Question

Why might it have been politically helpful for Clovis to convert,as he was expanding

Answer 1

Clovis was a pagan, Frankish King of the early Middle Ages that ruled a small remnant state of what had been the Province of Gaul under the Roman Empire. The Franks were all divided into very small kingdoms that often waged war between themselves. After the Fall of the Roman Empire, the only purely "Roman" authority that remained was the Roman Catholic Church and the Kingdom of Soissons, the last Gallo-Roman state. Clovis conquered this state in the Battle of Soissons (486). In Clovis' time, Gaul was also heavily populated by Goths, who were believers of a form of Christianity that had been declared as heretic by the official Catholic Church. Now, Clovis's Burgundian wife, Clotilde was a Catholic Christian and she spent years trying to convince him to convert to Catholicism. He refused until one day he was in the Battle of Tolbiac (496) and according to the account of the battle by the Gallo-Roman historian Gregory of Tours, Clovis asked God for help in the battle and promised to convert to Catholicism if he won. After his victory he was indeed baptized and was able to conquer most of ancient Gaul which would eventually become Frankia or the Kingdom of Franks. Considering that Clovis had conquered the last Roman rump state, that most of his conquered subjects were Catholics, that the last Roman authority was the Catholic church, it is not difficult to see how converting to Catholicism would not only endear him to his new subjects but would also legitimize his conquests and make an ally out of the Roman Catholic Church that held a great matter of sway and temporal power over medieval Europe. Furthermore, the history of Clovis's prayer at the Battle of Tolbiac is probably apocryphal but it very cleverly drew a parallel between Clovis's conversion and the Conversion of the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantin I the Great who also converted after asking the Christian God for help during a battle.