[6] The Avars were a Tartar tribe, one branch of which settled on the Danube about the year 555. They served in Justinian’s army, helped the Lombards to overturn the Gepidæ, conquered Pannonia, subdued Dalmatia, and frequently devastated large tracts of Germany and Italy. They were subdued by Charlemagne and were well nigh destroyed by the Moravians and again by the Magyars. Early in the 9th century they disappeared from history. [7] Clovis, like other names of early date, may be variously spelled. The common German form is Chlodwig, from whence comes the German name Ludwig. Clovis is allied to the Latin Ludovicus, and from it are derived the French Louis and the English Lewis. [8] The Salian Franks took their name from the river Sala, now the Yssel. These inhabited the districts of the lower Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt. [9] Syagrius, king of the Burgundians and Franks, was the last Roman governor of Gaul. He inherited the city and diocese of Soissons, while “Rheims and Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit to” him. He was defeated by Clovis in 486. [10] The origin of the word Neustria is uncertain. It was certainly an antonym of Austrasia, which means the eastern kingdom. The opposite of this would be Ouestrasia, or western kingdom; but owing to the similarity of pronunciation the first syllable was changed to its later form which may have been derived from _neuf_, or new. [11] The _gau_ was a division of the old Germanic state. The word is preserved in such terminations as that of Oberammergau, Glogau, Bardengau, etc. [12] The Merovingian kingdom took its name from the grandfather of Clovis: Merwig, or Merowig: the Latin form being Merovœus, and the French Mérovée. [13] The Anglo-Saxon word _witan_ means wise man. The council called the Witenagemot was the assembly of the king, nobles, and clergy, a precursor of the parliament of later years, but with greater powers than those ever exercised by parliament. [14] Gregory was born in Auvergne, France, about 540, and became bishop of Tours in 573. He wrote a work in ten books entitled “Historia Francorum” which was a history of the Franks from the establishment of Christianity down to about 591. This work is the principal history of the Merovingian dynasty. Gregory was persecuted for exposing the crimes of the Frankish sovereigns Chilperic and Fredegunde. He retired to Rome where he died in 595. [15] Fredegarius, called Scholasticus, was an obscure Burgundian monk of the 8th century, of whom nothing further is known than that he continued Gregory of Tours’ history of the Franks down to the year 641. [16] It has been shown by Bonnell that neither Pippin of Landen nor Pippin of Heristal was so called by contemporary writers. But for the sake of distinction it seems better to retain these well-known surnames.