division can be discovered among Germanic peoples other than the Franks. The later Merovingian kings responsible for the conquest of Gaul are thought to have had Salian ancestry, because they applied so-called Salian law (Lex Salica) in their Roman-populated territories between the Loire and Silva Carbonaria, although they also clearly had connections with the Rhineland or Ripuarian Franks. The Lex Ripuaria originated about 630 and has been described as a later development of the Frankish laws known from Lex Salica. On the other hand, following the interpretation of Springer the Lex Salica may simply have meant something like "Common Law". Culture Apart from some isolated fragments, there is no record of the Salian Frankish language but it is presumed to be ancestral to the modern family of Low Franconian dialects, which are represented today by Dutch and Flemish dialects, and Afrikaans. Before the Merovingian takeover, the Salian tribes apparently constituted a loose confederacy that only occasionally banded together, for example to negotiate with Roman authority. Each tribe consisted of extended family groups centered on a particularly renowned or noble family. The importance of the family bond was made clear by the Salic Law, which ordained that an individual had no right to protection if not part of a family. While the Goths or the Vandals had been at least partly converted to Christianity since the mid-4th century, polytheistic beliefs are thought to have flourished among the Salian Franks until the conversion of Clovis to Catholicism shortly before or after 500, after which paganism diminished gradually. On the other hand it is possible many Salians in Gaul were already Arian Christians, like contemporary Germanic kingdoms. Notes Bibliography Primary sources Ammianus Marcellinus, History of the Later Roman Empire. Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum (Ten Books of Histories, better known as the Historia Francorum). Zosimus (1814): New History, London, Green and Chaplin. Book 1. Panegyrici Latini Secondary sources Anderson, Thomas. 1995. "Roman Military Colonies in Gaul, Salian Ethnogenesis and the Forgotten Meaning of Pactus Legis Salicae 59.5". Early Medieval Europe 4 (2): 129–44. Musset, Lucien : The Germanic Invasions: The Making of Europe, AD 400–600,1975, , p. 68. Perry, Walter Copland (1857). The Franks, from Their First Appearance in History to the Death of King Pepin. Longman, Brown, Green: 1857. Wood, Ian, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751 AD. 1994. Early Germanic peoples Frankish people