If I took every Frankish claim seriously, I'd have added the whole of Anglo-Saxon England (which was boasted in the VIth century to be under Merovingian dominance, which is of course false, altough you certainly had a strong Frankish influence on Kent, maybe less so on East-Anglia and Wessex), Jutland, parts of Spain (such as the region between Pyrenees and Ebre, you can still see on some modern maps as part of Carolingia or as tributary when they had trouble enough to secure Catalonia, and unable to curb down Vascons of Pampelune even in the early 810's), Asturias, etc. without even mentioning the Trojan origin of Franks, or Francia as the new Israel.
I must point, tough, that these claims (even outlandish) weren't unconsequential : they introduced and followed a certain Frankish presence outside their actual sphere of influence. For exemple, while Merovingians had little effective dominance in Britain in the VIth century exception made of Kent, Frankish claims and "reputation" so to speak helped deepening this presence. It worked similarily in Germania, except more practically : the general claims over German polities or chiefdoms was there followed by an actual hegemony. To dismiss Frankish claims as "just claims" would be already a mistake to understand early medieval Western Europe, as it would be by ignoring Roman claims as just claims in Eastern Europe.
That being said, if I really wanted to point all Frankish claims of dominance between the Vth and the IXth century, it would go awry really quickly : what I call a Frankish sphere of influence was the effective region of political/economical/cultural interventionism of Frankish kings.
I think the disagreement might arise from your conception of sphere of influence as an admitted and exclusive dominance : it's not really what I consider there, tough. The relations of Franks with Germanic polities and tribes was complex, and two-sided. When Franks considered the battles against Saxons, Thuringians or Bavarians as battle against revolted dukes, they were right to consider it so, because it's how they considered and effectively dominated the region. Conversly, these peoples regularily considered their rules as kings, which at the first sign of decline in Francia, tried to re-establish their autonomy. On this regard, regardless from a Frankish point of view or a German point of view, the difference between Saxons and Thuringians, Bretons and Aquitains, was minimal.
I'll quote again Ian Wood there.
[The] use of word "hegemony", to describe power structures in the Early Middle-Ages, can be no more than the exploitation of a single concept to cover a variety of untidy relationship, each of which can be seen in a number of ways. It is a shorthand which needs to be illustrated in a concrete form: the two most obvious being tribute and marriage.
Again, my point isn't that Saxons were under Frankish control in the same way than Alemania, and a fortiori Gaul, was : but that it was a complex relationship on which readiness to fight back dominance didn't meant it was superficial or even that there wasn't already a certain dependency at work, caused by a direct policy.
I mean, I don't think anybody really denies that Brittany and Kent were under the political influence of Francia in the VIth and VIIth centuries : it seems to me that the main reason we don't think of Saxony this way is because of the brutal Carolingian conquest which wasn't really normative of the relations at work (a bit like we'd consider the relations between France and Britain only under the scope of Hundred Years War, all proportions kept)
I tried to point in the above post why I, and why the leading specialists of the period tended to say that there was a Frankish influence and lax control of Saxony. I tried to give several, sourced, exemples of the realities of the relation : I can see you're convinced it was not the case, but you didn't gave me much to consider apart a sounding "no", and I think the discussion deserves a bit more than this, to be honest : I mean what I tried to point for the 620's can easily be checked, especially as it's one of the best known Franko-Saxons relations.
It could have been worded better (and believe me, I did rewrote a lot of sentences from this point onwards), but from my point of view I gave sourced, dated and descriptive mentions that you dismissed with generalizations whom I don't really see the relation with the point develloped : for exemple, I'm a bit at loss how Aighina's presence and dismissal of the Austrasian court is related to "Franks having led an expedition in Saxony once".
I'm not pickish : what I'd want is a refutation or an alternative explanation of what I describe.
Which is true : there's a tendency that grows these days, out of the idea that arguments, no matter how elaborated or detailed, are less important than finding a logical gap : and when you search this, you always find one. Not to say logical gaps doesn't exist, but it's becoming an extremely easy way out of an argumented discussion and I must admit I don't really try to distinguish there.
When I said I passed hours on writing a post, you're mistaken to understand it as a disallowance of criticism : I tried to explain it, but I'll do it again and maybe more plainly.
Out of respect of people I'm discussing with, when they make a claims or affirm something that I find doubtful or wrong, I generally check nevertheless. Because I know I can be wrong or ignoring, no matter how I know the subject or think I know it. Again, I don't claim any special treatment for this (but I said this a lot of time already on this thread) but I don't think asking for a similar level of toughtfulness and search in the answer (would it be a critic or not) is uncalled for.
Out of respect of peoples that might be interested on the topic, without having a special knowledge on this (and I'm the first to agree that the question of Merovingian influence on Saxony is pretty much an ultra-niche subject), I try to take also time to explain the best I can a situation, double-checking what I put (in another hand, it's part of my secondary job) tying to provide ground for people to discuss even if it means in disagreement.
Again, it's not about special treatment, but asking to acknowledge a bit this, by answering points rather than putting generalized answers, isn't something monstruous from me.
And, yes, it's one of the reason I wonder "Why do I bother?". Because, honestly, I could have pulled a series of quotes of specialists instead and said something along "renowed historians > your opinion; period". But as said, it's not my idea of a respectful discussion : I check what I'm being told, I check what I tell others. So when it's answered by "you ought to" or "this is silly" without further explanation, yes it's annoying., and yes this is my problem : but I've an hard time accepting it devolving at this point, because it could be a source for a truly enriching discussion.
Searching about this, you'd see that this migration was sort of a circle around Europe : a group of Saxons left Saxony joining with Lombards, then settled in Italy for a short-while, then raided Francia and were displaced in Austrasia, possibly further. All of this in less than 5 years. We're not talking of two different groups, or a migrations taking ages, but a rather short displacement, akin to what existed in Romania between the IIIrd and the Vth century.
You don't tell me what I'm
ought to do or not in such discussions, especially with the particularily dismissive answer you did about "oh well, refugees today are such and such, so argument is silly". This was the problem to me.
I apologize is my answer was too brutal. On the other hand, this brutality doesn't remove IMO what I think is an issue.
I gladly do such posts not only out of respect of people reading such threads but out of pleasure to exchange a topic that I'm interested on (and that, false modesty apart, know better than the average Joe, even if it's always the occasion to check up what I know, and to learn more), I do think it could deserve more than an automated-looking answer, or being treated as a silly thing that I just pulled out of my bottom. Rather than acceptance or submission (the fantasy of intellectually crushing people doesn't really interest me, it's moronic and I prefer by far the thrill of confronting my points and, on this board, to turn them on uchronic concepts).
Basically, not "what" is being criticized but "how" it is done.
It's hard to weaken Franks without having another competitor taking their place as the Gallic-based hegemon. It's not impossible, of course, and there's at least two possibilities coming in mind (Early death of Chilperic, Merovingian dynasty ending early and Franks pulling an anti-dynastic kingship as Goths did).
i'd even say that if you prevent the crisis of the VIIth century (a no-Islam TL seems the obvious way to do so), keeping the Merovingian network in Germania relatively intact would lead to a continuous structuration of Saxony into something more akin to early medieval Bavaria (maybe at the cost of replacing a purely Saxon duke by a Franko-Saxon, but this is of little incidence), while a more Mediterranean-driven Francia (especially in Spain, IMO) would be more disinterested on Saxony that at the first opportunity (meaning crisis) would pull a
Radulf.
Saxony, on this regard, strikes me as part of an "outer" sphere of influence (compared to parts generally considered within the regnum: altough making a distinction is legit, it's still essentially historiographical), as were Brittany or Kent, being understood that I mean by SoI a region where Merovingians intervened directly on a regular basis.
I stress this a lot, but we can really see the evolution of Late Roman geopolitical relationship into something new but still reckognizable to me. Carolingians really were there, like on several other matters, an historical rupture rather than continuation.