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96-622: Under the Merovingians and Carolingians , the fisc (from Latin fiscus , whence we derive "fiscal") applied to the royal demesne which paid taxes, entirely in kind , from which the royal household was meant to be supported, though it rarely was. Though their personal territory was at first enormous, the Merovingian kings, faced with stiff resistance to taxation from their Frankish and Gallo-Roman subjects and ill-served by their illiterate peers, relied on constant conquests to renew

192-483: A Christian. My country is a Christian country and I reckon the history of France beginning with the accession of a Christian king who bore the name of the Franks". The Merovingians feature in the novel In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust : "The Merovingians are important to Proust because, as the oldest French dynasty, they are the most romantic and their descendants the most aristocratic." The word "Merovingian"

288-648: A certain unity in Gaul, Charles saved it from a great peril. In 711 the Arabs had conquered Spain. In 720 they crossed the Pyrenees, seized Narbonensis, a dependency of the kingdom of the Visigoths, and advanced on Gaul. By his able policy Odo succeeded in arresting their progress for some years; but a new vali, Abdur Rahman , a member of an extremely fanatical sect, resumed the attack, reached Poitiers, and advanced on Tours,

384-626: A cessation of hostilities if Chilperic would recognize his rights as mayor of the palace in Austrasia. The refusal was not unexpected but served to impress upon Charles's forces the unreasonableness of the Neustrians. They met near Cambrai at the Battle of Vincy on 21 March 717. The victorious Charles pursued the fleeing king and mayor to Paris, but as he was not yet prepared to hold the city, he turned back to deal with Plectrude and Cologne. He took

480-595: A closer inspection for that fact alone: like Gregory of Tours , they were almost without exception from the Gallo-Roman aristocracy in regions south and west of Merovingian control. The most characteristic form of Merovingian literature is represented by the Lives of the saints. Merovingian hagiography did not set out to reconstruct a biography in the Roman or the modern sense, but to attract and hold popular devotion by

576-464: A darker reputation, for his alleged abuse of church property. A ninth-century text, the Visio Eucherii , possibly written by Hincmar of Reims , portrayed Charles as suffering in hell for this reason. According to British medieval historian Paul Fouracre , this was "the single most important text in the construction of Charles's reputation as a seculariser or despoiler of church lands". By

672-510: A king, though he did not assume royal dignity. His sons Carloman and Pepin again appointed a Merovingian figurehead ( Childeric III ) to stem rebellion on the kingdom's periphery. However, in 751, Pepin finally displaced the last Merovingian and, with the support of the nobility and the blessing of Pope Zachary , became one of the Frankish kings. The Merovingian king redistributed conquered wealth among his followers, both material wealth and

768-433: A king, was the political ruler of the Frankish kingdom and left this position as a heritage to his sons. It was now the sons of the mayor that divided the realm among each other under the rule of a single king. After Pepin's long rule, his son Charles Martel assumed power, fighting against nobles and his own stepmother. His reputation for ruthlessness further undermined the king's position. Under Charles Martel's leadership,

864-680: A location between the French cities of Tours and Poitiers , in a victory described by the Continuations of Fredegar . According to the historian Bernard Bachrach , the Arab army, mostly mounted, failed to break through the Frankish infantry. News of this battle spread, and may be recorded in Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Book V, ch. 23). However, it is not given prominence in Arabic sources from

960-409: A note of unfinished business". Charles married twice, his first wife being Rotrude of Treves , daughter either of Lambert II, Count of Hesbaye , or of Leudwinus , Count of Treves. They had the following children: Most of the children married and had issue. Hiltrud married Odilo I ( Duke of Bavaria ). Landrade was once believed to have married a Sigrand (Count of Hesbania) but Sigrand's wife

1056-427: 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. In

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1152-552: A series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule." More recently, the memory of Charles has been appropriated by far right and white nationalist groups, such as the ' Charles Martel Group ' in France, and by

1248-585: A single ruler. Even when divided under different kings, the kingdom maintained unity and conquered Burgundy in 534. Upon Clovis's death in 511, the Merovingian kingdom included all of Gaul except Burgundy and all of Germania magna except Saxony . After the fall of the Ostrogoths , the Franks also conquered Provence . After this their borders with Italy (ruled by the Lombards since 568) and Visigothic Septimania remained fairly stable. Internally,

1344-525: A sobriquet in Old French for "The Hammer", was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace , was the de facto ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida . Charles successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind

1440-583: A very consequential victory against an Umayyad invasion of Aquitaine at the Battle of Tours , at a time when the Umayyad Caliphate controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula . Alongside his military endeavours, Charles has been traditionally credited with an influential role in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism . At the end of his reign, Charles divided Francia between his sons, Carloman and Pepin . The latter became

1536-666: Is by no means certain—made no claim to be descended from a god". 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. In 486 Clovis I , the son of Childeric, defeated Syagrius , a Roman military leader who competed with the Merovingians for power in northern France. He won

1632-497: Is the Liber Historiae Francorum , an anonymous adaptation of Gregory's work apparently ignorant of Fredegar's chronicle: its author(s) ends with a reference to Theuderic IV 's sixth year, which would be 727. It was widely read; though it was undoubtedly a piece of Arnulfing work, and its biases cause it to mislead (for instance, concerning the two decades between the controversies surrounding mayors Grimoald

1728-550: Is used as an adjective at least five times in The Way By Swann’s . 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

1824-570: The Battle of Tolbiac against the Alemanni in 496, according to Gregory of Tours , Clovis adopted his wife Clotilda 's Orthodox—i.e., Nicene — Christian faith at a time when other Germanic tribes were largely Arian . He subsequently went on to decisively defeat the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouillé in 507. After Clovis's death, his kingdom was partitioned among his four sons. This tradition of partition continued over

1920-535: The Byzantine Empire . The few surviving Merovingian edicts are almost entirely concerned with settling divisions of estates among heirs. 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

2016-543: The Merovingians had ceded power to the Mayors of the Palace , who controlled the royal treasury, dispensed patronage, and granted land and privileges in the name of the figurehead king. Charles's father, Pepin of Herstal, had united the Frankish realm by conquering Neustria and Burgundy . Pepin was the first to call himself Duke and Prince of the Franks, a title later taken up by Charles. In December 714, Pepin of Herstal died. A few months before his death and shortly after

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2112-598: The Teutoburg Forest and thus secured the Frankish border. When the Frisian leader Radbod died in 719, Charles seized West Frisia without any great resistance on the part of the Frisians , who had been subjected to the Franks but had rebelled upon the death of Pippin. When Chilperic II died in 721, Charles appointed as his successor the son of Dagobert III, Theuderic IV , who was still a minor, and who occupied

2208-668: The Valois era. In this the Franks lagged behind the Burgundians and the Visigoths, that they had no universal Roman-based law. In Merovingian times, law was handled by officials called rachimburgs , who memorised the set of legal precedents which formed the basis for their society's laws, for Merovingian society did not allow the concept of creating new law, only of maintaining tradition. Nor did its Germanic traditions offer any code of civil law required of urbanised society, such as Justinian I caused to be assembled and promulgated in

2304-437: The fisc which they were in the habit of granting away to ensure continued fidelity among their followers. Once fresh Frankish conquests were no longer forthcoming, constant redivision of the "fisc" among heirs reduced Merovingian kingship to a cluster of competitive kinglets subsisting on inadequate resources. Annual contributions in kind, of grain, produce, fodder, etc., were unwieldy to transport and not easily convertible, so

2400-500: 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

2496-658: The 11th century. Merovingian coins are on display at the Monnaie de Paris in Paris; there are Merovingian gold coins at the Bibliothèque Nationale , Cabinet des Médailles . Christianity was introduced to the Franks by their contact with Gallo-Romanic culture and later further spread by monks . The most famous of these missionaries is St. Columbanus (d 615), an Irish monk. Merovingian kings and queens used

2592-469: The 720s onwards. Indeed, the anonymous Chronicle of 754 records a victory for Odo in 721 at the Battle of Toulouse , while the Liber Pontificalis records that Odo had killed 375,000 Saracens. It is more likely that this invasion or raid took place in revenge for Odo's support for a rebel Berber leader named Munnuza . Whatever the precise circumstances were, it is clear that an army under

2688-474: The 7th century due to a scarcity of sources, but Merovingians remained in power until the 8th century. 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 ("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

2784-564: The Agilolfing Princess Swanachild as a second wife. In 725 and 728, he again entered Bavaria but, in 730, he marched against Lantfrid , Duke of Alemannia, who had also become independent, and killed him in battle. He forced the Alemanni to capitulate to Frankish suzerainty and did not appoint a successor to Lantfrid. Thus, southern Germany once more became part of the Frankish kingdom, as had northern Germany during

2880-565: 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

2976-513: The Elder and Ebroin : 652–673). 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

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3072-399: The Frankish dux (that is, duke ) of Burgundy . Older historiography commonly describes Charles as "illegitimate", but the dividing line between wives and concubines was not clear-cut in eighth-century Francia. It is likely that the accusation of "illegitimacy" derives from the desire of Pepin's first wife Plectrude to see her progeny as heirs to Pepin's throne. By Charles's lifetime

3168-624: The Frankish settlements being located along the Lower and Middle Rhine . The further south in Gaul one traveled, the weaker the Frankish influence became. Hen finds hardly any evidence for Frankish settlements south of the Loire . The absence of Frankish literature sources suggests that the Frankish language was forgotten rather rapidly after the early stage of the dynasty. Hen believes that for Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitania, Vulgar Latin remained

3264-426: 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 until 679 with the exception of four short periods (558–561, 613–623, 629–634, 673–675). After that it was divided again only once (717–718). The main divisions of the kingdom were Austrasia , Neustria , Burgundy and Aquitaine . During

3360-737: The Franks defeated the Moors at the Battle of Tours in 732. After the victory of 718 of the Bulgarian Khan Tervel and the Emperor of Byzantium Leo III the Isaurian over the Arabs led by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik prevented the attempts of Islam to expand into eastern Europe, the victory of Charles Martel at Tours limited its expansion onto the west of the European continent. During the last years of his life, he even ruled without

3456-628: The Franks in return for legitimate royal affirmation of his own mayoralty over all the kingdoms. Between 718 and 732, Charles secured his power through a series of victories. Having unified the Franks under his banner, Charles was determined to punish the Saxons who had invaded Austrasia. Therefore, late in 718, he laid waste their country to the banks of the Weser , the Lippe , and the Ruhr . He defeated them in

3552-503: The Frisians and met Charles in battle near Cologne , which was still held by Plectrude. Charles had little time to gather men or prepare and the result was inevitable. The Frisians held off Charles, while the king and his mayor besieged Plectrude at Cologne, where she bought them off with a substantial portion of Pepin's treasure. After that they withdrew. The Battle of Cologne is the only defeat of Charles's career. Charles retreated to

3648-492: The Great (or Eudes, as he is sometimes known), the duke of Aquitaine , who had become independent during the civil war in 715, but was again defeated, at the Battle of Soissons , by Charles. Chilperic fled with his ducal ally to the land south of the Loire and Raganfrid fled to Angers . Soon Chlotar IV died and Odo surrendered King Chilperic in exchange for Charles recognizing his dukedom. Charles recognized Chilperic as king of

3744-632: 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. The title of " Merovingian " (also known as "the Frenchman") is used as the name for a fictional character and a supporting antagonist of the films The Matrix Reloaded , The Matrix Revolutions and The Matrix Resurrections . Charles Martel Charles Martel ( / m ɑːr ˈ t ɛ l / ; c.  688 – 22 October 741), Martel being

3840-481: The Younger Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and Metz and Trier in the "Mosel duchy". Grifo was given several lands throughout the kingdom, but at a later date, just before Charles died. Earlier in his life Charles had many internal opponents and felt the need to appoint his own kingly claimant, Chlotar IV . Later, however, the dynamics of rulership in Francia had changed, and no hallowed Merovingian ruler

3936-514: The chances of preserving his life's work were better with a successful field commander like Charles than with Plectrude in Cologne. Willibrord subsequently baptized Charles's son Pepin . Gerberding suggests a likely date of Easter 716. Charles also received support from bishop Pepo of Verdun. Charles took time to rally more men and prepare. By the following spring, he had attracted enough support to invade Neustria. Charles sent an envoy who proposed

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4032-479: The city and dispersed her adherents. Plectrude was allowed to retire to a convent. Theudoald lived to 741 under his uncle's protection. Upon this success, Charles proclaimed Chlothar IV king in Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic and deposed Rigobert , archbishop of Reims , replacing him with Milo , a lifelong supporter. In 718, Chilperic responded to Charles's new ascendancy by making an alliance with Odo

4128-623: The civil wars of Charles' reign. The next six years were devoted in their entirety to assuring Frankish authority over the neighboring political groups. Between 720 and 723, Charles was fighting in Bavaria, where the Agilolfing dukes had gradually evolved into independent rulers, recently in alliance with Liutprand the Lombard . He forced the Alemanni to accompany him, and Duke Hugbert submitted to Frankish suzerainty. In 725 he brought back

4224-623: The days when he was tottering on excommunication, and set the stage for his son and grandson to assert themselves in the peninsula. Charles died on 22 October 741, at Quierzy-sur-Oise in what is today the Aisne département in the Picardy region of France. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica in Paris . His territories had been divided among his adult sons a year earlier: to Carloman he gave Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia, and to Pippin

4320-594: The duke at the Battle of the Boarn . Charles ordered the Frisian pagan shrines destroyed, and so wholly subjugated the populace that the region was peaceful for twenty years after. In 735, Duke Odo of Aquitaine died. Though Charles wished to rule the duchy directly and went there to elicit the submission of the Aquitanians, the aristocracy proclaimed Odo's son, Hunald I of Aquitaine , as duke, and Charles and Hunald eventually recognised each other's position. In 737, at

4416-478: The eighteenth century, historians such as Edward Gibbon had begun to portray the Frankish leader as the saviour of Christian Europe from a full-scale Islamic invasion. In the nineteenth century, the German historian Heinrich Brunner argued that Charles had confiscated church lands in order to fund military reforms that allowed him to defeat the Arab conquests, in this way brilliantly combining two traditions about

4512-541: The enemy's unpreparedness, this was not necessary. In any event, the suddenness of the assault led them to believe they were facing a much larger host. Many of the enemy fled and Charles's troops gathered the spoils of the camp. His reputation increased considerably as a result, and he attracted more followers. This battle is often considered by historians as the turning point in Charles's struggle. Richard Gerberding points out that up to this time, much of Charles's support

4608-405: The entire Frankish realm under one ruler. 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

4704-683: The fate of King Roderick at the Rio Barbate, it is doubtful that a "do-nothing" sovereign of the Merovingian realm could have later succeeded where his talented major domus had failed. Indeed, as Charles was the progenitor of the Carolingian line of Frankish rulers and grandfather of Charlemagne, one can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had 'Abd al-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732." And in 1993,

4800-512: 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

4896-404: 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

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4992-649: The first king of the Carolingian dynasty . Pepin's son Charlemagne , grandson of Charles, extended the Frankish realms and became the first emperor in the West since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire . Charles, nicknamed "Martel" ("the Hammer") in later chronicles, was a son of Pepin of Herstal and his mistress, possible second wife, Alpaida . He had a brother named Childebrand , who later became

5088-506: The first years of the reign. In 731, after defeating the Saxons, Charles turned his attention to the rival southern realm of Aquitaine, and crossed the Loire, breaking the treaty with Duke Odo. The Franks ransacked Aquitaine twice, and captured Bourges , although Odo retook it. The Continuations of Fredegar allege that Odo called on assistance from the recently established emirate of al-Andalus, but there had been Arab raids into Aquitaine from

5184-572: The formulas of elaborate literary exercises, through which the Frankish Church channeled popular piety within orthodox channels, defined the nature of sanctity and retained some control over the posthumous cults that developed spontaneously at burial sites, where the life-force of the saint lingered, to do good for the votary . The vitae et miracula , for impressive miracles were an essential element of Merovingian hagiography, were read aloud on saints' feast days. Many Merovingian saints, and

5280-477: The greatest discoveries of lost objects was the 1653 accidental uncovering of Childeric I's tomb in the church of Saint Brice in Tournai . The grave objects included a golden bull's head and the famous golden insects (perhaps bees, cicadas, aphids, or flies) on which Napoleon modelled his coronation cloak. In 1957, the sepulchre of a Merovingian woman at the time believed to be Clotaire I 's second wife, Aregund ,

5376-456: The hills of the Eifel to gather and train men. In April 716, he fell upon the triumphant army near Malmedy as it was returning to Neustria. In the ensuing Battle of Amblève , Charles attacked as the enemy rested at midday. According to one source, he split his forces into several groups which fell at them from many sides. Another suggests that while this was his intention, he then decided, given

5472-483: 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 canonised bishop of Tours , Gregory of Tours . His Decem Libri Historiarum is a primary source for the reigns of the sons of Clotaire II and their descendants until Gregory's own death in 594, but must be read with account of

5568-506: The holy town of Gaul. In October 732—just 100 years after the death of Mahomet —Charles gained a brilliant victory over Abdur Rahman , who was called back to Africa by revolts of the Berbers and had to give up the struggle. ...After his victory, Charles took the offensive". Similarly, William E. Watson , who wrote of the battle's importance in Frankish and world history in 1993, suggested that "Had Charles Martel suffered at Tours-Poitiers

5664-432: The influential political scientist Samuel Huntington saw the battle of Tours as marking the end of the "Arab and Moorish surge west and north". Other recent historians, however, argue that the importance of the battle is dramatically overstated, both for European history in general and for Charles's reign in particular. This view is typified by Alessandro Barbero , who in 2004 wrote, "Today, historians tend to play down

5760-440: The inheritance of older Merovingian children. This pragmatic use of monasteries ensured close ties between elites and monastic properties. Numerous Merovingians who served as bishops and abbots, or who generously funded abbeys and monasteries, were rewarded with sainthood. The outstanding handful of Frankish saints who were not of the Merovingian kinship nor the family alliances that provided Merovingian counts and dukes, deserve

5856-519: The judgment of disputes. This happened against the backdrop of a newly isolated Europe without its Roman systems of taxation and bureaucracy , the Franks having taken over administration as they gradually penetrated into the thoroughly Romanised west and south of Gaul. By the time of Dagobert I , governmental documents were recognizably Roman, it is by then written in Latin on imported papyrus similar to Roman bureaucratic norms and where it also made use of

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5952-452: The king leader of the warrior-band. Furthermore, the king was expected to support himself with the products of his private domain ( royal demesne ), which was called the fisc . This system developed in time into feudalism , and expectations of royal self-sufficiency lasted until the Hundred Years' War . Trade declined with the fall of the Roman Empire , and agricultural estates were mostly self-sufficient. The remaining international trade

6048-565: 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. Eventually, Clotaire II in 613 reunited

6144-521: 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." 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 comites (counts), charging them with defense , administration , and

6240-419: The leadership of Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi headed north, and after some minor engagements marched on the wealthy city of Tours. According to British medieval historian Paul Fouracre , "Their campaign should perhaps be interpreted as a long-distance raid rather than the beginning of a war". They were, however, defeated by the army of Charles at the Battle of Tours (known in France as the Battle of Poitiers), at

6336-420: The leadership of Maurontus . Charles used the relative peace to set about integrating the outlying realms of his empire into the Frankish church. He erected four dioceses in Bavaria ( Salzburg , Regensburg , Freising , and Passau ) and gave them Boniface as archbishop and metropolitan over all Germany east of the Rhine, with his seat at Mainz . Boniface had been under his protection from 723 on. Indeed,

6432-422: 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. Many kings came to the throne at a young age and died in the prime of life, weakening royal power further. The conflict between mayors was ended when the Austrasians under Pepin the Middle triumphed in 687 in the Battle of Tertry . After this, Pepin, though not

6528-450: The majority of female saints, were local ones, venerated only within strictly circumscribed regions; their cults were revived in the High Middle Ages, when the population of women in religious orders increased enormously. Judith Oliver noted five Merovingian female saints in the diocese of Liège who appeared in a long list of saints in the late 13th-century Lardanchet psalter–hours . The vitae of six late Merovingian saints that illustrate

6624-412: The murder of his son Grimoald the Younger , he had taken the advice of his wife Plectrude to designate as his sole heir Theudoald , his grandson by their deceased son Grimoald . This was immediately opposed by the Austrasian nobles because Theudoald was a child of only eight years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, Plectrude had him imprisoned in Cologne , the city which

6720-501: The newly forming ecclesiastical power structure to their advantage. Monasteries and episcopal seats were shrewdly awarded to elites who supported the dynasty. Extensive parcels of land were donated to monasteries to exempt those lands from royal taxation and to preserve them within the family. The family-maintained dominance over the monastery by appointing family members as abbots . Extra sons and daughters who could not be married off were sent to monasteries so that they would not threaten

6816-420: The next century. Even when several Merovingian kings simultaneously ruled their own realms, the kingdom—not unlike the late Roman Empire —was conceived of as a single entity ruled collectively by these several kings (each ruling one section much as the late Roman Empire had been divided between up to four emperors). The death of one or more of these kings could result in the reunification of the whole kingdom under

6912-532: The old legal formulae. While laymen made up most of the administrators, there was a gradual shift to a clerical presence from the reign of Clotaire II. 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

7008-473: The past, this tale was regarded as an authentic piece of Germanic mythology and was often taken as evidence that the Merovingian kingship was sacral and the royal dynasty of supernatural origin. Today, it is more commonly seen as an attempt to explain the meaning of the name Merovech (sea-bull): "Unlike the Anglo-Saxon rulers the Merovingians—if they ever themselves acknowledged the quinotaur tale, which

7104-433: The period. Despite his victory, Charles did not gain full control of Aquitaine, and Odo remained duke until 735. Between his victory of 732 and 735, Charles reorganized the kingdom of Burgundy , replacing the counts and dukes with his loyal supporters, thus strengthening his hold on power. He was forced, by the ventures of Bubo, Duke of the Frisians , to invade independent-minded Frisia again in 734. In that year, he slew

7200-477: The perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch , New Zealand, in 2019. The memory of Charles is a topic of debate in contemporary French politics on both the right and the left. In the seventeenth century, a legend emerged that Charles had formed the first regular order of knights in France. In 1620, Andre Favyn stated (without providing

7296-580: The political history of the era have been translated and edited by Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerberding , and presented with Liber Historiae Francorum , to provide some historical context. Yitzhak Hen stated that it seems certain that the Gallo-Roman population was far greater than the Frankish population in Merovingian Gaul, especially in regions south of the Seine , with most of

7392-510: The pro-church point of view of its author. The next major source, far less organised than Gregory's work, is the Chronicle of Fredegar , begun by Fredegar but continued by unknown authors. It covers the period from 584 to 641, though its continuators, under Carolingian patronage, extended it to 768, after the close of the Merovingian era. It is the only primary narrative source for much of its period. The only other major contemporary source

7488-406: 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

7584-524: The restless habit of Merovingian kings moving from stronghold to stronghold was constantly encouraged. As time passed, "fisc" began to refer to money any Frankish knight had direct control over and would carry with him. Eventually, "fisc" referred to any knight's money holder. Nowadays, "fisc" is still used in French and in Romanian to refer to the fiscal administration. In Spanish and in Portuguese,

7680-432: The ruler. However, Fouracre argued that "...there is not enough evidence to show that there was a decisive change either in the way in which the Franks fought, or in the way in which they organised the resources needed to support their warriors." Many twentieth-century European historians continued to develop Gibbon's perspectives, such as French medievalist Christian Pfister , who wrote in 1911 that "Besides establishing

7776-406: The saint himself explained to his old friend, Daniel of Winchester , that without it he could neither administer his church, defend his clergy nor prevent idolatry. In 739, Pope Gregory III begged Charles for his aid against Liutprand , but Charles was loath to fight his onetime ally and ignored the plea. Nonetheless, the pope's request for Frankish protection showed how far Charles had come from

7872-477: The significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Arab force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours". Similarly, in 2002 Tomaž Mastnak wrote: "The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens—moreover, as only one in

7968-516: The slang word "fisco" is also used, while the German term is "Fiskus" and the Dutch term is "fiscus". This tax -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Merovingian The dynastic name, medieval Latin Merovingi or Merohingii ("sons of Merovech"), derives from an unattested Frankish form, akin to the attested Old English Merewīowing , with

8064-447: The spoken language in Gaul throughout the Merovingian period and remained so even well in to the Carolingian period. However, Urban T. Holmes estimated that a Germanic language was spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Neustria as late as the 850s, and that it completely disappeared as a spoken language from these regions only during the 10th century. A limited number of contemporary sources describe

8160-567: The tail end of his campaigning in Provence and Septimania , the Merovingian king, Theuderic IV, died. Charles, titling himself maior domus and princeps et dux Francorum , did not appoint a new king and nobody acclaimed one. The throne lay vacant until Charles' death. The interregnum, the final four years of Charles' life, was relatively peaceful although in 738 he compelled the Saxons of Westphalia to submit and pay tribute and in 739 he checked an uprising in Provence where some rebels united under

8256-481: The throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul . According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum , Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle". Charles gained

8352-422: The throne from 721 to 737. Charles was now appointing the kings whom he supposedly served ( rois fainéants ). By the end of his reign, he didn't appoint any at all. At this time, Charles again marched against the Saxons. Then the Neustrians rebelled under Raganfrid, who had left the county of Anjou. They were easily defeated in 724 but Raganfrid gave up his sons as hostages in turn for keeping his county. This ended

8448-528: Was defeated and fled back to Cologne. Before the end of the year, Charles had escaped from prison and been acclaimed mayor by the nobles of Austrasia. That same year, Dagobert III died and the Neustrians proclaimed Chilperic II , the cloistered son of Childeric II , as king. In 716, Chilperic and Raganfrid together led an army into Austrasia intent on seizing the Pippinid wealth at Cologne. The Neustrians allied with another invading force under Redbad, King of

8544-526: Was discovered in Saint Denis Basilica in Paris . The funerary clothing and jewellery were reasonably well-preserved, giving us a look into the costume of the time. Beyond these royal individuals, the Merovingian period is associated with the archaeological Reihengräber culture . The Merovingians play a prominent role in French historiography and national identity , although their importance

8640-488: Was dominated by Middle Eastern merchants, often Jewish Radhanites . 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 Lex Ripuaria , codified at a late date, while the so-called Lex Salica ( Salic Law ) of the Salian clans, first tentatively codified in 511 was invoked under medieval exigencies as late as

8736-547: Was intended to be her capital. This prevented an uprising on his behalf in Austrasia , but not in Neustria . Pepin's death occasioned open conflict between his heirs and the Neustrian nobles who sought political independence from Austrasian control. In 715, Dagobert III named Raganfrid mayor of the palace . On 26 September 715, Raganfrid's Neustrians met the young Theudoald's forces at the Battle of Compiègne . Theudoald

8832-560: Was more likely the sister of Rotrude. Auda married Theoderic, Count of Autun . Charles also married a second time, to Swanhild and they had a child named Grifo . With Ruodhaid , with whom he had: For early medieval authors, Charles was famous for his military victories. Paul the Deacon for instance attributed a victory against the Saracens actually won by Odo of Aquitaine to Charles. However, alongside this there soon developed

8928-534: Was partly overshadowed by that of the Gauls during the Third Republic . Charles de Gaulle is on record as stating his opinion that "For me, the history of France begins with Clovis , elected as king of France by the tribe of the Franks, who gave their name to France. Before Clovis, we have Gallo-Roman and Gaulish prehistory. The decisive element, for me, is that Clovis was the first king to have been baptized

9024-674: Was probably from his mother's kindred in the lands around Liege. After Amblève, he seems to have won the backing of the influential Willibrord , founder of the Abbey of Echternach . The abbey had been built on land donated by Plectrude's mother, Irmina of Oeren , but most of Willibrord's missionary work had been carried out in Frisia. In joining Chilperic and Raganfrid, Radbod of Frisia sacked Utrecht, burning churches and killing many missionaries. Willibrord and his monks were forced to flee to Echternach. Gerberding suggests that Willibrord had decided that

9120-403: Was required. Charles divided his realm among his sons without opposition (though he ignored his young son Bernard ). For many historians, Charles laid the foundations for his son Pepin's rise to the Frankish throne in 751, and his grandson Charlemagne's imperial acclamation in 800. However, for Paul Fouracre, while Charles was "the most effective military leader in Francia", his career "finished on

9216-466: Was restored. When King Theuderic IV died in 737, the mayor Charles Martel continued to rule the kingdoms 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, initiating the Carolingian dynasty . The 7th-century Chronicle of Fredegar implies that the Merovingians were descended from

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