When was the merovingian dynasty

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, the Franks defeated the Moors at the Battle of Tours in , limiting the expansion of Islam onto the European continent.

During the last years of his life he even ruled without a king, though he did not assume royal dignity. However, in , 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. Ancient Merovingian basilica in Metz, capital of the Austrasia kingdom. 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.

The kings appointed magnates to be comites counts , charging them with defense , administration, and 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. 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 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 decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and agricultural estates were mostly self-sufficient. The remaining international trade was dominated by Middle Eastern merchants, often Jewish Radanites.

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, [7] while the so-called Lex Salica Salic Law of the Salian clans, first tentatively codified in [8] was invoked under medieval exigencies as late as 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 remained in the rote memorisation of rachimburgs , who memorised all the precedents on which it was based, for Merovingian law did not admit of 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 the Byzantine Empire. The few surviving Merovingian edicts are almost entirely concerned with settling divisions of estates among heirs.

Frankish gold Tremissis with Christian cross, issued by minter Madelinus, Dorestad , Netherlands, mids. Merovingian fibulae. A gold chalice from the Treasure of Gourdon. Baptistry of St. Jean , Poitiers.

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 , an Irish monk who enjoyed great influence with Queen Balthild. Merovingian kings and queens used 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 the inheritance of older 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 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 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.

Many Merovingian saints, and 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. The characteristics they shared with many Merovingian female saints may be mentioned: Regenulfa of Incourt , a 7th-century virgin in French-speaking Brabant of the ancestral line of the dukes of Brabant fled from a proposal of marriage to live isolated in the forest, where a curative spring sprang forth at her touch; Ermelindis of Meldert , a 6th-century virgin related to Pepin I , inhabited several isolated villas; Begga of Andenne , the mother of Pepin II , founded seven churches in Andenne during her widowhood; the purely legendary " Oda of Amay " was drawn into the Carolingian line by spurious genealogy in her 13th-century vita , which made her the mother of Arnulf, Bishop of Metz , but she has been identified with the historical Saint Chrodoara ; [11] finally, the widely-venerated Gertrude of Nivelles , sister of Begga in the Carolingian ancestry, was abbess of a nunnery established by her mother.

This map shows old Roman Gaul in Ad , including the area controlled by the Roman governor Syragrius lighter area , the area of the Salian Franks Franchi Salii , the land of the Burgundians Burgundi , the land of the Visogoths Visogoti , and the cities of Reims and Soissons. Clovis married a woman named Clotilda. Clotilda was a Burgundian. The Burgundians were a Germanic tribe that originated in Scandanavia, but had moved south into the old Western Roman Empire.

Clotilda was also a Christian. The difference was that Catholics believe that Jesus and their God are the same being, while the Arian Christians believe that Jesus was a separate person from their God. Clotilda wanted her children to be baptized as Christians and not follow the gods of Clovis. Clovis agreed, though he himself remained a pagan. With a battle against the Alamanni, enemies of the Franks, going badly for Clovis in AD , he vowed to be baptized a Christian if Clotida's God could help him win the battle.

The Alamanni king died on the battlefield and the tide turned in favor of the Franks. Bishop Remigius performed the baptism. In Spain, the Visigoths established a kingdom with the city of Toledo as its capital. The events in Clovis' life were captured in a book called the History of the Franks , written by Gregory of Tours see map below. Clovis is an important figure in the Middle Ages for two reasons: He united the Frankish tribes under one king, creating a Frankish Empire in old Roman Gaul, this would eventually lead to the nation we call France, named after the Franks.

Secondly, Clovis was the first barbarian king to convert to the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. The pope was the bishop of Rome and the spiritual leader of the many Roman Catholics in Western Europe. The Pope was not selected by any king, and you could argue that he was more powerful than the kings of the Early Middle Ages. Although Clovis was a strong leader, his wife had a dream that his dynasty would become weaker as the generations passed.

Clotilda warned her husband that the Merovingians would come in as lions, then change to wolves, and finally end as jackals.

In a future online chapter, we will find out if she was correct. One group of barbarians that poured into the old Western Roman Empire were the Franks.

Giotto's Site Penfield. Mister Giotto's Home Page. Class notes. Giotto's Online Textbook. The Stone Ages. Ancient Mesopotamia. Ancient Egypt. The mean elevation in the central area is about meters. About BC the Scythians began a western migration.

They were nomadic warriors who rode horses bareback and who used archers, and the women fought along side the men. Women dressed like men. They were described by Homer and Herodotus. Herodotus, the Greek historian wrote about them in his Histories of the 5th Century.

They became slave traders, merchants, and shippers. They were described as long haired warriors who were ferocious. Edmund Spenser wrote that the primary nation that settled Ireland were the Scythians , and that they also settled Scotland.

It has been shown that the Scythians landed in Cornwall. It is thought that tribes of the Scythians settled Greece, and also moved into eastern Europe. Greece Ancient Greece was formed in the third millennium BC when people known as Greeks migrated south to the Balkans in waves, the last being the Dorian invasion about BC. Herodotus, BC, was a Dorian Greek historian who is regarded as the father of history, and who was the author of The Histories- a 6 volume series.

Cimmerians Herodotus described the Cimmerians of the north Black Sea coast as a distinctly autonomous tribe expelled by the Scythians.

Their language was Iranian. There were many off shoots of the Cimmerians. Numerous Celtic and Germanic peoples descended from the Cimmerians. The etymology of Wales is said to descend from the Cimmerians. The Celts in France were known as Gauls. The Celts spread into present day Italy where remnants in the town of Doccia, in the province of Emilia-Romagna, showcase Celtic houses in very good condition dating from the 4th century BC.

Sicambri The west Germanic tribe of the Sicambri descended from the Cimmerians. The Sicambri were located along the right bank of the Rhine and appear about 55 BC. They fought several wars with Rome, namely one led by Gaius Julius Caesar. Merovingians The Merovingians claimed their descent from the Sicambri, who they believed were originally a Scythian or Cimmerian tribe once inhabiting the river Danube that changed their name to the Franks in 11 BC under the leadership of a chieftain called "Frankus".

The Franks first appear in historical writing in the 3rd century. Marcomir I lived around BC and preceded the Merovingian dynasty. Gregory of Tours, who was the leading historian wrote that the Frankish leader Clovis on the occasion of his baptism into the Catholic faith in was referred to as Sicambrian by the officiating Bishop of Rheims.

These wars were described in the Iliad by Homer, who was a blind Greek historian. Today Troy is an archaeological site in northwest Turkey. Romulus killed Remus and became the first of the seven kings of Rome. The Roman Republic was established around BC. By BC Rome had become the dominant Mediterranean power. Ian Woods states that Odoacer deposing Agustulus is speculation. Barbarian Kings The Roman Empire was replaced with a number of states ruled by barbarian kings.

A century later, the Lombards controlled northern Italy, and the Franks were unchallenged in France, and the Anglos and Saxons were in Britannia. Franks It was the kingdom of the Franks which was to exercise the most influence for the longest time. For the first three centuries of its existence until it was ruled by a single family, that of the Merovingians. The Salian Franks sea dwelling lived North and East of Limes in the Dutch coastal area and in the 5th century migrated throughout Belgium and into northern France.

By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Belgium city of Tournai had become the center of activity. The Ripuarian Franks river dwelling lived along the Rhine river, and were perhaps called Ripuarian by the Romans. By the 9th century any differences between these two groups had disappeared. They were involved with the Romans as military recruits in the 5th century. Gregory of Tours, the historian, placed the emergence of the Merovingians at the conclusion of the Frankish migration.

The Liber Historiae Francorum went further, connecting them with the Trojan migration. Gregory of Tours wrote that the Franks had created long haired kings in Thuringia Belgium. Gregory of Tours was troubled that there was no clear passage of royalty to the Franks from a line of Kings, but other scholars were not troubled since historical records were lacking. The line continues from Frankus to Chlodio.