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Less than two years after the armies of his generals had been exterminated by Narses the weakly Theudebald died, and, as he left no brother or uncle, the East-Frankish realm was heirless. It fell by the choice of the Ripuarian folk-moot to Theudebald’s great-uncle, the aged Chlothar, king of Soissons, who thus became possessed of three-fourths of the Frankish Empire. As his brother, the still older Childebert, king of Paris, was childless, it was now certain that after fifty years of division the empire of Chlodovech was about to be once more reunited (555).

Though verging on his seventieth year, Chlothar was still energetic enough to go forth to war. When the dominions of Theudebald passed into his hands, he took up the scheme which his brother Theuderich, now twenty years dead, had once entertained, of subduing all the nations of inner Germany. Beyond the vassal Thuringians lay the independent Saxons, and against them Chlothar led out, in 555, the full force of both the Ripuarian and the Salian Franks. The Saxons, on the other hand, induced many of the Thuringians to rise in rebellion, and endeavour to shake off the Frankish yoke. The fortune of war was at first favourable to Chlothar, who put down the Thuringian insurrection without much difficulty, but when, in the next year, he led his host into the unexplored woods and moors of Saxony, he suffered such a terrible defeat that he was fain to flee behind the Rhine, and cover himself by the walls of Köln. The pursuing Saxons devastated the Trans-Rhenane possessions of the Franks up to the gates of Deutz. They were not destined to become the vassals of their western neighbours for another two hundred years.