Franks

Germanic people from the Lower Rhine

The Franks (Latin: Franci) were a Western European people who began in the third century as a group of Germanic tribes near the Lower Rhine River, but gradually became a multilingual, Catholic Christian people, who controlled a large territory both inside and outside the former Roman Empire. Much of what is now the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and in a broader sense much of the population of medieval Western Europe, could eventually be described as Frankish, depending on the context. Pre-existing Germanic tribes such as the Bructeri and Chattuari began being referred to as Franks during the crisis of the 3rd century, when Rome lost control of regions near the lower Rhine, within the Roman province of Germania Inferior.

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