446 Readings in European History names which they keep even until to-day of Franks and Turks. Having advanced inland, they soon found themselves in Thrace on the banks of the Danube ; but Turck soon sepa- rated from Francius, his cousin, in order to establish a king- dom in lower Scythia. We have here the origin of the Oster Goths, the Hypo Goths, the Vandals, and the Normans. Francius, on his part, established himself in the neighbor- hood of the Danube, and there he founded his state under the name of Sicambria. There he and his descendants reigned for the space of 1507 years, until the time of the emperor Valentinian, who came to the throne in the year 376 of the Incarnation of our Lord. They were then driven from their country because they refused to pay, like the other nations, a tribute to the Romans. . . . They finally established themselves upon the banks of the Rhine in a country neighboring upon Germany and Ale- mannia, called Austrasia. Valentinian, having tried their courage in many conflicts without ever being able to vanquish them, called this people by their proper name of " Franks," that is to say, in the language of the North, Feranc that is ferocious. The Franks soon increased their power to such an extent that they finally conquered all Germany, and Gaul as far as the Pyrenees and beyond. IV. ABELARD AND THE UNIVERSITIES While Abelard was not the first teacher to attract students to Paris, his great gifts and his remarkable popularity served to arouse such enthusiasm for learning that it was not long after, his death that the teachers and students became so numerous that they organized themselves into guilds, or corporations, which formed the basis of the later university. It is not difficult to understand the charm of Abelard's leaching. Three qualities are assigned to it by the writers
