Hauts Lieux›The great stories

The Merovingians: the kings who slept among the saints

14 min read

From the death of Childeric (481 or 482) to the deposition of Childeric III (751): baptism of Clovis at Reims between 496 and 508, Vouillé in 507, partitions of 511 and 561, arrival of Columbanus around 590, reign of Dagobert (629-639), Bathild's foundations (657-661), Tertry in 687

For two and a half centuries, the descendants of Clovis ruled Gaul, dividing the kingdom among themselves, killing one another and having themselves buried beside the saints, in Paris, in Soissons, at Saint-Denis. Gregory of Tours saw them and told their story, with his own biases; Queens Clotilde, Radegund and Bathild, Bishops Remigius, Medard, Germanus, Eligius and Audoin, and the monks of Columbanus left behind crypts, baptisteries, sarcophagi and abbeys. The route leads from these places to what they truly still hold, and along the way untangles the legends: the Holy Ampulla, Tolbiac, the do-nothing kings.

A Frankish king in a Roman province

When Childeric dies, in 481 or 482, he is buried at Tournai both as a Frankish chief and as an officer of the Empire: his tomb, found in 1653 near the church of Saint-Brice, contained a ring engraved CHILDIRICI REGIS, weapons, and jewellery of gold and garnet. His son Clovis, born around 466, inherits a small kingdom of Salian Franks in what remains of Roman Gaul. In 486, near Soissons, he defeats Syagrius, the last Roman leader in the North. It is here that Gregory of Tours places the best-known anecdote of the reign: a liturgical vase claimed by a bishop, which the king would like to withhold from the division of the spoils; a warrior strikes it with his axe; a year later, reviewing his troops, Clovis cuts the man down, reminding him of the vase of Soissons. It is a lesson in authority, written ninety years later, that nothing allows us to verify.