FRANKS, FRANKIS, or Franquis, an appellation given by the Turks, and other nations of Asia, to all the people of the western parts of Europe, to which they give the name of Frankistan.
Frank, or Frence, primarily denotes a Frenchman; and, by extension, an European, because, according to some, the French distinguished themselves above the other nations engaged in the holy war*. But Fa. Goar, in his notes on Codinus, cap. v. n. 43. furnishes another origin of the appellation Frank, of greater antiquity than the former.—He observes, that the Greeks at first confined the name to the Franci, i. e. the
German nations, who had settled themselves in France or Gaul: but afterwards they gave the same name to the Apulians and Calabrians, after they had been conquered by the Normans; and at length the name was further extended to all the Latins. In this sense, is the word used by divers Greek writers; as Comnenus, &c. who, to distinguish the French, call them the western Franks.
Du Cange adds, that about the time of Charlemagne, they distinguished—eastern France; western France; Latin, or Roman, France; and German France, which was the ancient France, afterwards called Fraconia.