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Seven Thousand Years
| Article
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22869 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
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1 / 2003 |
363 Words |
| Author
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Martin Gani
Martin Gani is a freelance writer based in Como, Italy. |
According to artifacts in Strasbourg's Museum of Archeology, a viable farming community existed on the site some 7,500 years ago. The city's founding probably dates to 12 b.c., when the Roman general Drusus conquered Alsace and established an encampment there. He called it Argenteratum and put up fortifications along the Rhine to protect it against the confederacy of German tribes, known as Alemanni, located on the opposite side of the river. (To this day, the French name for Germany is Allemagne.)
In a.d. 451 Argenteratum was razed to the ground--not by the Alemanni but by Attila the Hun. After the Huns moved on, the Alemanni briefly took over Alsace until they were displaced by another German tribe, the Salian Franks. Their leader, Clovis, rebuilt the settlement and renamed it Strateburgum. That name eventually transformed to Strasbourg.
Clovis established the Merovingian Frankish Empire, which ruled till a.d., 751 when Pepin the Short deposed the last of their kings and began a new dynasty, the Carolingians. Its most famous ruler, Charlemagne, was crowned as head of what would become the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III in 800. His realm included today's Germany, eastern France, Austria, the Netherlands, northern Italy and the Czech Republic.
Two of Charlemagne's grandsons, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, cemented their alliance of East Franks and West Franks against their brother, Emperor Lothair I, by taking the Oath of Strasbourg in 842. They subsequently defeated him. The oath was recorded in both Old German and Old French (vernaculars of the time) so that everyone could understand its contents. The oath is the oldest preserved
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