Austrasia is a territory which formed the northeastern section of the Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks during the 6th to 8th centuries. Austrasia, centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers, was the original territory of the Ripuarian Frankish tribes prior to the unification of all Franks under the Salian Frank Clovis I. In AD 567, it became a separate kingdom within the Frankish kingdom and was ruled by Sigebert I. In the 7th and 8th century it was the powerbase from which the Carolingians, originally mayors of the palace of Austrasia, took over the rule of all Franks from the Salian Merovingians. Austrasia gradually lost its territorial character after the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire in the second half of the 9th century.