Clovis' conversion: "If you grant me victory, I will believe in you"

Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, was a pagan. Despite the insistence of his wife Saint Clotilde, he refused to convert to Christianity, and the death of their son only deepened his distrust of the Christian religion. Nevertheless, at the battle of Tolbiac (Today's Zülpich, Germany - around 496), when Clovis was about to be defeated by a numerically superior enemy, he cried out to Clotilde's God, Jesus Christ, for help and promised to convert if he survived. The course of the battle was immediately reversed, the Franks were victorious and Clovis became the first Catholic Frankish king.

Ary Scheffer, Battle of Tolbiac, 1836, Château de Versailles / © CC0/wikimedia

Reasons to believe:

Like many of us at times, Clovis had his own reason to be angry with God, since he attributed the death of his eldest son to the fact that he had been baptised.

Clovis did not need to convert to curry favour with the Christians, who already regarded him as their protector, as the enthusiastic letter from the bishop Saint Remi on the occasion of his accession to the throne attests.

On the contrary, by converting, Clovis ran the risk of upsetting his warriors by abandoning the religion of his ancestors.

If Clovis' conversion had had a political motive, he would probably have become Arian rather than Catholic, as Arianism (a Christian heresy denying the divinity of Jesus) had already been adopted by the majority of the kings around him, while Catholicism was in the minority.

While the precise date of these events is still debated (the Battle of Tolbiac is believed to have taken place on November 10, 496), historians have no doubt as to their historicity.

Summary:

Clovis became king of the Salian Franks (in what is now Belgium) at the age of fifteen, in 481. A few years later, he married a Catholic princess, the future Saint Clotilde. Right from the start, Clotilde tried to bring her husband round to the Catholic faith; she told him: "The gods you honour are nothing, they can help neither themselves nor others; for they are carved in stone, or in wood, or in some metal... But the one who should rather be honoured is the one who by his word created what was deprived of existence: heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them" (Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, II,29). But Clovis refused to believe it, and replied to his wife: "It is by the order of our gods that all these things were created and produced; on the contrary, it is clear that your god can do nothing. What's more, it has been proven that he is not even of the race of the gods!"

Around 494, the queen gave birth to her first child, a son named Ingomer. Despite her husband's distrust, she arranged for him to be baptised; Clotilde even hoped that the splendour of the celebration would make a favourable impression on the king. But Ingomer died just after his baptism, provoking the king's anger: "Without indulgence, he reproached the queen and told her: 'If the child had been consecrated in the name of my gods, he would have lived; but after being baptised in the name of your God, he was not able to live!"" Two years later a second son, Clodomir, was born, and he too fell ill just after his baptism, further alienating Clovis from his wife's faith. He said, "Nothing can happen to him other than what happened to his brother: since he was baptised in the name of your Christ, he will die." This time, however, the child recovered and Clotilde continued to talk to her husband about Christ, but Clovis would hear no more.

Everything changed in 496. That year, Clovis went to war against a neighbouring people, the Alamanni (a confederation of Germanic tribes), and fought a major battle at Tolbiac (near Cologne). According to the historian Gregory of Tours (II,30): "As the two armies fought with great violence, Clovis' army began to be cut to pieces; seeing this, Clovis, touched to the heart, raised his hands to heaven weeping and said: 'Jesus Christ, you whom Clotilde affirms to be the Son of the living God; you who, it seems, come to the aid of those who are in danger, and give victory to those who trust you, I beg you to help me: If you grant me victory over my enemies, if I experience that power of which the people who are consecrated to your name claim to have so much evidence, I will believe in you, and I will be baptised in your name. For I have called upon my gods, but I find that they have not helped me, and this makes me believe that they have no power, since they do not come to the aid of those who serve them. Therefore I call upon you, and I will believe in you if I escape from my enemies." While he was still speaking, the Alamanni soldiers turned back and began to flee; and seeing that their king was dead, they surrendered to Clovis."

After this unexpected and miraculous victory, Clovis agreed to be taught by Saint Remigius, Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks", and to prepare for baptism. However, he still had one objection: he did not want to upset his soldiers, whom he believed would refuse to abandon the paganism of their people. But the soldiers, no doubt attracted by Saint Remigius's charisma, were ready to become Christians too. This is how Clovis was baptised on Christmas Day 496, along with three thousand of his soldiers, thus becoming the first Catholic Frankish king.

Tristan Rivière

Beyond reasons to believe:

This authentic story shows the great influence in Clovis' life of his wife Saint Clotilde, one of those many remarkable women who helped shape the Christian soul of France (Saint Genevieve, Saint Joan of Arc, etc). Several of these women were of royal lineage or status (Saint Radegund, Saint Joan of Valois, Blanche of Castile, etc.).

Going further:

The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours (Author), Lewis Thorpe (Translator), Penguin Classics; Reprint edition (November 28, 1974)

More information:

Clovis: History of the Founder of Frank Monarchy ‎ LM Publishers (January 13, 2017)
Saint John Paul II's homily in Reims on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of the baptism of Clovis (available on video).