Childeric I

Childeric I (died about 481/482 AD) was a 5th-century Frankish ruler in what is now northern France, during the period when this part of Roman Gaul became permanently disconnected from the central Roman government in 461, and the last emperor based in Italy was dethroned in 476. He is the ancestor of the early medieval Merovingian dynasty, and father of Clovis I, who would go on to acquire effective control over all or most of the small Frankish kingdoms of the time, and unite a significant part of formerly Roman Gaul under Frankish rule.

Childeric was described as a king (Latin: rex), both on his Roman-style seal ring, which was buried with him in Tournai, and in fragmentary later records of his life, but scholars have different interpretation of the term rex in northern Gaul in this period. He and the Frankish forces loyal to him seem to have coordinated with forces who fought in the name of Rome, during a period when Roman chains of command were no longer stable. According to a common, but not universally accepted interpretation of a letter written by Saint Remigius, Childeric, or at least one or more of the relatives (parentes) of Clovis, even held an official position within a Roman-style administration in northern Gaul. The family background of Childeric is uncertain but he was reputed to be a descendant of Chlodio, and as a leader of Frankish troops based within the Roman empire he may, like several Gaulish military leaders in his generation, have served when younger under the powerful Roman military leader and statesman Aëtius, who died in 454. His burial site, which has been discovered in Tournai in Belgium, contained a wide range of artefacts, including some which were Roman symbols of authority.