Introduction

Summary

Between 640 and 650, it is recorded, Queen Nanthild (610–642) and her son, the young Clovis, visited the city of Orleans, in the Kingdom of Burgundy, where she summoned all members of the aristocracy – including duces and bishops – to a meeting. The reason behind this gathering was her intention to appoint a new mayor of the palace: Frank Flachoald. She knew, however, that this decision had to come from the members of the primati regnum Burgundiam. An interesting detail is that Nanthild won the loyalty of these lords, one by one, during the ceremony, and her chosen candidate was finally appointed without arousing suspicion or conflict. She even offered her niece to Flachoald in marriage.

Certainly, not all situations were resolved peacefully and, in some cases, violence played the primary role. As illustrated by the war between King Theoderic II (595–613) and his brother, King Theodebert II (595–612), leaders often confronted each other, even when relatives were involved. We read that Theodebert was defeated and later humiliated by Theoderic in a parade in the city of Cologne, in which the former was divested of his royal clothing. This act was significant since it meant depriving the defeated opponent of the legitimizing elements of monarchical power. Another account reports that Theoderic actually murdered his brother and hung his head from the walls of Cologne. Moreover, the anonymous author of the Liber Historiae Francorum mentions that Theoderic took the city and its treasures, and that the Franci seniores swore loyalty to him in the Church of Saint Gereon.

As these episodes illustrate, the creation and consolidation of leadership and ties of social cohesion in late antique societies involved practices and strategies of a diverse nature: peaceful negotiations between coexisting authorities, deployments of military rites of victory, public demonstrations of power in significant places, humiliation of defeated opponents, uses of distinguished markers of legitimacy and identity, with many more examples possible.

The complex scenario that emerged after the disappearance of the political structures of the Western Roman Empire, a process that affected the former imperial provinces in many different ways, appears to us as an interwoven patchwork of identities and communities in which new forms of leadership and social cohesion were being shaped.