is almost certainly a copyist's error for “franca”), which was a light javelin, tipped with iron sharpened on either side, a weapon fit for casting or smiting, and sometimes spoken of as a little axe; or with the francisca, which was a heavy battle-axe. It is to the Franks that the great Siegfried Saga properly belongs; and their early history is hopelessly mixed up with legend. It is not till the days of Hlodowig that any light is thrown on their institutions,—the Lex Salica, the law of the Salian Franks, and the Lex Ripuaria, of which the origin was a little later, belonging probably to the end of the 5th and the early part of the 6th centuries. The Lex Salica was afterwards enlarged and altered; in its earliest form it presents to us the Franks in their Toxandrian or Tongrian time, before Christianity had touched them. This law shows no trace of a feudal nobility or a “feudal system” of any kind; as Waitz (Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte: Das alte Recht der Salischen Franken, p. 103) says, “Das Salische Gesetz kennt keinen Adel; auch nicht die leiseste Spur desselben findet sich.” The tribes had chiefs or kings, elected by the whole body of free men from one family (as Hlodowig from among the Merwings); there were also sundry officers of justice and administration, rachimburgs or grafs, but these are no more noble than the rest of the free Franks, who formed a republic of fighting men, each man's voice being as potent in the mall as his arm was in the battle. The “læti,” or the “pueri regis,” the king's “damsels,” and the antrustions belong to the later editions of the law. King, free Frank, and slave of war,—these are the only grades. The code endeavours, always by imposition of carefully graduated fines, to protect the sanctity of the Frank's family, to determine his duties towards the king, the graf, and the tribal council or mall, to provide for the security of his property, whether personal or landed. It is in this last part of the code that we find the famous clause (Lex Salica, lix., De Alodis, § 5; Waitz, p. 266) on which the so-called Salic law of France was afterwards based: “De terra vero nulla in muliere hereditas est, sed ad virilem sexum qui fratres fuerint tota terra perteneat.” This special limitation as to the inheriting of Salic land (the Stamm-land as the Germans call it, the Odal of the Icelanders) is but a scanty basis on which to build a great law of royal succession, which lasted in France as long as the monarchy continued, and might still reappear, were the present republic to prove untrue to itself. Up to the time of the Revolution, the French noblesse prided themselves on being the “proud descendants of the conquerors;” but though it is possible, in earlier times, to trace or to fancy distinctions of feature and character, marking off the noble from the roturier or the peasant, still in the later days of the monarchy the “noble race of conquerors” was so much changed, so many old houses had become extinct, so many had been diluted with foreign blood, so many new patents of nobility had been issued, that it would require no small ingenuity and imagination to see in the courtiers of Louis XVI. the representatives of the Franks of Hlodowig or Charles the Great.
The chief authorities for the Franks are Jakob Grimm, Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, Leip., 1848; Waitz, Das alte Recht der Salischen Franken: Beilage zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte, Kiel, 1846; Gohm, Fränkische Reichs- und Gerichts-Verfassung, Weimar, 1871; Watterich, Die Germanen des Rheins, Leip., 1872. There is also an ingenious lecture by Giesebrecht. In modern days not much has been written on the Franks, except in connexion with the history of institutions. (G. W. K.)
FRANZÉN, Frans Michael (1772–1847), Swedish poet, was born at Uleåborg in Finland, 9th February 1772. At thirteen he entered the university of Åbo, where he graduated in 1789, and became “eloquentiæ docens” in 1792. Three years later he started on a tour through Denmark, Germany, France, and England, returning in 1796 to accept the office of university librarian at Åbo. In 1801 he became professor of history and ethics, and in 1808 was elected a member of the Swedish Academy. On the cession of Finland to Russia Franzén removed to Sweden, where he was successively appointed parish priest of Kumla in the diocese of Strengnäs (1810), minister of the Clara Church in Stockholm (1824), and bishop of Hernösand (1831). He died at Säbrå parsonage, 14th August 1847. From the autumn of 1793, when his Till en ung Flicka and Menniskans anlete were inserted by Kellgren in the Stockholmspost, Franzén grew in popular favour by means of many minor poems of singular simplicity and truth, as Till Selma, Den gamle knekten, Riddar St Göran, De Små, Blommorna, Modren vid vaggan, Nyårsmorgonen, and Stjernhimmelen. His songs Goda gosse glaset töm, Sörj ei den gryende dagen förut, Champagnevinet, and Bevaringssång were widely sung, and in 1797 he won the prize of the Swedish Academy by his Sång öfver grefve Filip Creutz. This noble lyric is the turning-point of Franzén's poetic life. Henceforth his muse, touched with the academic spirit, grew more reflective and didactic. His longer works, as Emili eller en afton i Lappland, and the epics Sven Sture eller mötet vid Alvastra, Kolumbus eller Amerikas upptäckt, and Gustaf Adolf i Tyskland (the last two incomplete), though rich in beauties of detail, are far inferior to his shorter pieces. Franzén was a true lyric poet, fixing with masterly art the fleeting traits of common life in a glorified and fascinating form. At a time when revolution shrieked against every traditional bond of society, the lyre of Franzén breathed innocence and peace. With gentle earnestness and naiveté he sang the sweetness of love and family life—his highest human type the prattling child, the flowery meadows his elysium. His innocence is his peculiar charm; “his very espièglerie” says Malmstrom, “is but the laugh of children's lips.”
The poetical works of Franzen are collected under the title Skaldestycken, (7 vols. , 1824-61; new ed., Samlade dikter, with a biography by A. A. Grafström, 1867-69). A selection is published in 2 vols. (1871). His prose writings, Om svenska drottningar (1823), Skrifter i obunden stil (vol. i., 1835), Predikningar (5 vols., 1841-45), and Minnesteckningar, prepared for the Academy (3 vols., 1848-60), are marked by faithful portraiture and purity of style. See Malmström, Inträdestal i Svenska Akademien (1859); Hollander, Minne af F. M. Franzén (1868); Cygnæus, Teckningar ur F. M. Franzéns lefnad (1872); and Gustaf Ljunggren, Svenska vitterhetens häfder efter Gustaf III.'s död, vol. ii. (1876).
FRANZENSBAD, Kaiser-Franzensbad, Egerbrunnen, and formerly Schladaer Säuerling, a well-known Bohemian watering-place which owes its most popular name to the emperor Francis II. It is a little over three miles N.W. of Eger, at a height of about 1500 feet above the sea, in the neighbourhood of the Fichtelgebirge, the Böhmerwald, and the Erzgebirge. There are altogether eight mineral springs, of which the first known was the Franzensquelle or Francis's fountain. The Poltersbrunnen gives off carbonic acid gas, which is utilized for medical purposes in a building erected in 1826. Besides the great cursaal or pump-room, the village contains several bathing establishments, one of which belongs to the town of Eger. In the park, which is also the property of the Eger municipality, there is a bronze statue of Francis I. by Schwanthaler. The mineral waters are saline and alkaline, and act as mild aperients and tonics. They have a great reputation, and have given rise to a considerable literature. See the works of Cartellieri (1869), Hamburger (1873), and Klein (1874).
FRASCATI, a town of Italy, in the province of Rome and about 10½ miles south of the city, with a station at the terminus of a branch railway from the main line between Rome and Naples. It is the seat of a bishop, and a favourite summer residence of the Roman nobility. Among the public buildings are the old cathedral of S. Rocco, dating
from the beginning of the 14th century; the new