Merovingian dynasty
Merovingian Kingdoms | |
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c. 481–751 | |
History | |
• Established | c. 481 |
• Disestablished | 751 |
The Merovingian dynasty (
The dynastic name, medieval Latin Merovingi or Merohingii ("sons of Merovech"), derives from an unattested Frankish form, akin to the attested Old English Merewīowing,[2] with the final -ing being a typical Germanic patronymic suffix. The name derives from Salian King Merovech, who is at the center of many legends. Unlike the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, the Merovingians never claimed descent from a god, nor is there evidence that they were regarded as sacred.
The Merovingians' long hair distinguished them among the Franks, who commonly cut their hair short. Contemporaries sometimes referred to them as the "long-haired kings" (Latin reges criniti). A Merovingian whose hair was cut could not rule, and a rival could be removed from the succession by being tonsured and sent to a monastery. The Merovingians also used a distinct name stock. One of their names, Clovis, evolved into Louis and remained common among French royalty down to the 19th century.
The first well-known Merovingian king was Childeric I (died 481). His son Clovis I (died 511) converted to Nicene Christianity, united the Franks and conquered most of Gaul. The Merovingians treated their kingdom as single yet divisible. Clovis's four sons divided the kingdom among themselves, and it remained divided — with the exception of four short periods (558–561, 613–623, 629–634, 673–675) — down to 679. After that it was divided again only once (717–718). The main divisions of the kingdom were Austrasia, Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitaine.
During the final century of Merovingian rule, the kings were increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role. Actual power was increasingly in the hands of the mayor of the palace, the highest-ranking official under the king. In 656, the mayor Grimoald I tried to place his son Childebert on the throne in Austrasia. Grimoald was arrested and executed; but his son ruled until 662, when the Merovingian dynasty was restored. When King Theuderic IV died in 737, the mayor Charles Martel continued to rule the kingdoms without a king until his death in 741. The dynasty was restored again in 743, but in 751 Charles's son, Pepin the Short, deposed the last king, Childeric III, and had himself crowned, inaugurating the Carolingian dynasty.
Legendary origins
The 7th-century Chronicle of Fredegar implies that the Merovingians were descended from a sea-beast called a quinotaur:
It is said that while Chlodio was staying at the seaside with his wife one summer, his wife went into the sea at midday to bathe, and a beast of Neptune rather like a Quinotaur found her. In the event she was made pregnant, either by the beast or by her husband, and she gave birth to a son called Merovech, from whom the kings of the Franks have subsequently been called Merovingians.[3]
In the past, this tale was regarded as an authentic piece of
In 1906, the British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie suggested that the Marvingi recorded by Ptolemy as living near the Rhine were the ancestors of the Merovingian dynasty.[5]
History
In 486
Upon Clovis's death in 511, the Merovingian kingdom included all of Gaul except
Division of the kingdom
Internally, the kingdom was divided among Clovis's sons and later among his grandsons and frequently saw war between the different kings, who allied amongst themselves and against one another. The death of one king created conflict between the surviving brothers and the deceased's sons, with differing outcomes. Later, conflicts were intensified by the personal feud around Brunhilda. However, yearly warfare often did not constitute general devastation but took on an almost ritual character, with established 'rules' and norms.[8]
Reunification of the kingdom
Eventually,
The frequent wars had weakened royal power, while the aristocracy had made great gains and procured enormous concessions from the kings in return for their support. These concessions saw the very considerable power of the king parcelled out and retained by leading comites and duces (counts and dukes). Very little is in fact known about the course of the 7th century due to a scarcity of sources, but Merovingians remained in power until the 8th century.
Weakening of the kingdom
Clotaire's son Dagobert I (died 639), who sent troops to Spain and pagan Slavic territories in the east, is commonly seen as the last powerful Merovingian King. Later kings are known as rois fainéants[1] ("do-nothing kings"), despite the fact that only the last two kings did nothing. The kings, even strong-willed men like Dagobert II and Chilperic II, were not the main agents of political conflicts, leaving this role to their mayors of the palace, who increasingly substituted their own interest for their king's.[9] Many kings came to the throne at a young age and died in the prime of life, weakening royal power further.
Return to power
The conflict between mayors was ended when the Austrasians under
After Pepin's long rule, his son
Government
The Merovingian king redistributed conquered wealth among his followers, both material wealth and the land including its indentured peasantry, though these powers were not absolute. As Rouche points out, "When he died his property was divided equally among his heirs as though it were private property: the kingdom was a form of patrimony."[10] Some scholars have attributed this to the Merovingians' lacking a sense of res publica, but other historians have criticized this view as an oversimplification.
The kings appointed magnates to be
The counts had to provide armies, enlisting their milites and endowing them with land in return. These armies were subject to the king's call for military support. Annual national assemblies of the nobles and their armed retainers decided major policies of war making. The army also acclaimed new kings by raising them on its shields continuing an ancient practice that made the king leader of the warrior-band. Furthermore, the king was expected to support himself with the products of his private domain (
Trade declined with the fall of the Roman Empire, and agricultural estates were mostly self-sufficient. The remaining international trade was dominated by Middle Eastern merchants, often Jewish Radhanites.
Law
Merovingian law was not universal law equally applicable to all; it was applied to each man according to his origin: Ripuarian Franks were subject to their own
Coinage
Byzantine coinage was in use in Francia before Theudebert I began minting his own money at the start of his reign. He was the first to issue distinctly Merovingian coinage. On gold coins struck in his royal workshop, Theudebert is shown in the pearl-studded regalia of the Byzantine emperor; Childebert I is shown in profile in the ancient style, wearing a toga and a diadem. The solidus and triens were minted in Francia between 534 and 679. The denarius (or denier) appeared later, in the name of Childeric II and various non-royals around 673–675. A Carolingian denarius replaced the Merovingian one, and the Frisian penning, in Gaul from 755 to the 11th century.
Merovingian coins are on display at the
Religion
Numerous Merovingians who served as
The vitae et miracula, for impressive
Significant individuals
Kings
Queens and abbesses
- Genovefa (died 502)
- Clothilde, queen of the Franks (died 545)
- Monegund (died 544)
- Thuringian princess who founded a monastery at Poitiers(died 587)
- Rusticula, abbess of Arles (died 632)
- Caesaria II, abbess of St Jean of Arles (died c. 550)
- Brunhilda, queen of Austrasia (died 613)
- Fredegund, queen of Neustria (died 597)
- Glodesind, abbess in Metz (died c. 600)
- Burgundofara, abbess of Moutiers (died 645)
- Sadalberga, abbess of Laon (died 670)
- Rictrude, founding abbess of Marchiennes (died 688)
- Itta, founding abbess of Nivelles (died 652)
- Begga, abbess of Andenne (died 693)
- Gertrude of Nivelles, abbess of Nivelles (died 658) presented in The Life of St. Geretrude (in Fouracre and Gerberding 1996)
- Aldegonde, abbess of Mauberges(died c. 684)
- Waltrude, abbess of Mons (died c. 688)
- Balthild, queen of the Franks (died ca 680), presented in The Life of Lady Bathild, Queen of the Franks (in Fouracre and Gerberding 1996)
- Eustadiola (died 684)
- Bertilla, abbess of Chelles (died c. 700)
- Anstrude, abbess of Laon (died before 709)
- Austreberta, abbess of Pavilly (died 703)
Language
Historiography and sources
A limited number of contemporary sources describe the history of the Merovingian Franks, but those that survive cover the entire period from Clovis's succession to Childeric's deposition. First among chroniclers of the age is the
The next major source, far less organised than Gregory's work, is the
Aside from these chronicles, the only surviving reservoirs of historiography are documentary sources (letters, charters, laws, etc.) and hagiography. Clerical men such as Gregory and Sulpitius the Pious were letter-writers, though relatively few letters survive. Edicts, grants, and judicial decisions survive, as well as the famous Lex Salica, mentioned above. From the reign of Clotaire II and Dagobert I survive many examples of the royal position as the supreme justice and final arbiter. There also survive biographies of saints of the period, for instance Saint Eligius and Leodegar, written soon after their subjects' deaths.
Finally, archaeological evidence cannot be ignored as a source for information, at the very least, on the Frankish mode of life. Among the greatest discoveries of lost objects was the 1653 accidental uncovering of Childeric I's tomb in the church of Saint Brice in
Family tree
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In popular culture
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The Merovingians play a prominent role in
The Merovingians feature in the novel
The Merovingians are featured in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) where they are depicted as descendants of Jesus, inspired by the "Priory of Sion" story developed by Pierre Plantard in the 1960s. Plantard playfully sold the story as non-fiction, giving rise to a number of works of pseudohistory among which The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was the most successful. The "Priory of Sion" material has given rise to later works in popular fiction, notably The Da Vinci Code (2003), which mentions the Merovingians in chapter 60.[21]
The title of "
See also
References
- ^ a b Pfister, Christian (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 172–172. . In
- Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1993: 1415
- ^ ISBN 90-04-11862-4.
- ISBN 978-0-8020-0779-7.
- JSTOR 1193258.
Probably among this confederacy should be included the Marvingi* of Ptolemy, to the south of the Catti, ... who seem to have given the Merving family to rule the Franks
- ISBN 9781329514553.
- S2CID 162248053.
- ISBN 978-1-134-55387-7.
- Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-09-22.
- ^ Rouche 1987, p. 420.
- ^ James, Edward; Holmes, George (1988). The Oxford History of Medieval Europe. Great Britain: Oxford University Press. p. 88.
- ^ Beyerle & Buchner 1954.
- ^ Rouche 1987, p. 423.
- ISBN 9780198269069.
- S2CID 163623643.
- ISBN 978-0-7190-4791-6.
- ^ ISBN 90-04-10347-3.
- ISBN 978-0-8196-0191-9.
- ^ Pour moi, l'histoire de France commence avec Clovis, choisi comme roi de France par la tribu des Francs, qui donnèrent leur nom à la France. Avant Clovis, nous avons la Préhistoire gallo-romaine et gauloise. L'élément décisif pour moi, c'est que Clovis fut le premier roi à être baptisé chrétien. Mon pays est un pays chrétien et je commence à compter l'histoire de France à partir de l'accession d'un roi chrétien qui porte le nom des Francs. cited in the biography by David Schœnbrun, 1965.
- ISBN 978-0-307-47232-8.
- ^ Stephen Andrew Missick, The Hammer of God, (self-published) p. 175.
Further reading
- Beyerle, F; Buchner, R. (1997) [1954]. Lex Ribvaria (in Latin). Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung. OCLC 849259009.
- Effros, Bonnie (2010) [2002]. Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World. Penn State Press. ISBN 978-0-271-04532-0.
- Esders, Stefan, ed. (2019). The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World: Revisiting the Sources. et al. Bloomsbury Academic.
- ISBN 978-3-17-019473-1.
- ISBN 978-0-19-504458-4.
- Kaiser, Reinhold (2004). Das römische Erbe und das Merowingerreich [The Roman Heritage and the Merovingian Empire]. Enzyklopädie deutscher Geschichte (in German). Vol. 26. ISBN 978-3-486-56722-9.
- Oman, Charles (1898). The Dark Ages, 476–918 (3rd ed.). Rivingtons.
- Rouche, Michel (1987). "Private life conquers State and Society". In Ariès, Philippe; Veyne, Paul; Duby, Georges (eds.). From pagan Rome to Byzantium. A History of Private Life. Vol. 1 (5th ed.). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 419–. ISBN 978-0-674-39975-4.
- ISBN 978-3-421-06451-6.
- Wood, Ian N. (1994). The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751. Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-49372-8.
External links
Merovingian dynasty.