Silva Carbonaria in the context of "Neustria"

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⭐ Core Definition: Silva Carbonaria

Silva Carbonaria, the "charcoal forest", was the dense old-growth forest of beech and oak that formed a natural boundary during the Late Iron Age through Roman times into the Early Middle Ages across what is now western Wallonia. The Silva Carbonaria was a vast forest that stretched from the rivers Zenne and the Dijle in the north to the Sambre in the south. Its northern outliers reached the then marshy site of modern Brussels.

Further to the southeast, the higher elevation and deep river valleys were covered by the even less penetrable ancient Arduenna Silva, the deeply folded Ardennes, which are still partly forested to this day. To the east, the forested zone was possibly considered to extend to the Rhine. It was there in Cologne in 388 CE that the magistri militum praesentalis Nannienus and Quintinus began a counter-attack against a Frankish incursion from across the Rhine, which was fought in the Silva Carbonaria.

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👉 Silva Carbonaria in the context of Neustria

Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks during the Early Middle Ages, in contrast to the eastern Frankish sub-kingdom, Austrasia. It initially included land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, in the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities.

The same term later referred to a smaller region between the Seine and the Loire rivers known as the regnum Neustriae, a constituent subkingdom of the Carolingian Empire and then West Francia. The Carolingian kings also created a March of Neustria which was a frontier duchy against the Bretons and Vikings that lasted until the Capetian monarchy in the late 10th century, when the term was eclipsed as a European political or geographical term.

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Silva Carbonaria in the context of Treveri

The Treveri (Gaulish: *Treweroi) were a Germanic or Celtic tribe of the Belgae group who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle in modern day Germany from around 150 BCE, if not earlier, until their displacement by the Franks. Their domain lay within the southern fringes of the Silva Arduenna (Ardennes Forest), a part of the vast Silva Carbonaria, in what are now Luxembourg, southeastern Belgium and western Germany; its centre was the city of Augusta Treverorum (Trier), to which the Treveri give their name. Celtic in language, according to Tacitus they claimed Germanic descent. They contained both Gallic and Germanic influences.

Although early adopters of Roman material culture, the Treveri had a chequered relationship with Roman power. Their leader Indutiomarus led them in revolt against Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars; much later, they played a key role in the Gaulish revolt during the Year of the Four Emperors. On the other hand, the Treveri supplied the Roman army with some of its most famous cavalry, and the city of Augusta Treverorum was home for a time to the family of Germanicus, including the future emperor Gaius (Caligula). During the Crisis of the Third Century, the territory of the Treveri was overrun by Germanic Alamanni and Franks and later formed part of the Gallic Empire.

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Silva Carbonaria in the context of Merovech

Merovech (French: Mérovée, Merowig; Latin: Meroveus; c. 411 –457) was the ancestor of the Merovingian dynasty, and the grandfather of its founder Clovis I. He was reportedly a king of the Salian Franks, but records of his existence are mixed with legend and myth. The most important written source, Gregory of Tours, recorded that Merovech was said to be descended from Chlodio, a roughly contemporary Frankish warlord who pushed from the Silva Carbonaria in modern central Belgium as far south as the Somme, north of Paris in modern-day France. His supposed descendants, the kings Childeric I and Clovis I, are the first well-attested Merovingians.

He may have been one of several barbarian warlords and kings that joined forces with the Roman general Aetius against the Huns under Attila at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in Gaul in 451.

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Silva Carbonaria in the context of Hercynian Forest

The Hercynian Forest was an ancient and dense forest that stretched across Western Central Europe, from Northeastern France to the Carpathian Mountains, including most of Southern Germany, though its boundaries are a matter of debate. It formed the northern boundary of that part of Europe known to writers of Antiquity. The ancient sources are equivocal about how far east it extended. Many agree that the Black Forest, which extended east from the Rhine valley, formed the western side of the Hercynian, except, for example, Lucius of Tongeren. According to him, it included many massifs west of the Rhine.

Across the Rhine to the west extended the Silva Carbonaria, the forest of the Ardennes and the forest of the Vosges. All these old-growth forests of antiquity represented the original post-glacial temperate broadleaf forest ecosystem of Europe.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Treveri ← Merovech ← Neustria ← Hercynian Forest
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Old-growth forest → Beech forest → Gribskov → Nordsjælland → Beech → Oak → Late Iron Age → Roman times → Early Middle Ages → Wallonia → Zenne → Dijle → Sambre → Brussels → Ardennes → Rhine → Cologne → Nannienus → Franks →