This was accomplished by calling the Franks in against the Lombards.
In the 5th century the Franks seized Tournai, and Merovaeus made it the capital of his dynasty.
The original significance of the name remains in dispute, but the first of the family to whom it was applied was Hugh, who was elected king of the Franks in 987.
The Armenians in the south-east of Asia Minor borrowed feudal institutions from the Franks and the feudal vocabulary itself.
By these measures the counts became citizens, the rural population ceased to rank as serfs, and the Italo-Roman population of the towns absorbed into itself the remnants of Franks, Germans and other foreign stocks.
