MEROVINGI

MEROVINGI. -

I. HISTORY

Dynasty that ruled the Franks from the 5th to the 8th century. Of the tribe of the Salian Franks, after long plundering the Roman provinces, at the beginning of the 5th century they had moved from the region of the IJssel to Gallia Belgica. King Clodio around 430 occupied the area of Tournai and Cambrai. The dynasty took its name from King Meroveus, who in 451 fought alongside the imperial forces under Aetius against the Huns of Attila. His successor Childeric, still within the imperial orbit, fought against the Saxons and Alemanni. After 482, Clovis appears at the head of the Salian Franks of Tournai, the principal figure of the dynasty. With his limited and not fully united military forces, he eliminated the exhausted imperial nucleus of Soissons, gathered around Syagrius, then absorbed various independent tribes of the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks of the Rhine Valley. Around 496 he took part in the struggle between the Ripuarian Franks and the Alemanni; these were routed and driven back to the east. Around 496–500, Clovis, still a pagan, either at the insistence of his Burgundian wife Clotilde or perhaps to secure the sympathies of the Catholic population of central Gaul, received baptism at Reims from Bishop Remigius. While the Visigoths and Burgundians, confined to their Arianism, were at odds with the sentiments of the Roman population, and the other barbarian chieftains remained pagan, this most able leader transferred his sphere of action to the Seine region and by his conversion removed any conflict between his people and the Roman population. Clovis’s act was immediately recognized for its importance, and the bishop of Vienne, Avitus, wrote to congratulate the king on his conversion.

Clovis soon declared himself the protector of Catholics against the Arian Visigoths, and under the pretext of Alaric II’s persecution of the Roman population, he declared war, defeated him at Vouillé (Poitiers), and occupied with the capital Toulouse all the Visigothic provinces of Gaul (507). Only the intervention of Theodoric from Italy saved the Visigoths the Spanish provinces and Septimania.

At his death in 511, Clovis had united the entire region under himself: the Franks, initially settled where the Roman population was sparse, left the Gallo-Romans of the occupied regions their old organization. There could be, and there was, no fusion of the two peoples; but religious and political equality was the basis for the rise of a new people. After Clovis’s death, his four sons divided among themselves as private property the territories conquered by their father: Childebert in Paris, Clodomir in Orléans, Chlothar in Soissons, and Theuderic (Thierry) in Reims. They continued their father’s work: they destroyed the kingdom of the Burgundians, overthrew the power of the Thuringians and occupied their land, and made raids into Spain as far as Saragossa and into Italy, taking advantage of the struggles between the Empire and the Ostrogoths. They were cruel princes who aimed only at conquest, perhaps merely at plunder. In 558 Chlothar I, the last survivor of the four brothers, reunited all Merovingian dominion; at his death in 561 a new division among his four sons: Sigebert between the Meuse and the Rhine, Chilperic from Soissons to Cambrai, Guntram from Berry to Burgundy, and Caribert from the west from Rouen to Bordeaux; in 567 Caribert died, and his domains were divided among his brothers without any political rationale. In these divisions, no account was taken of regions, but only of cities or fractions of cities to balance the shares of the various contenders. In this new period of fragmentation, there was no longer talk of expansion: Chilperic’s expeditions into Italy aimed more at obtaining gold from the Byzantines and Lombards than at conquest. They fought to the east against the Avars, but more as a defensive measure. For the princes, there was no concept of the state, only a desire to enrich themselves at the expense of their subjects, turning tribute into outright robbery, and perverting justice into a brutal device to confiscate the property of those they wished to despoil. For thirty years the lives of the sons of Chlothar I revolved around the bitter struggle between Sigebert and Chilperic. Sigebert married Brunhilda, daughter of the Visigothic king Athanagild; Chilperic married her sister, Galswintha, after repudiating Audovera, but then returned to his concubine Fredegund and had both his first and second wives killed. Thus began the hatred between the two families. Sigebert defeated his brother but was killed by an emissary of Fredegund; Brunhilda was captured and imprisoned. She emerged from prison by marrying Chilperic’s son, then returned to the kingdom of her son Childebert, whom she protected against her enemy, and later protected her grandsons Theobald and Theuderic. The struggles and intrigues continued until, after the deaths of Sigebert’s descendants and of Guntram, Chilperic and Fredegund’s son, Clotaire II succeeded in reuniting all the domains of the Merovingian family, sealing his triumph by the execution of the hated Brunhilda (613).

Amid this most disastrous civil war, which caused profound decline, the terms Austrasia and Neustria came into use, as well as Burgundy. Aristocratic groups with particular interests had formed everywhere, and a central administration had emerged that exploited the country. In the three political units, real power lay in the hands of a mayor of the palace, a high official who originally was merely the overseer of the court services but had extended his authority to include all those sent from the palace to the various provincial offices to represent the king’s authority. Since separatist tendencies were now strong, Clotaire II had to send his son Dagobert to Austrasia as king, with Pippin as mayor of the palace. In 629 Dagobert became king of all Frankish territories, but at his death in 639 he had to arrange a division of the states among the sons of Sigebert and Clovis II. The most wretched period of the Merovingian dynasty then began. Kings came to power as children or nearly so and died young. Government was in the hands of women and mayors of the palace, while around the throne the struggles of the Frankish aristocratic factions continued unabated. Of Dagobert’s sons, Sigebert and Chilperic, the former died in 656, Clovis II in 657, leaving the kingdom to his eldest son Chlothar III. For him, his mother, the former slave Bathilde, ruled, supported by the energetic mayor of the palace Ebroin. At the death of Chlothar III in 673, the succession was contested between Theuderic III and Chilperic II. With the throne, Ebroin clashed with the great captains led by Leodegar, bishop of Autun: Ebroin was relegated to the abbey of Luxeuil, where Leodegar was soon also imprisoned by his enemies. They reconciled, emerged free, but the factions drove them to fight as before; Leodegar was killed in 678, Ebroin in 681. In Austrasia, power rose to Pippin, called of Herstal; in Neustria, Berthar. In the new civil war, Pippin killed his opponent and became mayor of the palace in Neustria as well (687). The family of the Merovingians continued to exist: after Theuderic III came Clovis III, then Childeric III, then Dagobert III; but the real director was the mayor of the palace. Pippin of Herstal remained in Austrasia and entrusted the mayoralty of Neustria to a loyal man such as Norbert, his son Grimoald, and then his grandson Theobald. When Pippin died in 714, the office of mayor passed to his two grandsons, Hugo and Theobald; taking advantage of the disturbances, a natural son of Pippin, Charles, eliminated his brothers and seized power, making a puppet king, Chlothar IV, and replacing counts and bishops with men of his own faction.

Internal struggles had caused foreign policy to be neglected. Dagoberto had fought an unsuccessful campaign in Thuringia against a Slav invasion and had been forced to content himself with organizing the defence. Pippin of Heristall had fought against the Alemanni, Bavarians and Frisians. Charles Martel, before resuming the war in Germany, had to concern himself with Aquitaine, where the princes, in the face of the Frankish threat, had turned to the Arabs of Spain.

The Arab invasion, which had begun in 720 in Septimania, soon spread throughout southern Gaul. After the fall of Bordeaux in 732, the danger became serious on the Loire. Charles Martel rushed to the scene and won a great victory over the Arabs at Poitiers (17 Oct. 732), but the Arabs remained in Septimania and Provence. The southern question diverted Charles from resuming his father’s activity beyond the Rhine. In 741, on his death, he left his Frankish principality to his two sons, Pippin and Carloman. From 737 there had been no king, since Childeric III had died without heirs. Pippin and Carloman did not place a king on the throne until 745, when they had a man acclaimed who claimed to be a descendant of the Merovingians and who was acclaimed under the name of

739

MEROVINGIANS

MEROVINGIANS – Stone tomb found at Saint-Jean-des-Vignes. Chalon-sur-Saône, Museum.

Childeric III. In reality, this was the only way to legitimize their authority. When Carloman retired to Monte Cassino (747), Pippin, left as sole mayor of the palace, consulted Pope Zachary as to whether it was right that those who did nothing for the government should be called kings rather than those who took full care of affairs. Zachary replied in favour of the latter; Pippin then convened an assembly composed of men all bound to him by offices and benefices, and was consecrated king by the bishops: Childeric III was confined to the abbey of St Bertin, and his son Theuderic to St Wandrille.

Thus the Merovingian dynasty, after three centuries, ended more from exhaustion than from external violence. Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, reproached the Merovingians for lacking vigour; and it is true that, after completing the unification of all Gaul, they had done nothing to create a state; yet in their very incapacity they had made possible the peaceful coexistence of the various ethnic elements, preparing the way for the formation of medieval France.

II. ART

Merovingian art is still the subject of controversial discussion among scholars. Some (J. Hubert, op. cit. in bibl.) proclaim its absolute originality; others, however, deny it any autonomous expression and, stressing its similarities with the art of the Near East, consider it entirely dependent upon that (L. Bréhier, op. cit. in bibl.) or a parallel manifestation to that of other Western countries in the same period (P. Lavedan, op. cit. in bibl.).

Of the architectural works of the Merovingian period almost nothing has survived; the numerous cathedrals that were built have been destroyed or altered by later reconstructions, so that only a few elements remain embedded in later constructions. The main remains are the lower part of St Peter’s at Vienne and of some Provençal baptisteries, generally with an octagonal plan inscribed in a square, presumably covered by a dome (Marseille, Aix, Venasque, Riez, Fréjus, Mélas, Valence, all dated to the 5th century). Better preserved are some oratories and crypts (St Victor in Marseille, 5th century; crypt of St Lawrence in Grenoble and of Jouarre, dated to the 7th century). Some important architectural works have been almost entirely rebuilt: the cathedrals of Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon (c. 450); those of St Germain d’Auxerre, the SS. Apostles in Paris, St-Germain-des-Prés (6th century), the great abbeys of St-Denis, Jumièges, St-Vandrille (7th century). Merovingian churches generally followed the Constantinian plan, with some variations (notably the abolition of the atrium from examples of the 6th century onwards); construction was in stone, with wooden roofing. A characteristic element, which has formed the basis for the theory of the originality of Merovingian art, is the bell tower (seen as a clear independence from the towers of Syrian churches): sometimes placed at the crossing with the transept (lanterns of St Martin in Tours, of the churches of Nantes and Clermont-Ferrand), or separated from the body of the church (rear bell tower of St Martin in Tours). The church of St Martin in Tours (c. 472) was the largest of the Merovingian churches; according to the accounts given by Gregory of Tours, it was 160 feet long, 60 feet wide, had 120 columns, and the façade had 8 doorways.

Nothing has survived of civil or military architecture. For the latter, sources document how Roman building traditions remained alive; very important fortifications were the castle of Meriacum, described by Gregory of Tours, and the castle on the Moselle described by Venantius Fortunatus (I. III, 12).

Of the frescoes and mosaics with which the Merovingians adorned the walls of their churches, only the accounts of the sources remain (the church of St Martin in Tours was decorated with frescoes depicting the life of the saint; the church of the SS. Apostles in Paris was adorned with mosaics even on the exterior). Some sculpture remains, characterized by the abandonment of plastic effect and reduced to flat relief or even to incised drawing on stone. The human and animal figure is gradually deformed until it becomes an arabesque; the taste for geometrized and stylized ornamentation predominates (e.g., sarcophagi from Aquitaine, capitals from the churches of Grenoble and Jouarre). Even with regard to sculpture, the connections with Eastern art have been variously assessed, as have those with miniature painting and goldsmithing, of which a great abundance of material has been found in tombs (e.g., the Treasure of Childeric [481] in the Cabinet des Médailles; the Treasure of Pouan [451] in the Museum of Troyes; the Treasure of Gourdon [c. 527]). Goldsmithing is the most important chapter in the history of Merovingian art, also on account of the presence of some defined personalities, including St Eloi (588–665), the most famous goldsmith of Dagobert’s time, and Daddilo and Eligius (reliquary signed in the Treasure of St Maurice d’Agaune).