Where the Middle Ages Begin
One of the great villains in Gregory of Tours’ The History of the Franks is Fredegund. The sixth-century Merovingian queen was responsible, according to Gregory, for a lengthy list of murders and attempt assassinations, including against her own family members. She even murdered those men who failed to carry out her assassinations.
The aim of this paper is to understand the meanings that the Franks ascribed to hair and, in this quest, it will survey the different interpretations of hair that existed in sixth century Gaul.
In his paper, ‘Malaria and Malaria-Like Disease in the Frankish Empire, c.450-950, Timothy Newfield examines over fifty references to illnesses which appear in Merovingian and Carolingian sources
The early years of Charles Martel’s life are all but obscured from the historian’s view.
In the autumn of 582, a claimant to Frankish kingship named Gundovald landed in Marseilles, returning from exile in Constantinople with covert support from very powerful persons in the kingdom.
T.S. Morangles takes a trip to see all things Carolingian and Merovingian!
It is not every day England gives a home girl to be worshipped as a Saint by enthusiastic Gallic crowds.
This is a summary of a paper on Carolingian charters and the relationship between step and blended families.
The practise of diplomacy has not been much studied in Merovingian Gaul, although there are numerous works that deal with its political dealings with its neighbours and with the administration and culture of Gaul at this time.
The sixth century Merovingian queen Brunhild is a figure of extremes, lauded by Pope Gregory the Great as ‘most excellent daughter’ and later defiled as ‘the enemy of
Christianity’.
Representation of the roles of women in Merovingian Gaul straddle two extremes: the saintly and the sinful.
In this research paper I will analyze the achievements and the destruction of the Merovingian Empire to demonstrate how both provide a basic structure of government for the Carolingians to adopt.
In this thesis I aim to restore the contemporary views of female monasticism that have been marginalized in current historiography. By evaluating the primary source material on women in monasticism, I intend to recapture the complex links between female religious communities and the wider social, cultural and political world of the Frankish kingdoms.
This article re-examines the primary documents relating to the sixth century Gregorian Mission to Kent in light of the modern historiographical tradition which claims Frankish hegemony existed over the Kentish Kingdom under Aethelberht’s rule.
The Liber Historiae Francorum – a Model for a New Frankish Self-confidence Philipp Dörler Networks and Neighbours, Volume One, Number One (2013) The Liber historiae Francorum was influenced by different historiographic traditions. In this paper, I pursue two arguments. First, I believe that the author of the Liber historiae Francorum juxtaposes and slightly transforms these […]
Celestial portents appear frequently in the Historiae of Bishop Gregory of Tours (ca. 539–94). Gregory carefully distinguished between the interpretation of celestial signs and horoscopic astrology by describing signs as natural, albeit miraculous, elements of God’s Creation.
In northern Gaul in the second half of the sixth century, a bishop of Tours, Georgius Florentius Gregorius, known to posterity as Gregory of Tours, composed eight books of hagiography and ten books of history. These testaments survive as evidence of the politics, society and theology of this post-imperial world.
Since Radegund was never martyred, it is through her ascetic practice, a vicarious martyrdom, that her sanctity must be constructed. Both Fortunatus and Baudonivia treat Radegund’s ascetic practices as a means of creating the powerful body of a saint, a living relic, but the differences in the two writers’ approaches are notable.
Simon Coates explores the symbolic meanings attached to hair in the early medieval West, and how it served to denote differences in age, sex, ethnicity and status.
The florilegium entitled Liber Scintillarum, the book of sparks from the words of God and of his saints, was composed by the monk Defensor of Ligugé. Our evidence for the life and date of Defensor derives entirely from his preface.
This paper focuses on luxury textiles from archaeological and non-archaeological contexts in north-western Europe.
The mainstream portrait of Clovis, still dominant in English and American writing, derives its many negative features from secondary sources written a half-century or more after his death and abounding in grossly unreliable anecdotes.
With the rival clerics out of the way, Gregory still needed to solidify his new and publicly contested position with local elites and other powerful members of his new congregation. Thus, much of what Gregory did early in his episcopacy was intended to convince the community at Tours that he was their right man.
This dissertation offers a narrative interpretation of Merovingian history from the reign of Clovis I (r. 481-511) through the reign of Dagobert I (r. 629-639). The narrative focuses on the competitive nature of the Merovingian kingdoms and the role that foreign marriages could play in that competition.
In the eyes of contemporaries, the royal safeguard of the fourteenth century descended from an unbroken tradition going back to the emunitas and royal tuitio of Merovingian Frankland.
How you can Follow Us!