Fouracre P. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 1: c. 500-c. 700

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Merovingian Gaul and the Frankish conquests 213

in Gaul, either among aristocrats or among churchmen.

Many exchanged

letters; some, including some bishops, acquired reputations as poets. An illus-

trious poet such as Fortunatus, who had received a proper classical education

in northern Italy, was duly impressed, not least because these aristocrats and

bishops also solicited his work. His patrons included the Merovingian kings,

some of whom successfully transformed even themselves into learned gentle-

men. Clovis had once requested that the Ostrogothic king Theoderic send him

a lyre-player; two generations later Chilperic was encouraging education for

the boys in his kingdom, ordering old books to be recopied, and even propos-

ing to add letters to the alphabet. He also tried his hand at composing poems,

although Gregory, who candidly acknowledged his own difﬁculty in writing

Latin, nevertheless dismissed the king’s poems as unmetrical!

Another way for the Merovingian kings to display their wealth was by

subsidising the construction of buildings and the endowment of institutions in

various cities. Chilperic, for instance, built arenas both in his own capital city of

Soissons and in Paris. In the latter case, not only was he imitating the behaviour

of the Roman emperors who had once presided at circus games, he was also

defying the threats of his brother Guntramn and nephew Childebert by staking

a claim to the whole of the capital city of his deceased brother Charibert’s

kingdom.

Clovis had set another precedent by supporting saints’ cults. He

and Queen Clothild had once constructed a church at Paris near the tomb of

St Genovefa (St Genevi

eve), a contemporary ascetic. Both they and some of

their royal descendants were buried in this church, which eventually was also

dedicated to the Holy Apostles, perhaps in imitation of the church in which the

ﬁrst Christian emperor Constantine had been buried at Constantinople, and

to St Peter, the illustrious patron saint of Rome. So in the process of promoting

a local saint’s cult Clovis had openly linked himself and his dynasty with the

imperial overtones of the great capitals of the Roman Empire. His successors

promoted other cults. Also at Paris Childebert constructed a church in honour

of St Vincentius, a Spanish martyr whose relics he had acquired apparently

during his campaign against the Visigoths. At Soissons Chlothar and his son

Sigibert constructed a church in honour of St Medard, the former bishop of

Noyon, and Chilperic composed a poem about the saint. At Chalon-sur-Sa

one

Guntramn built, or rebuilt, a church in honour of St Marcellus, an obscure

local martyr, and richly endowed both it and a monastery.

SeeFontaine, chapter 27 below.

Clovis: Cassiodorus, Variae ii.40.70–2. Chilperic: Gregory, Hist. v.44.253–4 and vi.46.319–21; for a

surviving poem, see Ymnus in solemnitate S. Medardi, ed. K. Strecker, MGH Poetae iv.2.455–7. The

best survey of early medieval education and culture is still by Rich

e(1962).

Gregory, Hist. v.17.214–15.

Van Dam (1993), pp. 22–8.

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214 raymond van dam

aristocrats and churchmen

For all the Merovingians’ success in establishing themselves as kings in Gaul,

royal authority was still fundamentally fragile. Their relationships with saints’

cults provide the ﬁrst clues. The Merovingians preferred to patronise new cults

for new saints, some of whom, such as St Medard certainly and St Genovefa

probably, had even had Frankish ancestors. In contrast, they had difﬁculty

ingratiating themselves with established saints’ cults. Clovis was thought to

have gone into battle against the Visigoths in 507 with the support of St

Hilary, the patron saint of Poitiers; but there is no evidence that any of his royal

successors during the sixth century subsidised the saint’s church at Poitiers or his

cult elsewhere in Gaul. After his victory over the Visigoths, Clovis had visited

Tours and the church of St Martin, the patron saint of the most prominent cult

in late Roman and early Merovingian Gaul. But Clovis soon retired to Paris;

according to a later, probably apocryphal, story, after the king had had to pay

twice what he intended in order to retrieve his horse from the saint’s church,

he admitted that St Martin drove a hard bargain for his assistance. His royal

successors seem to have agreed tacitly that the price for St Martin’s support was

too high. When challenged about the taxes they tried to impose on Tours they

consistently backed down and conceded exemptions. Chlothar once helped

to ﬁnance a new tin roof for the church of St Martin after it burned in 559,

but during the sixth century he was also the only reigning king to visit Tours

and pray at the saint’s tomb. Even when other kings wished to consult with

St Martin they did not go in person. Chilperic instead sent a letter that was

placed on the saint’s tomb, along with a blank sheet of paper for the saint’s

response; signiﬁcantly, St Martin did not reply. During the sixth century the

cult of St Martin was not closely associated with the Frankish kings. In the face

of such an inﬂuential and long-established cult the Merovingians were duly

intimidated, and the patronage of their preferred saints’ cults at Paris, Soissons

and Chalon-sur-Sa

one effectively created a buffer of shrines between the centre

of St Martin’s power at Tours and their own primary interests in northern and

eastern Gaul.

This ambivalence about saints’ cults reappeared in the uneasy relationship

between kings and bishops. Kings often tried to subordinate bishops to their

control, in particular by meddling in their selection. Although churchmen

and church councils may have repeatedly claimed that the people and clergy

should select new bishops, increasingly the kings’ preferences became decisive.

In 549 a council at Orl

eans conceded the role of kings by announcing that in

the selection of a new bishop no less than ‘ancient canons’ had sanctioned the

Bargain: Liber Historiae Francorum c.17.271. Chlothar: Gregory, Hist. iv.20–1.152–4 and vi.9.279;

Baudonivia, Vita Radegundis cc.6–7,p.382. Chilperic’s letter: Gregory, Hist. v.14.211.

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Merovingian Gaul and the Frankish conquests 215

importance of the king’s wish as well as election by clergy and congregation. As

royal appointees some bishops, like the counts and dukes, even took oaths of

loyalty to their kings.

And just as kings convened their notables for assemblies,

so they convened bishops in councils. Already in 511 Clovis had summoned

to a council at Orl

eans many bishops who duly hailed him as the ‘son of the

Catholic church’. Subsequent kings tried to reinforce (and appropriate) the

decisions of councils by issuing their own edicts.

But bishops were not passive in the face of this royal interference in ecclesi-

astical affairs. First, the support of powerful patron saints transformed bishops

too into autonomous, or at least intimidating, ﬁgures. Various kings, as we

have noted, had often marched against Clermont. Yet in 524, after learning

ﬁrst about the saints’ churches that surrounded the city as ‘enormous forti-

ﬁcations’ and then about the city’s bishop, ‘who had great inﬂuence in the

presence of God’, King Theuderic quickly retreated. If the Frankish kings were

comparable to the kings of Israel, then the bishops were the equivalents of the

prophets who advised and admonished them; so Gregory of Tours pointedly

noted that Solomon, the wisest of all kings, had nevertheless owed his throne

to a prophet’s support. When Fortunatus applied Byzantine imperial ideol-

ogy to Childebert, he too was careful to protect the authority of bishops and

clerics by emphasising that the king had performed his ‘religious task’ (in this

case, subsidising the cathedral at Paris) while still a layman. Bishops would

not let kings forget that they alone controlled access to the miraculous power

of saints. Guntramn was the only Merovingian king credited with performing

a miraculous healing; but even then Gregory neatly transformed the signiﬁ-

cance of the miracle by noting that the king was merely acting ‘like a good

bishop’.

Second, with the collapse of the Roman administration bishops had become

important local leaders, in part because their sees and dioceses coincided with

cities and their territories. After the disappearance of the Roman army not

only was the church the largest institution in Merovingian Gaul, but its inﬂu-

ence obviously transcended the boundaries of kingdoms. Its bishops often met

in provincial and regional councils, and its hierarchy included thousands of

priests, deacons and lesser clerics. In fact, there were probably as many cler-

ics serving each of the ﬁfteen or so metropolitan bishops and the more than

one hundred other bishops as there were functionaries at each of the two or

Council of Orl

eans a. 549, Can. 10,pp.151–2.Oaths: Gregory, Hist. x.9.492;Bertramn of Le Mans,

Testamentum, ed. Weidemann (1986), p. 15.

Council of Orl

eans a. 511, Epistola ad Regem p.4. Royal edict of Guntramn, MGH Cap. i, 5,pp.11–12;

edict of Chlothar II, MGH Cap. i, 9,pp.20–3.

Gregory, Vita Patrum iv.2.225, Clermont; Hist. i.12.13–14,Solomon; ix.21.441–2,Guntramn Fortu-

natus, Carmina ii.10.22,‘conplevit laicus religionis opus’.

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216 raymond van dam

three royal courts. And since bishops also administered the often numerous

properties and estates that belonged to their churches and shrines, they too

could justiﬁably claim to preside from a ‘throne’ in their cathedrals. When

king Chilperic once surveyed the wealth of churches, he complained, with a

hint of resignation, that only bishops ‘reigned’ in their cities. These enormous

resources allowed bishops to assume many social and municipal services. They

ﬁnanced numerous construction projects, including most obviously churches

and shrines; they supported hospitals, asylums and almshouses; and they ran-

somed slaves and prisoners.

Finally, many of the bishops in Gaul were descendants of old Roman aris-

tocratic families that had adopted service in the ecclesiastical hierarchy as yet

another strategy for retaining their local inﬂuence. Not only did some of them

therefore have impressive pedigrees that stretched well back into the Roman

period, but many were also members of families that had come to dominate

particular sees already since the ﬁfth century. When at the beginning of the sixth

century the wife of one Roman aristocrat announced that she was ‘pregnant

with a bishop’, she was candidly articulating the expectations not only of her

own family, but of many old Roman aristocratic families. Her prediction was

also correct, despite the ﬂuctuations of royal politics; although her husband

had declined appointment as bishop of Geneva from the Burgundian king

Gundobad, her son succeeded his uncle as bishop of Lyons with the support of

the Frankish king Childebert. The emergence of ‘family sees’ hence imposed

a tacit restriction on the power of kings to appoint bishops.

Some bishops had furthermore themselves previously held royal magistra-

cies, and their relatives were still serving the Frankish kings as magistrates,

advisers or army commanders. Roman aristocrats had obviously not disap-

peared. In central and southern Gaul in particular, various families that had

come to prominence in the Roman Empire, and then maintained it under

Visigothic and Burgundian rule, retained their inﬂuence well into the sixth

century under the Franks. Not only did few Franks settle south of the Loire,

but for these regions the Merovingian kings often appointed Roman aristocrats

as counts. Despite the close ties of Clermont with the kingdom of Austrasia,

for instance, all but one of the known counts from the sixth century were

members of local Roman aristocratic families; at Tours King Chilperic once

allowed the people to choose their own count. Even in northern Gaul Roman

aristocrats prospered, such as Eleutherius, who was a count before becoming

Bishops’ rule: Gregory, Hist. vi.46.319–21, In Gloria Martyrum c.33,pp.58–9.Episcopal power:

Scheibelreiter (1983); Van Dam (1985); Klingshirn (1985), (1994). Ecclesiastical wealth: Thiele (1969).

Gregory, Vita Patrum viii.1.214,pregnancy; Fortunatus, Carmina iv.3.2,‘patriae sedes’. Pedigrees of

bishops: Heinzelmann (1976).

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Merovingian Gaul and the Frankish conquests 217

bishop of Tournai.

Until the early seventh century Roman aristocrats fur-

thermore dominated the great bishoprics at such important northern cities

as Trier, Cologne and Mainz. Romans also began to marry Franks, and to

adopt their activities and nomenclature. Although leading Franks, including

the Merovingians, learned classical culture, after the fourth century they no

longer adopted Roman names; in contrast, German names became increas-

ingly common in Roman families. Gregory of Tours, for instance, had a great

uncle named Gundulf who was born in the early sixth century. The interests

of their new Frankish overlords in hunting and warfare inﬂuenced even the

Romans who kept Latin or at least Latin-German names; so Lupus (‘wolf’),

aRoman who served as a duke under Sigibert and Childebert, had a brother

name Magnulf (‘great wolf’) and a son named Romulf (‘Roman wolf’) who

became bishop of Rheims.

In addition to these Roman aristocrats the Merovingians also had to con-

tend with other powerful notables, in northern Gaul in particular, who came

from their original Frankish supporters, from other groups of Franks, or from

non-Frankish peoples who had only recently been included under Merovingian

rule. With the acquisition of land and ofﬁces these men too gradually trans-

formed themselves into local aristocrats, ‘men distinguished by their birth’, ‘the

foremost men’, ‘the most noble among their own people’, ‘those with inﬂu-

ence at the king’s court’. Although the development of an aristocracy among

the Franks remains an obscure process, these descriptions used by Gregory of

Tours, admittedly imprecise, already stressed the prerogatives that the members

of some families possessed from birth. These Frankish notables also followed

the lead of Roman aristocrats in building up their control over and possession

of land. Many of their estates and villas they acquired by purchase or conﬁs-

cation, some as grants from the Merovingians; these lands then passed among

family members by inheritances and marriages. Aristocrats accumulated much

wealth. Duke Rauching’s wife, for instance, paraded through Soissons wear-

ing her jewels and gold ornaments; Rauching himself, to the amazement of

King Childebert’s retainers, possessed more wealth than the royal treasury.

Frankish aristocrats furthermore recruited dependants who supported their

lords as armed retainers during feuds and battles. In many respects these new

aristocratic families resembled not only old Roman aristocratic families but also

the most successful of the Frankish families, the Merovingians,with whom they

feasted and hunted and fought and to whom they sometimes provided wives.

Kings and aristocrats were locked as partners in a relationship of reciprocal

Gregory, Hist. v.47.257, count at Tours; Weidemann (1982), i,pp.70–3, 77–80.Eleutherius: Vita

Medardi c.6,p.68.Survival of Roman aristocracy: Stroheker (1948); Heinzelmann (1975).

Names and ethnicity: Geary (1985), pp. 101–14.

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218 raymond van dam

dependence, each propping up the other.

Kings needed aristocrats to serve as

magistrates, advisers, generals and soldiers, while aristocrats relied upon kings

to bestow land, ofﬁces and prestige. Yet aristocrats and kings were simultane-

ously competing for the same limited resources, in particular control over land

and subordinates; and bishops too, in their role as administrators of church

lands and possessions, were the equivalents of great landowners. Powerful bish-

ops and powerful aristocrats, both Roman and Frankish, hence shared, and

sometimes dominated, the political spotlight with the Merovingian kings.

The interaction among kings, aristocrats and bishops was early apparent

in Austrasia. Theuderic had inherited the kingdom of Rheims upon Clovis’

death, and he soon sent his son Theudebert to campaign in southern Gaul

against the Visigoths. Some of the Roman aristocrats Theudebert met there

eventually served him as advisers or magistrates after he became king. One

was Parthenius, whose ancestors and relatives included a former emperor, a

former prefect of Rome and several bishops in central and southern Gaul.

He himself had studied in Ravenna before returning to Theudebert’s court

with the Roman title of patrician. Perhaps because of the inﬂuence of these

Roman advisers, Theudebert began to develop imperial pretensions. He was

the ﬁrst Frankish king to infringe on an imperial prerogative by minting gold

coins bearing his own portrait; he invaded Italy; he politely informed the

eastern emperor Justinian that his kingdom also included many of the peoples

between the Rhine and the Danube; and he supposedly even contemplated

marching across central Europe to attack Constantinople! Theudebert was

hence yet another example of a ‘Romanised Frank’ in northern Gaul; in fact,

when he came to the throne in 534 he already had a son with his Roman

wife.

But because his uncles plotted against him after his father’s death, Theude-

bert owed his accession primarily to the protection of his leudes, his Frankish

supporters bound to him by an oath of allegiance. These retainers may well

also have been among the Franks who soon compelled Theudebert to abandon

his Roman wife in favour of a Lombard princess, and who eventually lynched

Parthenius for having imposed taxes on their lands. Theudebert’s son and suc-

cessor Theudebald may have been half-Frank and half-Roman, but initially

inﬂuential Franks dominated his court too. The bishops of Aquitaine knew

Gregory, Hist. ix.9.421–4, Rauching; Fortunatus, Carmina vi.1.19,onSigibert and his dukes: ‘culmina

tot procerum concurrunt culmen ad unum’. Development of a Frankish aristocracy: Irsigler (1969);

Grahn-Hoek (1976); Halsall (1995), pp. 33–9.Archaeology of aristocratic graves: James (1979), (1988),

pp. 58–67.One prominent family: Nonn (1975); Weidemann (1986).

Parthenius: Heinzelmann (1982), p. 663. Theudebert: Procopius, Wars vii.23.5–6, gold coins;

Epistolae Austrasicae xx,p.133, letter to Justinian; Agathias, Hist. i.4.1–4,Byzantine suspicions;

Collins (1983).

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Merovingian Gaul and the Frankish conquests 219

who was in control: when they met in 551 to select a new bishop for Clermont,

they were concerned not about the king’s preference, but rather that of his

‘magnates and chief men’, who in fact did impose their own choice.

Theude-

bald was hence an early example of a young king who was effectively powerless

in the face of domination by aristocrats.

Not all bishops were so deferential before these great aristocrats, however.

OneofTheuderic’s legacies to his successors was bishop Nicetius of Trier.

Nicetius had acquired his see in 525 with the support of Theuderic and other

‘men distinguished with great honor at the king’s court’. Among his clergy were

men from cities in Aquitaine that Theuderic and then his successors controlled;

he also corresponded with churchmen in northern Italy and a Lombard queen;

and he even wrote an admonitory letter to the emperor Justinian. Much of

Nicetius’ wider inﬂuence and reputation hence mirrored the extensive interests

of the Austrasian kings in central Gaul, central Europe and Byzantine Italy. But

Nicetius also constructed, on a hill overlooking the Moselle, a large castle that

he fortiﬁed with saints’ relics (and, just in case, a catapult). From this fortress

he was powerful enough to challenge a whole succession of Frankish kings

and even compel them to become ‘more meek’. He threatened Theuderic’s

supporters for grazing their horses in the ﬁelds of the poor; he banned from

the Eucharist some of Theudebert’s men whom he accused of homicide and

sexual misconduct; he often excommunicated Chlothar, who in turn sent him

into exile; and he once announced that an angel of the Lord had revealed to

him an evaluation of each king’s reign. One of his Italian correspondents neatly

acknowledged Nicetius’ multi-layered inﬂuence by requesting his assistance

both with King Theudebald and with various saints in heaven. The kings of

Austrasia may have had more extensive diplomatic connections than the other

Merovingian kings, but not even they could match Nicetius’ connections at

the court of the King of Heaven. Sigibert ﬁnally seems to have understood

what he was facing, because upon inheriting the kingdom of Austrasia in 561

he immediately requested Nicetius’ blessing.

Competition among factions of powerful aristocrats and bishops became

particularly ﬁerce again with the accession of the young Childebert, in partic-

ular during arguments over which uncle ought to be his ally. After Sigibert’s

assassination in 575 Duke Gundovald had immediately had Childebert pro-

claimed king in Austrasia. Childebert’s ﬁrst nutricius,orguardian, was Gogo,

another ‘Romanised Frank’ who was familiar enough with classical culture to

Gregory, Hist. iv.6–7.139–40.

Gregory, Vita Patrum xvii.277–83,aVita of Nicetius; Fortunatus, Carmina iii.11–12, castle; Epistolae

Austrasicae v, vi, xi, xxi, xxiv,pp.116–18, 126–7, 133–4, 137–8 for letters to Nicetius; vii–viii,

pp. 118–22, for Nicetius’ letters to Justinian and a Lombard queen.

220 raymond van dam

write his own letters and poems.

Gogo was presumably among the king’s

‘leading men’ who supported an alliance with King Guntramn of Burgundy.

But other powerful ﬁgures in the kingdom were bishop Egidius of Rheims

and Duke Guntramn Boso. Both had been prominent supporters of Sigibert,

Egidius by consecrating bishops for cities that the king was trying to control,

Guntramn Boso by commanding the army that had killed one of Chilperic’s

sons; both had also apparently not been among Childebert’s early advisers. By

581,however, Egidius had become a dominant ﬁgure at Childebert’s court and

was a member of the embassies of ‘leading men’ who negotiated a new alliance

with Chilperic. With the support of other notables in Childebert’s kingdom

Duke Guntramn Boso had meanwhile invited Gundovald, who claimed to be

another son of Chlothar, back from exile in Constantinople; King Guntramn

was particularly annoyed by the challenge this pretender posed. The increas-

ing predominance of Egidius and Guntramn Boso led to the reorientation

of Childebert’s court away from Guntramn and towards Chilperic. But the

inﬂuence of both Egidius and Guntramn Boso soon began to fade. In 583

Childebert’s army rioted against Egidius for having ‘sold’ their kingdom; soon

thereafter Childebert made another alliance with Guntramn. A year later when

Egidius and Guntramn Boso represented Childebert at Guntramn’s court, the

king became so infuriated that he had the envoys showered with manure and

mud; and in the next year he warned Childebert against accepting Egidius’

advice. Yet another faction had meanwhile developed around Brunehild,

Childebert’s mother. During her son’s minority her inﬂuence had waned. Thus

some powerful Franks had forcefully reminded her that Childebert was now

under their protection, and Guntramn Boso had repeatedly insulted her. But

after Childebert came of age, his mother reasserted her domination and took

her revenge. Although Guntramn Boso requested the assistance of important

bishops, both Childebert and King Guntramn agreed that he should be exe-

cuted. Egidius was at ﬁrst successful in deﬂecting suspicion from himself by

bringing gifts to Childebert, until in 590 he was accused of treason and ﬁnally

deposed by an ecclesiastical council.

In the kingdom of Austrasia various combinations of Frankish aristocrats,

Roman aristocrats and bishops competed for inﬂuence at the royal court. For

their purposes, rule by a king in his minority was attractive, since it allowed

them to pose as his champions. In fact, in 587 some Austrasian aristocrats

schemed to kill Childebert, who even though only seventeen years old had

nevertheless attained his majority, in order to promote his infant sons as kings

under their control. Yet even adult kings were surprised, and irritated, at the

Epistolae Austrasicae xiii, xvi, xxii,pp.128, 130, 134–5,Gogo’s letters; xlviii,pp.152–3,aletter written

in Childebert’s name. Fortunatus, Carmina vii.2.3, described Gogo as another Cicero.

Merovingian Gaul and the Frankish conquests 221

unruliness and autonomy of their nominally subject aristocrats and bishops.

The shifting treaties of the Austrasian kings were indicators not so much of

their own considered policies, as of the ﬂuctuating inﬂuence of various factions

of aristocrats who were in turn allied with other notables elsewhere.

Even if they are not as well documented, similar aristocratic and episco-

pal factions existed in other Frankish kingdoms, and the kings there likewise

needed their support. Immediately upon his father Chlothar’s death in 561,

Chilperic had tried to win the support of important Franks with gifts. After

Sigibert’s assassination Chilperic was able to attract into his service Franks

who had previously served his brother. When these Franks later abandoned

him in favour of Childebert, Ansovald received some of their estates around

Soissons.Ansovaldwas presumably among the ‘leadingmen’ who joined bishop

Leudovald of Bayeux in conﬁrming Chilperic’s alliance with Childebert in 581;

three years later he and other notables ensured that the infant Chlothar II

became king upon his father Chilperic’s assassination. In contrast to the early

disdain for Brunehild among the aristocrats of Austrasia, initially these nota-

bles seem to have supported Chlothar’smother Fredegund. So when Guntramn

quickly tried to minimise Fredegund’s inﬂuence by banishing her to an estate

near Rouen, ‘all the men distinguished by birth in king Chilperic’s kingdom’

accompanied her into exile. But Fredegund’s subsequent actions split that

consensus. Some Franks, such as Ansovald, continued to support her; but the

leading Franks at Rouen became angry at her suspected connivance in the assas-

sination of the city’s bishop, and the Franks at Tournai were upset at her lethal

interference in a local feud. Since Fredegund nevertheless remained dominant

at Chlothar’s court, these Franks could only appeal to royal courts elsewhere. In

589, for instance, the ‘leading men’ at Soissons and Meauxrequested Childebert

to establish one of his sons as their king to help them resist their enemies

(by which they presumably meant Fredegund and her supporters).

As their father by adoption, Guntramn could pose as arbiter for both Childe-

bert II and Chlothar II. Yet he was also a somewhat odd mediator for his

nephews and these northern kingdoms with their more extensive settlements

of Franks, since with his preference for Chalon-sur-Sa

one as his residence at

the expense of Orl

eans, he seems also to have turned from Frankish support-

ers towards other local notables. Unlike the Visigoths who had abandoned

Aquitaine after being defeated by Clovis, the Burgundians had remained as

a distinct ethnic group in east central Gaul; Guntramn was sensitive enough

about their support that he named his ﬁrst son Gundobad. Guntramn also came

to rely upon members of the old Roman families that remained prominent in

Gregory, Hist. vii.9.331, support for Fredegund; ix.36.457,request to Childebert.

222 raymond van dam

eastern Gaul. Some served as his high-ranking magistrates, such as Mummolus,

who held the ofﬁces of count, patrician or duke for over a decade; others served

as bishops, such as the ancestors of Gregory of Tours at Langres and Lyons.

Even Mummolus’ defection to the pretender Gundovald during the early 580s

was not enough to upset the king’s relationships with these old Roman families.

Only after Guntramn’s death did Frankish notables begin to claim a dominant

position in the kingdom of Burgundy, in part as a reaction to the continued

reliance of Brunehild, Sigibert’s widow, on Roman aristocrats.

the limits of merovingian rule

Surrounding the core of Frankish kingdoms were other regions more or less

subservient to the Merovingian kings. In some regions the Merovingians

appointed, or perhaps simply acknowledged, various dukes, such as the duke

of the Alamans, the duke of the Vascones in the western Pyrenees, and the duke

of the Bavarians. Just as some families came to dominate particular episcopal

sees or countships within Gaul, so in Bavaria the family of the Agilolﬁngs

came to monopolise the ofﬁce of duke. Since these dukes, unlike those who

served at the court of the Merovingians or administered particular regions in

the Merovingian kingdoms, ruled over distinct ethnic groups, they had much

local support and tended to act independently of the Merovingians, and even

to make war on them occasionally.

One peripheral region that clearly main-

tained its local autonomy was Brittany. During the sixth century the four

counts who each ruled a small ‘kingdom’ in Brittany were nominally under

Frankish domination, but they also repeatedly attacked neighbouring cities

and even provided asylum for men escaping the Merovingians. Although the

use of Frankish clothing and weapons spread among the Roman population

in the rest of central Gaul, Bretons nevertheless retained a distinctive ethnic

hairstyle and costume.

The limits of Merovingian rule were particularly evident in the large region

of Aquitaine, which was rarely brought ﬁrmly under Frankish control. As we

have seen, the early Merovingians had adopted different strategies, such as

sending a relative or a son to protect their interests. Clovis’ grandsons decided

to rely upon local aristocrats and bishops, even when they were uneasy doing

so. They clearly did not always trust their own magistrates. When Chilperic

appointed Desiderius, a Roman with lands near Albi, as duke over some cities in

Ewig (1953), pp. 703–8.

Alamannia: Keller (1976). Vascones (Basques): Collins (1986), pp. 82–98.Bavaria: Jarnut (1986).

Gregory, Hist. iv.4.137–8 and x.9.491–4;Galliou and Jones (1991), pp. 128–47, and Davies,

chapter 9 below.