ble part of the inheritance. It is very probable that, by then, the Franks in Gaul were already speaking the local patois, which was Latin with an admixture of German words. The testimony of the Treaty of Verdun from 843 AD is clear enough. The ruling aristocracy was there; they certainly were aware where they came from, but they were already in the process of becoming French, Spaniard, Italians and Spaniards, and spoke a patois common to them and the population they ruled. It was not a one-time process. The Visigoths in Italy, who were the first of the German tribes to settle there, were chased out by the Ostrogoths and the Heruli, who were in turn ousted by the Langobards. The Visigoths moved on to Spain and southwestern Gaul, from where they were evicted by the Franks. It was like a game of musical chairs, where everybody was against everybody, sometimes with curious results. The Angles and the Jutes, from Jutland in Denmark conquered England, together with the Saxons from the area of the Elbe estuary. They founded a number of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England, Five hundred years later, their descendants were ousted by the descendants of the area from where the original conquerors originated. The new conquerors came from Denmark through Normandy. It seems complicated but it is not. There were always challengers; some succeeded some not. ...
