FRANCS, FRANKIS, or FRANQUIS, a name which the Turks, Arabs, Greeks, &c. give to all the people of the western parts of Europe. The appellation is commonly supposed to have had its rise in Asia, at the time of the croisades; when the French made the most considerable figure among the croisades: from which time the Turks, Saracens, Greeks, Abyssinians, &c. used it as a common term for all the Christians of Europe; and called Europe itself Frankiflan. The Arabs and Mahometans, says M. d'Herbelot, apply the term Franks not only to the French (to whom the name originally belonged), but also to the Latins and Europeans in general.

But F. Goar, in his notes on Condivius, cap. 5. n. 43, furnishes another origin of the appellation Franki, 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 farther extended to all the Latins.

In this sense is the word used by several 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 Franconia.