Clovis converted to Catholicism , as opposed to the Arian Christianity that was common among Germanic peoples , because his wife , the Burgundian Clotilde , was a Catholic . Clovis was converted to Catholicism , as opposed to the Arian Christianity common among the Goths who ruled most of Gaul at the time , at the instigation of his wife , Clotilde , a Burgundian Gothic princess who was a Catholic in spite of the Arianism which surrounded her at court .