Merovingian worlds
- ISBN: 9781108737593
- Editorial: Cambridge University Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2025
- Lugar de la edición: Cambridge . Reino Unido
- Colección: Cambridge Medieval Textbooks
- Encuadernación: Rústica
- Medidas: 22 cm
- Nº Pág.: 312
- Idiomas: Inglés
The Merovingian Kingdoms (c. 450-751) dominated much of what is now France, Belgium, and Germany, and were the most powerful and long-lived of the states that transformed the inheritance of Rome after the Crisis of the Fifth Century. Yet they often remain representative of an imagined 'Dark Age', in which civility was eroded by migration, violence, illiteracy, superstition, and a retreat from globality. Through a deep exploration of manuscripts, charters, and burials, Merovingian Worlds offers a fresh account of the period, outlining its complexities, diversity and creativity. This was a world built on dynamic political, socio-economic, cultural, and religious interactions, and shaped by its wide-ranging connections from Britain and Ireland to Byzantium and beyond. The book provides a critical introduction to the rich source material and the modern debates that shaped our perception of Western Europe after the Fall of Rome.
Introduction : anarchy and complexity
History and its historians
Identities and status
Power in the early Merovingian world (c. 450-613)
The rise of the shadow kings (613-751)
Economies, people and nature
Literacy and culture
The Frankish churches
Religions and the wider world