<P> Clovis was the son of Childeric I, a Merovingian king of the Salian Franks, and Basina, a Thuringian princess . In 481, at the age of fifteen, Clovis succeeded his father . He conquered the vestigial rump state of the Western Roman Empire controlled by Syagrius at the Battle of Soissons (486), and by the time of his death in 511 he had conquered much of the northern and western parts of what had formerly been Roman Gaul . </P> <P> Clovis is important in the historiography of France as "the first king of what would become France". His name is Germanic, composed of the elements hlod ("fame") and wig ("combat"), and is the origin of the later French given name Louis, borne by 18 kings of France . Dutch, the most closely related modern language to Frankish, reborrowed the name as Lodewijk from German in the 12th century . </P> <P> Clovis is also significant due to his conversion to Christianity in 496, largely at the behest of his wife, Clotilde, who would later be venerated as a saint for this act, celebrated today in both the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church . Clovis was baptized on Christmas Day in 508 . The adoption by Clovis of Catholicism (as opposed to the Arianism of most other Germanic tribes) led to widespread conversion among the Frankish peoples, to religious unification across what is now modern - day France, Belgium and Germany, and three centuries later to Charlemagne's alliance with the Bishop of Rome and in the middle of the 10th century under Otto I the Great to the consequent birth of the early Holy Roman Empire . </P> <P> Numerous small Frankish kingdoms existed during the 5th century . The Salian Franks were the Frankish tribe that after 274 had occupied the area south of the lower Rhine known as Toxandria, roughly the current province of North Brabant in the current Netherlands and the provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant in current Belgium . After the collapse of Roman power in the last days of 406 the Salian Franks had expanded to the area south of the military highway Boulogne - Cologne . The powerbase of Clovis's father was the area around Tournai, in the current province of Hainault, along the modern frontier between France and Belgium . </P>

What led to the conversion of the franks to christianity