The Storied History of Clovis I

On Christmas Day in the year 496, a pagan warlord knelt in the city of Reims and was baptised a Catholic. That single act by Clovis, king of the Franks, would echo for a thousand years — making Reims the coronation city of France, binding the French crown to the Church, and tying the whole story to the wine country that surrounds it: Champagne¹.

The king who chose Rome

Clovis had already made himself master of much of Gaul, but he remained a pagan while most rival Germanic kings followed the heretical Arian form of Christianity. His Catholic wife, Clotilde, pressed him for years to convert. According to tradition, he did so at Reims on Christmas Day 496, when Bishop Remigius baptised Clovis and thousands of his warriors³. By choosing Rome over Arianism, Clovis aligned the Franks with the Catholic Church — a decision that shaped the future of France and of Europe⁴.

Christmas Day, 496: the king of the Franks was baptised at Reims.— the making of Christian France¹

A vase, a dove, and a holy oil

Two famous relics grew from Clovis’s story, both bound up with the sacred vessels of the Church. After an earlier battle, he had insisted that a precious liturgical vase looted from a church at Soissons be returned to the bishop — an early sign of his leaning toward Rome¹. And at his baptism, legend said, a dove descended from heaven bearing a vial of holy oil: the Sainte Ampoule, or Holy Ampulla².

That ampulla made Reims the anointing place of the French monarchy. For roughly a thousand years, kings of France travelled to Reims to be crowned and anointed with oil from Clovis’s vial⁵ — and their coronations were celebrated with the sparkling wine of the surrounding hills, which is how Champagne became the wine of kings.

The Church and the vine

Clovis’s conversion had a quieter but lasting consequence for wine. By tying the Franks to the Catholic Church, he helped secure the institution that would preserve and expand viticulture through the coming centuries: the monastery. Under the Merovingians and their Carolingian successors, monks became the great vintners of France, tending the vineyards of Champagne, Burgundy and beyond. The pagan king who bowed at Reims had, without knowing it, helped guarantee the future of European wine.

Frequently asked questions

Read more

• Wines served at royal coronations
• Wine, the Vatican and the Church
• Why Champagne became the wine of wealth

References

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Clovis I. ↑
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica — La Sainte Ampoule (the Holy Ampulla). ↑
3. Catholic Textbook Project — The Baptism of Europe: Christmas Day, 496. ↑
4. EBSCO Research Starters — Baptism of Clovis. ↑
5. Palais du Tau, Reims — The Reliquary of the Holy Ampoule. ↑

Recommended reading

Vintage: The Story of Wine

Hugh Johnson

Superb on how the medieval Church and its monasteries became the guardians of European wine.

A Short History of Wine

Rod Phillips

Traces wine through the fall of Rome and the rise of Christian Europe.

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