The Merovingian Dynasty ruled the area of present day France and Germany from the 5th to the 8th century AD.
They were called the "long haired kings." It can only be assumed that they liked to wear their hair long, eh?
Though Keanu Reeves may believe otherwise, there is no connection between the Merovingians and the Matrix.
Their name comes from Merovech, their leader from about 447-457. The Merovingians grew in strength and power and cemented their control under Childeric I (about 457-481) when he defeated the Visigoths, Saxons and Alamanni.
Childeric's son, Clovis I, went on to unite most of Gaul north of the Loire River(486). He won the Battle of Tolbiac against the Alamanni in 496, and defeated the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouill� in 507. Clovis I also became a Christian in 496, which was more a political move to strengthen his ties with Rome than it was an acceptance of the teachings of the Church.
On the death of Clovis I his kingdom was divided among his four sons, according to Merovingian custom.
Over the next two centuries, this tradition would continue; however, accidents of fertility would ensure that occasionally the whole realm would be united under a single king; and even when multiple Merovingian kings ruled, the kingdom was conceived of as a single realm ruled collectively by several kings. In this way, the Frankish Kingdom resembled the late Roman Empire.
The Merovingian kings appointed Counts who were in charge of defense, administration and judging local disputes.
The centalized power of Rome was collapsing at this time and since there are no vacuums in nature, especially in politics, the Merovingians easily took advantage of the situation.
The Counts provided armies, enlisted from among their subordinates, giving them land in return for service.
These armies would respond whenever the King was in need of military support.
The Counts paid no money to the king for there was little money in circulation. The king was expected to support himself with the products of his private, or royal, domain. The system developed, in time, to feudalism.
By the 7th century, the kings ceased to wield effective political authority and had become symbolic figures; they began to allot more day-to-day administration to a powerful official in their household called the maior domo, or major-domo.
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This Latin title literally translates to "the greater one of the house"; the usual English translation is "Mayor of the Palace", although this official was not a mayor in the modern sense of the word.
The office of Mayor of the Palace itself became hereditary in the Carolingian family. Soon the Mayors were the real military and political leaders of the Frankish kingdom.
This fact became manifest in 732 when an invading Arab army (Moors) from Spain was defeated by an army led not by the King, but rather by the Mayor Charles Martel.
Charles' son, the Mayor Pippin III, gathered support among Frankish nobles for a change in dynasty. When the Pope appealed to him for assistance against the Lombards, he insisted that the church sanction his coronation in exchange.
So, in 751, Childeric III, the last Merovingian, was deposed. He was allowed to live, but his long hair was cut and he was sent to a monastery.
The Merovingian Kings of Gaul
Clodio I (c. 395 - 447 or 449) or, the Long-Haired, was the semi-legendary first Salian Frankish king of the Merovingian dynasty (426 - 447). His successor was Meroveus, who founded that dynasty. There are basically only two sources of information for Clodio's history: the writings of Gregory of Tours and Sidonius Apollinaris.
Clodio lived in Dispargum, a name that is believed to be that of a castle, rather than a village. Around 431, he invaded the territory of Artois, but was defeated near Hesdin by Aetius, the commander of the Roman army in Gaul.
However, Clodio re-grouped and soon was able to seize the town Cameracum. Eventually, he occupied all the country as far as the Somme River. He made Tournai the capital of the Salian Franks.
Clodio's campaigns to seize more territory led to centuries of expansion by his successors that ultimately created what we know today as the country of France.
Clodio died sometime between 447 and 449 and power passed on to Meroveus. It is not known if Meroveus was his son or another chieftain of the tribe who ascended into the leadership role.
Meroveus (c. 411-456) (M�rov�e in French, Merovech, sometimes Latinised as Meroveus or Merovius) was a chief of the Salian Franks from 448-456.
He is considered a semi-legendary individual, as not much information exists about him. Gregory of Tours records him but it is not clear if he was the son of Clodian or a leader who assumed power on Clodian's death.
His descendants called themselves Merovingians. He is the founder of what is referred to as the Merovingian Dynasty.
Some researchers have noted that Merovech, the Frankish chieftain, may have been the namesake of a certain god honored by the Franks prior to their conversion to Christianity.
Meroveus is the father of Childeric I who succeeded him.
Childeric I (c. 437- c. 482) was the Merovingian king of the Salian Franks from 457 until his death.
He succeeded his father Merovech as king, in 457 or 458. With his army he was established with his capital at Tournai, on lands which he had received in treaty from the Romans, and for some time he kept the peace with his allies.
In about 463 at Orl�ans, with the Roman General Aegidius, he defeated the Visigoths. who hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the Loire River.
After the death of Aegidius he first assisted Comes ("count") Paul of Angers to defeat the Goths. Count Paul was killed and Childeric took the city.
Childeric having delivered Angers, he followed a Saxon warband to the islands at the Atlantic mouth of the Loire, and massacred them there. In a change of alliances, he also joined forces with Odoacer, according to Gregory of Tours, to stop a band of the Alamanni who wished to invade Italy.
These are all the facts known about him, and they are not secure. The stories of his expulsion by the Franks, whose women he was taking; of his stay of eight years in Thuringia with King Basin and his wife Basine; of his return when a faithful servant advised him that he could safely do so by sending to him half of a piece of gold which he had broken with him; and of the arrival at Tournai of Queen Basine, whom he married, are entirely legendary and come from Gregory of Tours' Historia Francorum (Book ii.12).
After the fall of the Western Empire in 476 there is no doubt that Childeric regarded himself as freed from his engagements towards Rome. He died in 481 and was buried at his capital, Tournai, leaving a son Clovis, afterwards king of the Franks.
His Tomb
Childeric's tomb was discovered in 1653, by a mason doing repairs at the church of Saint-Brice in Tournai when numerous precious objects were found, a richly ornamented sword, a torse-like bracelet, jewels of gold and cloisonn� enamel with garnets, gold coins, a gold bull's head and a ring with the inscription CHILDERICI REGIS ("of Childeric the king"), which identified the tomb.
Some 300 golden bees were also in the find. Archduke Leopold William, Spanish governor of the Netherlands, had the find published in Latin, and the treasure went first to the Habsburgs in Vienna, then as a gift to Louis XIV, who was not impressed with them and stored them in the royal library, which became the Biblioth�que National at the Revolution.
Napoleon was more impressed with Childeric's bees: looking for a heraldic symbol to trump the Bourbon fleur-de-lys, he settled on Childeric's bees as symbols of the French Empire.
On the night of November 5-6, 1831, the treasure of Childeric was among 80 kilos of treasure stolen from the Library and melted down for the gold.
A few pieces were retrieved where they had been hidden in the Seine, including two of the bees, but record of the treasure now exists only in the fine engravings made at the time of its discovery, and in some reproductions made for the Habsburgs.
Clovis I (c.466 - November 27, 511 at Paris), was a member of the Merovingian dynasty. He succeeded his father Childeric I in 481 as King of the Salian Franks.
In 486, Clovis defeated Syagrius, the last Roman official in northern Gaul, who ruled the area around Soissons in present-day Picardie. This victory extended Frankish rule to most of the area north of the Loire.
After this, Clovis secured an alliance with the Ostrogoths, through the marriage of his sister Audofleda to their king, Theodoric the Great.
He followed this victory with another in 491 over a small group of Thuringians east of his territories. Later, with the help of the other Frankish sub-kings, he defeated the Alamanni in the Battle of Tolbiac.
He had previously married the Burgundian princess Clotilde (493), and, following his victory at Tolbiac, he converted in 496 to her Catholic faith.
This was a significant change from the other Germanic kings, like the Visigoths and Vandals, who embraced the rival Arian beliefs.
The conversion of Clovis to Roman Catholic Christianity, the religion of the majority of his subjects, strengthened the bonds between his Roman subjects and their Germanic conquerors. However, it has been argued that this conversion from his Frankish pagan beliefs alienated many of the other Frankish sub-kings, and weakened his military position.
He defeated the Visigoths of Toulouse in 507, This victory confined the Visigoths to Spain and added most of Aquitaine to Clovis' kingdom.
He then established Paris as his capital, and established an abbey dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul on the south bank of the Seine.
All that remains of this great abbey is the Tour Clovis, a Romanesque tower which now lies within the grounds of the prestigious Lyc�e Henri IV, just east of The Panth�on.
After its founding, the abbey was renamed in honor of Paris' patron saint, Genevi�ve. It was demolished in 1802.
Clovis I died in 511 and is interred Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, Upon his death, his realm was divided among his four sons,
This created the new political units of the Kingdoms of Reims, Orl�ans, Paris and Soissons and inaugurated a period of disunity which was to last with brief interruptions until the end (751) of his Merovingian dynasty.
Popular tradition, based on French royal tradition, holds that the Franks were the founders of the French nation, and that Clovis was therefore the first King of France.
Childebert I was born about 496 at Rheims, in the Marne, d�partement, of France and died in 558. He was a Frankish king, and a member of the Merovingian dynasty, one of the four sons of Clovis.
In the partition of his father's realm in 511 he received as his share the town of Paris, and the country to the north as far as the river Somme, and to the west as far as the English Channel.
In 524, after the murder of Chlodomer's children, Childebert annexed the cities of Chartres and Orl�ans. He took part in the various expeditions against the kingdom of Burgundy, and in 534 received as his share of the spoils of that kingdom the towns of M�con, Geneva and Lyon.
When Witiges, the king of the Ostrogoths, ceded Provence to the Franks in 535, the possession of Arles and Marseilles was guaranteed to Childebert by his brothers.
Childebert also made a series of expeditions against the Visigoths of Spain; in 542 he took possession of Pampeluna with the help of his brother Clotaire I, and besieged Zaragoza, but was forced to retreat.
From this expedition he brought back to Paris a precious relic, the tunic of St Vincent, in honour of which he built at the gates of Paris the famous monastery of St Vincent, known later as St Germain-des-Pr�s.
He died without sons in 558, and was buried in the abbey he had founded,
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Clotaire I 497 � 561, a king of the Franks, was one of the four sons of Clovis. He was born about 497 in Soissons in the Aisne, d�partement, Picardie, France.
On the death of his father in 511 he received as his share of the kingdom the town of Soissons, which he made his capital, the cities of Laon, Noyon, Cambrai and Maastricht, and the lower course of the Meuse River.
He was very ambitious, and sought to extend his domain.
He was the chief instigator of the murder of his brother Chlodomer's children in 524, and his share of the spoils consisted of the cities of Tours and Poitiers.
He took part in the various expeditions against Burgundy, and after the destruction of that kingdom in 534 obtained Grenoble, Die and some of the neighbouring cities.
When Provence was ceded to the Franks by the Ostrogoths, he received the cities of Orange, Carpentras and Gap.
In 531 he marched against the Thuringii with his brother Theuderich (Thierry) I, and in 542 with his brother Childebert I against the Visigoths of Spain.
On the death of his great-nephew Theodebald in 555, Clotaire annexed his territories; and on Childebert's death in 558 he became king of all Gaul.
He also ruled over the greater part of Germany, made expeditions into Saxony, and for some time exacted from the Saxons an annual tribute of 500 cows.
The end of his reign was troubled by internal dissensions, his son Chram rising against him on several occasions. Following Chram into Brittany, where the rebel had taken refuge, Clotaire shut him up with his wife and children in a cottage, to which he set fire.
Overwhelmed with remorse, he went to Tours to implore forgiveness at the tomb of St Martin, and died shortly afterwards.
Clotaire II (584-629) was not yet born when his father, King Chilperic I died in 584, although he was born later that year.
His mother, Queen Fredegonde, administered his kingdom until her death in 597. At age 13, Clotaire II began to rule for himself.
In 613 Clotaire II became the first king of all the Franks since his grandfather Clotaire I died in 561 by ordering the murder of Sigebert II who had ascended to the thrones of Austrasia and Burgundia.
In 615, Clotaire II promulgated the Edict of Paris, a sort of Frankish Magna Carta that reserved many rights to the Frankish nobles while it excluded Jews from all civil employment for the Crown, a ban which placed all the literacy available to the Merovingian monarchy squarely under ecclesiastical control and also greatly pleased the nobles, from whose ranks the bishops were ordinarily exclusively drawn.
Then, in 623 he gave the kingdom of Austrasia to his young son Dagobert I. This was a political move as repayment for the support of Bishop Arnulf of Metz and Pepin I, Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, the two leading Austrasian nobles, who were effectively granted semi-autonomy.
Clotaire II died in 629.
Charibert II (after 618 � April 8, 632) of the Merovingian dynasty, was briefly king in Aquitaine, 629-631/2, with his capital at Toulouse.
When Clotaire I, King of the Franks, died in 629, the kingdom passed undivided (an unusual inheritance among the Merovingians) to the elder son Dagobert I, who was already king of Austrasia.
Charibert, a minor, was represented by his uncle Brodulf, in an unsuccessful bid for the kingdom of Neustria.
In the negotiations that ensued, Dagobert ceded to his half-brother the traditionally independent realm of Aquitaine, specifically including Toulouse, Cahors, Agen, Perigueux and Saintes, which Charibert added to his possessions in Gascony, where he was married to Gisela, the heiress of Amand of Gascony.
His fighting force subdued the resistance of the Basques, until the whole of the Basque territories was under his control.
Dagobert soon had Brodulf killed. In 631 Charibert stood godfather to Dagobert's son, Sigebert; however in 632, Charibert was assassinated by Dagobert's orders at Blaye, Gironde, and the Aquitaine passed again to Dagobert.
Charibert's infant son Childeric was also murdered by Dagobert's men-at-arms, according to the mid-7th century chronicle of Fredegar. Both of them are buried in the early Romanesque Basilica of Saint-Romain at Blaye.
Charibert's surviving son, Boggis, Duke of Aquitaine, (ca 626 � ca 688), was the father of Saint Hubertus, who resigned his worldly claims to his younger brother, who began a line of Merovingian dukes of Aquitaine that lasted until 778, when the last, Loup II, was killed by Charlemagne.
Dagobert I (c. 603 - January 19, 639) was the king of the Franks from 629 to 639.
The son of King Clotaire II, Dagobert became king of Austrasia and on the death of his father, the sole king of the Franks.
By 632 he had Bourgogne and Aquitaine under his rule, becoming the most powerful of the Merovingian kings and the most respected ruler in the West. He married five times.
As king, Dagobert I made Paris his capital. During his reign, he built the Altes Schloss Castle in Meersburg, Germany which today is the oldest inhabited castle in that country.
Devoutly religious, Dagobert was also responsible for the construction of the Saint Denis Basilica at the site of a Benedictine Monastery in Paris.
Dagobert was the last of the Merovingian kings to wield any real royal power.
In 632 the nobles of Austrasia revolted under Mayor of the Palace Pepin I, and Dagobert appeased the rebellious nobles by putting his three-year-old son Sigebert III on the Austrasian throne, thereby ceding royal power in all but name.
When Dagobert died in 639, another son, Clovis II, inherited the rest of his kingdom at age five.
This pattern continued for the next century until Pippin III finally deposed the last Merovingian king in 751, establishing the Carolingian dynasty.
The Merovingian boy-kings remained ineffective rulers who inherited the throne as young children and lived only long enough to produce a male heir or two, while real power lay in the hands of the noble families (the Old Noblesse) who exercised feudal control over most of the land.
Dagobert was the first of the French kings to be buried in the Royal tombs at Saint Denis Basilica.
His wife, Queen Balthild an Anglian aristocrat sold into slavery in France, bore him three sons who all became king after his death: Chlotar, Childeric and Theuderic.
Childeric II (c. 653-673), king of Austrasia, was a son of the Frankish king Clovis II.
In 660, although a child, he was proclaimed king of Austrasia, while his brother, Clotaire III, ruled over the rest of the dominions of their father Clovis.
After the death of Clotaire in 670 he became ruler of all three Frankish kingdoms, Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy, but soon quarrelled with some supporters in Neustria, and was assassinated whilst hunting. He was buried at St Germain near Paris.
Dagobert II (650 - December 23, 679) was a Frankish King.
After his father died in 656, Dagobert was ordered to be killed. However, he was alledgedly spirited out of the country and raised in the Irish monastery of Slane.
In 675 he was found with the effective help of Wilfrid, Bishop of York, and restored in 676.
He was murdered December 23, 679 on orders from Pepin "The Fat" near Stenay in Lorraine.
Theuderic I of the Franks was the son of Balthild. He has been described as a puppet of Duke Ebrion.
He is sometimes referred to as Theuderic III, counting the former Frankish kings with the same name, who governed only part of the Franks.
Childebert II (570-595), king of Austrasia, was a son of Sigebert I.
When his father was assassinated in 575, Childebert was taken from Paris by Gundobald, one of his faithful leudes, to Metz, where he was recognized as sovereign. He was then only five years old, and during his long minority the power was disputed between his mother Brunhilda and the nobles.
Chilperic, king at Paris, and King Gontran of Burgundy, sought alliance with Childebert, who was adopted by both in turn. But after the assassination of Chilperic in 584, and the dangers occasioned to the Frankish monarchy by the expedition of Gundobald in 585, Childebert threw himself unreservedly into the arms of Gontran.
By the pact of Andelot in 587 Childebert was recognized as Gontran's heir, and with his uncle's help he quelled the revolts of the nobles and succeeded in seizing the castle of Wo�wre.
Many attempts were made on his life by Fredegond, who was anxious to secure Gontran's inheritance for her son Clotaire II.
On the death of Gontran in 592 Childebert annexed the kingdom of Burgundy, and even contemplated seizing Clotaire's estates and becoming sole king of the Franks.
He died, however, in 595. Childebert II had had relations with the Byzantine Empire, and fought in 585 in the name of the emperor Maurice against the Lombards in Italy.
Dagobert III (c.699-715) was Merovingian king of the Franks (711-715).
Son of Childebert II, he succeeded him as the head of the three Frankish kingdoms� Neustria and Austrasia, unified since Pippin's victory at Tertry in 687, and the Kingdom of Burgundy� in 711, at the age of twelve.
Real power, however, still remained with the Mayor of the Palace, Pippin of Herstal, who died in 714. Pippin's death occasioned open conflict between his heirs and the Neustrian nobles who elected the mayors of the palace.
While attention was focussed on combatting the Frisians in the north, areas of southern Gaul began to secede during Dagobert's brief time: Savaric, the fighting bishop of Auxerre, in 714 and 715 subjugated Orleans, Nevers, Avallon, and Tonnerre on his own account, and Eudo in Toulouse and Antenor in Provence were essentially independent magnates.
Chilperic II (d. 720), king of the Franks, was the son of Childeric II.
He became king of Neustria in 715, on which occasion he changed his name from Daniel to Chilperic.
At first he was a tool in the hands of Ragenfrid, the Mayor of the Palace. Charles Martel, however, overthrew Ragenfrid, accepted Chilperic as king of Neustria, and, on the death of Clotaire IV, set him over the whole kingdom. The young king died soon afterwards.
Childeric III (died about 751), king of the Franks, was the last king of the Merovingian dynasty.
The throne had been vacant for seven years when the mayors of the palace, Carloman and Pippin the Short, decided in 743 to recognize Childeric as king. We cannot say whose son he was, or how he was related to the Merovingian family.
He took no part in public business, which was directed, as before, by the mayors of the palace. When in 747 Carloman retired into a monastery, Pippin resolved to take the royal crown for himself; taking the decisive step in 751 after having received the celebrated answer of Pope Zacharias that it were better to name king him who possessed the power than him who possessed it not.
Childeric was dethroned and placed in the monastery of St Omer; his son, Theuderich, was imprisoned at Saint-Wandrifie.
This article incorporates text from the The Public Domain 1911 Encyclop�dia Britannica, edited mercilessly for clarity and space.
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