14 - Francia in the seventh century

Summary

The main focus of the narrative history of Francia in the seventh century is its ruling dynasty, the Merovingians. This is because the precious few Franks who commented upon what was happening around them were primarily interested in a tiny social elite which participated in the exercise of power through the medium of the royal palace. Hardly less for modern commentators, the doings of kings, and of queens, and the arrangement of power in and out of the palace, have become the necessary principles around which we must organise our understanding of events. The very chronology of the period is determined according to which king ruled where, and for how long. The Merovingians themselves have a poor reputation – they are notorious as ‘the do-nothing kings’ – and given the nature of our sources, this has had the effect of dragging the seventh century down with them. In the most pessimistic view, its main redeeming feature was that it also saw the rise of the family which would form a new ruling dynasty, namely the Carolingians. The ‘decline of the Merovingians and the rise of the Carolingians’ has thus often been the keynote for studies of seventh-century Francia. But the beginning of the transition from the one dynasty to the other is by no means the most significant feature of seventh-century history. Far more important is that this period saw the maturing of a political culture that would outlast both Merovingians and Carolingians and spread well beyond Francia itself. With a gradual disappearance of direct taxation and with the enlargement of territory under a single ruler, the seventh century saw the development of a regime which was formed out of consensus between the different groups of the powerful in society.