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* Clovis himself converted The Franks were among the earliest converts to Orthodoxy, as did his Frankish subjects. Indeed, the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Visigothic Gaul openly worked on behalf of ClovisOrthodox faith (well, since so were the bishops preferred the Orthodox Franks to the heretical Arian Visigoths. Far from regarding Clovis as an anti-imperial barbarianBurgundians, but they were absorbed by the Eastern Emperor Anastasius (reigned 491-519Frankish kingdom) granted Clovis the highest honors normally granted to distinguished senators in Constantinople -- the coveted ranks of consul and patrician in 508. As J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, no blind admirer so they could hardly be accused of Clovis, put it in his *The Barbarian West* persecuting "Roman Catholics" (N.Y.: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), page 74-75, "the Emperor had for some time been which is misleading terminology in touch with the Franks and was glad to recognize them, itself at the appropriate moment, as a counter-balance to Gothic power in the West." From this point on, the Eastern Empire and the Frankish Kingdom were usually allies pitted against the Arian barbarian kingdoms in the West. The Papacy too smiled on the Franks as protectors of the true faith, and called upon the later Carolingian dynasty to protect Rome from the Lombards when the Byzantine administration in central Italy collapsed in the early 8th century.period);

* Clovis himself converted to Orthodoxy, as did his Frankish subjects. Indeed, the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Visigothic Gaul openly worked on behalf of Clovis, since the bishops preferred the Orthodox Franks to the heretical Arian Visigoths. Far from regarding Clovis as an anti-imperial barbarian, the Eastern Emperor Anastasius (reigned 491-519) granted Clovis the highest honors normally granted to distinguished senators in Constantinople -- the coveted ranks of consul and patrician in 508. As J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, no blind admirer of Clovis, put it in his *The Barbarian West* (N.Y.: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), page 74-75, "the Emperor had for some time been in touch with the Franks and was glad to recognize them, at the appropriate moment, as a counter-balance to Gothic power in the West." From this point on, the Eastern Empire and the Frankish Kingdom were usually allies pitted against the Arian barbarian kingdoms in the West. The Papacy too smiled on the Franks as protectors of the true faith, and called upon the later Carolingian dynasty to protect Rome from the Lombards when the Byzantine administration in central Italy collapsed in the early 8th century.:Relations began to sour when Pepin "the Short" handed what had been the Exarchate of Ravenna over to the Pope as the nucleus of the Papal States (at that time, the "Patrimony of St. Peter"). But as the Byzantines had lost that area to the Lombards, who in turn lost it to Pepin, it was his by right of conquest, and the Roman claims were admittedly weak. Later, Charlemagne had a brief border war with the Eastern Empire, but this was to force his fellow emperor in Constantinople to recognize Charlemagne's comparable position in the West.

* There never was any Carolingian "conspiracy" to overrun the Eastern Empire. (This issue has been discussed at length on the Byzans-L listhost)

* Professor Romanides and his followers appear to confuse the Greek usage of "Franks" -- which later writers applied indiscriminately to _all_ Western Latin Europeans, including Germans! -- with the original tribe that occupied Gaul. Yes, the sack of Constantinople in 1204, an event which almost everyone on this list deplores as one of the most short-sighted tragedies of history, was carried out by "Frankish" (i.e., French) minor nobility, but let's not forget the Venetians Italians!) either. The Great Schism of 1054, which split the Latin and Greek churches apart, was carried out during the pontificate of Leo IX -- a German, not a "Frank." Professor Romanides, either through ignorance of Western history or perhaps because he has an axe to grind, has blamed the poor "Franks" of the Merovingian and Carolingian states for the excesses of later people who might not have recognized nor used that name.

* Justinian was issuing his *Novellae* in Greek, not Latin, throughout his reign, because Latin was becoming a forgotten language in the East, just as Greek was vanishing in the West -- which makes claims of a prevailing linguistic and cultural continuity questionable at best.