The Franks - Clothing and Armour

[AelleCyning]

Since there's such a dearth of info about them, and it took me hours to even get this pittance, I'll share it.

CLOTHING​

Generally a linen tunic going down tot he knees. Then, tight-fitting hosen with wraps around the legs, and the traditional germanic leather "flap" shoes. In the winter, an otter or martelet fur sleeveles coat was often worn, going down to the belt.

ARMOUR​

Scale, chainmail were often popular. Scale is only known from Childeric's tomb and a representation of it within, but we do actually have surviving chainmail from the period. It was steel, with steel rivets. Interestingly, the Franks used seaxes, usually called langseaxes in this context. They were more like mini-spathas than "true daggers". It seems the Roman "belt flaps" survived to some extent.

6TH CENTURY WARRIOR​

EQUIPMENT​

SOLDIER'S GEAR​

CHILD'S HELMET - COLOGNE​

WOMENFOLK​

PAGANISM​

Germanic paganism in France remained a problem until Charlemagne (King/Emperor Karl Karling). Some Franks kept on worshipping the old Gods, despite Clovis (and by extension the Frankish Kingdom) converting in 499 to Christianity.
Their Pantheon included:
-Wuotan (Woden, Odin, from Wotanaz)
-Freia (Frigg, Freya)
-Donar (Thunor, Thor)
-Zio (Tiw, Tyr)
-Yngvi (Clovis met some Yngvian cultists interestingly)
-Nerþuz (Njörðr, both married their sister, presumably the Christians didn't like this one too much)

They were more animalistic than the other Germans, even more so than the Saxons. It seems they worshipped the Cow, through either Yngvi or Nerþuz, as an animal of fertility, as evidenced by the golden bull head idol buried with Childeric, and Tacitus' reports of the Franks worshipping a Goddess called "Nerthus" who had a chariot drawn by cows. There's also Childeric's three-hundred golden bees that were sown on to his cape.

 

[Swissky]

Huh, most Christians in Scandinavia seemed to have a specific hate for Frej and Freja (not their parents) as they symbolised fertility.

 

[AelleCyning]

Huh, most Christians in Scandinavia seemed to have a specific hate for Frej and Freja (not their parents) as they symbolised fertility.

I was joking about the hate bit. But I doubt they'd like a lesbian Goddess who married her sister either.

The Saxons sacrificed swords to Ingvi and his sister Freo, who were fertility Gods, due to the manly and phallic connotations of swords. The word vagina actually means sheath, and gladius eventually came to mean penis.