again, and new dynasties of native princes were constantly rising up. ♦Ethnology of Southern Gaul.♦ The Teutonic element in these lands, an element much slighter than the Teutonic element in Northern Gaul, is not Frankish, but Gothic and Burgundian. The native Romance speech of those lands is wholly different from the Romance speech of Northern Gaul. In short, there was really nothing in common between the two great parts of Gaul, the lands south and the lands north of the Loire, except their union, first under Roman and then under Frankish dominion. And in Armorica the old Celtic population, strengthened by the settlers from Britain, formed another and a yet more distinct element. ♦Divisions of the Frankish dominions.♦