What if Pepin the Short was never able to take the crown of the frankish kingdom? Would a Merovingian be able to mirror Charlemagne success or is Saxony and Lombardy safe for a few more generations? How would it even be possible for the merovingians to remain kings as the last one appointed by Pepin was not more than a figurehead. I mean either the merovingians recover royal power or they ascend to japanese emperor status. What do you think would be more likely?
WI: Merovingians remains the royal frankish dynasty?
- Thread starter LeCHVCK
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The merovingian where already sideline and prisioners in their own palace, at best they would be the french equivalent of japanese emperor,the titular leader but the true power is on the Majordomos/shogun of Francia
You would need much earlier POD getting strong Merovingian dynasty or even surviving Merovingians. They were already at edge of extinction by Pipin's coup.
Even if Pipin on some reason never decides take power Carolingians would be still de facto rulers of Frankish kingdom. And probably eventualöly become royal family of the kingdom.
Even if Pipin on some reason never decides take power Carolingians would be still de facto rulers of Frankish kingdom. And probably eventualöly become royal family of the kingdom.
Yeah the POD need to make the Merovingian too powerful, or too valuable or useful to not rid off of them at the time
I've been dreaming of someone doing a script like this for a long time!
Imagine a France ruled by one of the oldest dynasties on the planet would be really interesting.
It is quiet hard get very long-living dynasty to Europe. In Japan it might work but not so well in Europe. Either dynasty is oustd or goes to extinction at some point. Not impossible but it would need much of good luck.
Its hard to do for the merovingians, in fact its a lot easier to accompany this for the Carolinians, who's biggest obstacles were Hugh the great & William Longsword iirc
I disagree with this. If it was not for the removal of the Merovingians, it is very likely that a single monarchy rules supreme over essentially everything (Within the Frankish world). Except, said monarch has little power except in the sense of his ritualism, ceremony and the taboo of his mystical bloodline and magical powers related to appearance and so forth. Traditionally, all of these matters, kept the Merovingian powerful against Frankish nobles which already ruled the society as a whole. The Merovingians were able to force the Frankish nobles to at the very least expand themselves in all directions and likewise maintain the sanctity of the Frankish throne through these supposed magical powers. No other monarchy in Europe afterward was able to recreate a mythology this powerful. The fact that it was so strong for them in otl, displays just how unique they were and how their paradigm was unique. What would develop in their place if they maintained the throne, would be the creation of a doctrine of divine bloodline in Europe, much like in say parts of Iran during the Arsacid and Sassanid period among the Dahae agnatic clans and of the Sassanid royalty.
This is one of the timelines that I would love to write on also... The only point is, to maintain this, we must avoid centralizing the monarchy. Keep the realm divided and ceremonial. This will permit the Merovingians to maintain ritual roles, ceremonial power and its magical taboos, while delegating enough authority to its vassals to make them less interested in taking direct power. Ultimately, the ideal is that the vassals will fight each other in order to have closer access to the royal court in Metz, Paris or Soissons. His holy majesty existing there as a living ritual monarch, who spent his entire rule attending to ceremonial hunts, leisure, ceremonial trips to the peasantry, meetings with the Papacy and overseeing the foundation of shrines, churches and communal projects of redistribution as part of the Merovingian palatial gift economy.
I disagree. This dynasty destroyed monarchical continuity in Europe and unlocked the door to Papal domination. Gregory VII was clear; 'the kings of Germany, France, etc... are beneath the Papacy becasue they lack the divinely appointed bloodline of the Merovingii. By dethroning Childeric III at the permission of the Papacy, Pepin II was accepting an implicit Papal power over all feudal affairs.' In essence, Gregory VII was saying, there existed theoretically only one royalty whose ceremonial power was similar to the Papacy, and that was the Merovingians. All other Frankish monarchs were new, low tier nobility who derived their power in theory from the Papacy who exceeded them in all ways in ceremonial authority. In fact, much anti-Papal polemic in the period revolved around oddly defending the bloodlines of their kings against their Frankish/Lombard counterparts in the Papacy. As a result, the Capetians returned to Merovingian motifs in their rule, while the Holy Roman Empire attempted to assert itself as a successor of Rome. Neither could replicate the same level of sanctity and solemn ritualism held by the Merovingians, aside for the Reform Papacy. This is an important point to note...
Indeed, keeping the ceremonial Merovingians, ensures the sanctity of bloodline in Frankish circles, which was lost after Pepin II ascended. With the ascent of Pepin II, the old notion of the primacy of blood in kingship, was replaced by a notion of divine appointment + effective power. This permitted the Papacy to control, dominate and assert itself as a reform Papacy over the temporal states of Europe; just as it did in other areas where this model existed. In the case of the Merovingians, they did not rule by divine right, but by the right of bloodline and of mystical taboos, customs and the law of ancient people during the years 330-500 CE. They too, did not hold fast to 'effective power' as the Merovingian kings believed seemingly in the doctrine that the true king does not rule and instead appoints others to do so, while he hurries himself to the real objects of the state, namely ceremony, ritual and of tending to his body and palace.
In such a society, we have develop something completely different from the Europe we know. Instead, we have a true feudalism without centralizing conflicts and of royal vs noble vs clerical authority. Instead, all subsisting as a larger whole. This whole may be somewhat dysfunctional and haphazard though...
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I feel that part of what @Lalli was implying was that because of the different marriage customs of Europe it would be far more likely that the direct Merovingian bloodline would be more likely to eventually go extinct, although I'm not sure to what extent the Merovingians considered descent through auxiliary bloodlines acceptable.
In any case, would the Merovingians really rule over "essentially everything"? The Frankish kingdom didn't control Iberia, the British Isles, or other substantial portions of Christendom, much less all of Europe and the Mediterranean basin, and I doubt that the Merovingians would have been any more capable of conquering all of them than the Carolingians; less, perhaps, because of how the monarchs attended themselves to ritual concerns instead of state concerns. Sure, pushing vassals outwards works up to a point, but eventually you run into obstacles that require more centralized leadership and the vassals themselves start to fight with each other more than with external enemies.
Well, the Capetians ruled more or less four times longer than the Merovingians, so it would seem that their approach worked much better.
This sounds like a lot of Chinese philosophy, but the idea didn't really work there, either. Really, it only worked in Japan, for reasons that aren't totally clear to me.
It did work though in Europe, firstly for part of the Merovingian period and to some degree as part of Papal dogmatic philosophy. There are much discussions on this, in the comparison of the ideals of a sort of mystical bloodline of ceremonial ritual kings in the Merovingian sense to that of the Japanese system of feudalism and of the doctrines of legalism. regarding legalism, in reference, to what I understand as the role of the king as ensuring certain ritual and of enforcing more a strict adherence to laws and customs. I believe the axiom was to enforce fear, terror and duty upon the bureaucracy so that they would work without direct intervention of the monarch. It would seem that the Qin preeminent eunuch, Zhao Gao operated under this system, despite his terrible reputation in later Han historiography. In a sense, the Merovingian also were operating under this system, with the nobles taking a certain fear, not due to the possibility of execution, but of a sort of curse that may be imposed upon he who obstructed the royal bloodline and its connection to the ritual of kingship. Indeed, one may say this was the case, when you consider the fate of European monarchs, either crushed outright by Papal legal interdiction, destroyed in revolutions, controlled by the Papacy into a marriage custom that often saw power loss quickly, generally embattled by the Papacy or unable to realize the ideal of universalism that most of the monarchs in Europe espoused.
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Regarding ages and times of rule, it is different. The Capet model was good, surely, it required their submission to the Papacy, which buttressed their government and actively held the French monarchy up, assisting it against all of its neighbors and vassals. Indeed, the Capet advocated a Merovingian motif wherein they asserted 'rule by the bloodline' rather than through divine appointment or by effective power. Combining this with the Papal power, the most effective monarchy and political order in Europe after the Merovingians and excluding the Eastern Empire, we understand readily why the Capet did so well.
Also, it is not known how long the Merovingians ruled the Franks. If we went by their myths, they ruled the Franks for centuries prior. What is more likely, is that the Merovingians were the first elected leading household of the Franks during their formation around 300-360 CE. At least of the Salian Franks across the Rhine. Likely, these nobles had been ruling the people thus as part of its ruling caste for around 470 years perhaps. This is not something to snuff at, especially when you understand that Capet success derives from the same roots as the Merovingians, except less pronounced. The Capet kings did not attempt to reinvent the wheel as the varied Holy Roman Emperors did and create some sort of sacred Roman empire with Byzantine flair in the middle of Frankish Europe.
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Regarding Europe, when we speak of everything, I refer to the Frankish world of the High Middle Ages, which was France, the Holy Roman Empire and to a lesser degree, Northern Italy. Merovingian expansion was more dramatic and expanded in more difficult areas than the Carloginian successors. Setting aside Clovis I, the Merovingians were able to subjugate many different Germanic peoples of diverse religions and language and formulated these under a greater Merovingian aegis. Not to mention forming the bedrock of the entirety of Medieval Europe through its synthesis of Frankish custom with that of traditional Latin religion.
The Merovingian kingdom expanded in autonomous ways in primarily the east, where it managed to conquer the varied Saxon peoples, without leading to bloody rebellion and disunity as under Charles I. Furthermore, effective superiority was established over the Lombard kingdom without having to conquer them. Given appropriate time and development, the demographic depth and colonization process of the Frankish world at the time, would permit successful expansions in all directions, just as was occurring in the Middle Ages. Indeed, European expansions in the Middle Ages, much more spectacular than Charles I, were performed culturally and militarily from the idea of a coalition lord, i.e the Papacy. In atl, this coalition lord is the Merovingian king and possibly the royal court, made up of the Church as the bureaucracy and the nobles who have privileges at court. Merovingian kings would be in essence, an unmovable symbol of Frankish unity, unlike Charles I, who was a symbol of regicide and of poor centralization methods.
So, the Merovingian expansion does not require a single centralized state, it only needs the feudal conception of a centrality that hypothetically exists that can make the calls to war. Then it can work like the Arsacid, Sassanid or indeed the Papacy in empowering an expansionist policy. Figurehead monarchs are not necessarily weak, they are figures which can act as rallying points and this would be one of the main rituals of the Merovingian monarchs, namely, each day, embodying Frankish eternal unity and expansion in a palatial-plunder economy that by its nature requires constant growth. Now, in such a society, we may not see the development of a commercial economy the same as otl, but we at least have an interesting situation.
And it does not matter if the vassals fight each other. The reason that it is less likely, is that the nature of Frankish warfare, that is generally relying upon plunder, necessitated the need to find prey who possessed wealth sufficient. The Frankish nobles in the period in question before the commercial economy, often transferred their wealth into movable treasures which were then interred into shrines or other religious sites of veneration. As the taboo was, one could not attack their comrades in their manors and also they could not loot shrines or religious sites (as this was a bad omen, which incurred curses), the Franks found their loot beyond the Frankish realm. This custom was still at play in Europe in the Middle Ages, once the Frankish world was back on the offensive as the Arab chroniclers explain, they expanded in order to reintroduce a plunder economy, that sought to destroy opposing foes beyond their frontiers, redistributing the wealth into the interior and in time, colonizing the areas for their civilizational complex. Indeed, this was the situation of the Merovingians, as they were the ones who introduced this as this model was certainly not Roman.
In the Middle Ages, at the height of weak Capet and Imperial monarchies, the Papacy describes infighting amongst the Franks less as wars, rather than vendetta squabbles. Urban II and his ilk likely understood that once possessing an effective figurehead (the Papacy) and a goal (renewed expansionism), these vassals could be formed into very powerful armies that in coalition could turn the tide on behalf of the Eastern Empire, just as they were doing in Iberia, along the frontiers with the Slavic peoples and against the Magyar. So, I do believe that there will be internal bloodletting especially later, but these will not be to overthrow the Merovingians, but rather wars to gain access closer to the court and access the supposed power imbued by Merovingian rituals.
One idea that later Medieval writers failed to understand is that the Merovingian 'do-nothing' but rituals mentality was understood as something that was magical, that produced certain exchanges in the real world that actualized power. It was a soft power that imposed itself across the Frankish realms. One example is how the Merovingian kings interacted as directly Intune with every caste in society and practicing a 'constant court' which gave legitimacy to all the nobility. Or the travelling in chariot for total ceremonial purposes, alongside pre-planned ceremonial hunts, all with the supposed benefit of maintaining the life of the state through ritual. However, this notion was rejected by the 'effective power' doctrine of Charles I. Who felt that the king must focus actively upon ruling, instead of taking the role as a benevolent figurehead, whose role is ritual imposition of magical order through repetition of ceremony. So vassals would indeed eventually fight over gaining better access to this as the more vassals the realm acquires, the more impossible it will be for all to hold court positions and hence fighting will commence over seats at court and thus abilities to receive the powers imbued by the Merovingian rituals.
Could we somehow get a "Merovingian Restoration" situation, similar to the Japanese "Meiji Restoration" or "Kenmu Restoration"? I can see an ATL where Theuderic, last known member of the Merovingian dynasty and son of the last merovingian king Childeric III, achieve it. This situation could happen in a scenario where the Islam never arises and, as a consequence, Charles Martel doesn't achieve as much power and prestige as he gained IOTL thanks to his victories against the Muslims.
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You don't even need a No Islam world, all you need is having a scenario where, even if Charles Martel is the Major of the Palace, it's another Frankish Noble that defeats the large muslim incursions into Aquitaine, weakening the Carolingians by eating away at their prestige... If, in such a scenario, the Merovingians can play off of one another the Carolingians and this other noble family, even better.
You say that but i find it hard to believe that people would buy into this for so long. If it wasn't carolingians it would be someone else that would shatter the illusion
You would need Merovingians care about their power and give them massive support. Their only hope is that Merovingians never become so weak that they are easy to oust. Even if you take Carolingians away pörobably some another dynasty would replace Merovingians or then Frankish empire eventually dissolve to several small kingdoms ruled by local noble families.
I do not agree. A similar system existed in many other societies, unless your view is that Europeans are uniquely power-hungry and recalcitrant (which may be true for a subsection of European populace, the Papacy felt this way about the Normans for instance 'a recalcitrant race' in comparison to the Franks), though I would need to hear the argument for this first. Nevertheless, in China during the Zhou dynasty, a ritual king ruled for centuries before he was finally dethroned. In Assyria, a ritual-based monarchy ruled for 965 years with the same dynasty. In Japan, a true ritual monarch has ruled Japan since the end of the Heian period, for over 800 years. The Merovingians ruled as ritual-war monarchs, possessing no governmental objectives, taking a total laissez faire motif upon much of their realm for several centuries, for a period longer than Charles I and his realm lasted.
Not to mention, the obvious answer in Europe. The Papacy was able to use its status as a ritualized pseudo monarch with power over a ritual-priestly-legal caste to dominate and issue forth power over hard-power kingdoms, simply due to its ability to pass interdictions and to attack monarchies in ways that were unconventional. Finally, it was able to unite realms rapidly in coalitions to destroy particular targets, just as the Merovingians could.
It also is not an illusion. In governance, everything is ultimately an illusion. Indeed, no realm in the pre-1900 section of history that is a large agricultural state, has the ability to enforce something upon an enraged population. For instance, in the case of the Qin state of China, despite having an extremely powerful military, a skilled set of court officials, complex law and a mass system of conscriptions, it was nearly impossible to maintain rule over a Chinese population that was constantly in revolt. Indeed, if the clergy of the year 1000 CE or even before, saw fit to ruin the states that they exist and if they had an idea or basis for something to create afterwards, it would have not been to difficult to essentially flip the entirety of the feudal system on its head. Every village so-connected to their clergy and their communal activities, if laid forth in revolt and connecting together in millennial revolution and with moderate support from the clergy with noble support, no monarchy would be able to resist them. The main reason such a thing never happened is not because the nobility and the royalty (or the clergy) possessed enough hard power to quell the population (as the Confucian argument goes, without popular support of some kind, governance will eventually become impossible), but it is because the illusion (if you will) that the consecrated into their ruling ideology, managed to effectively appease, trick and or convince the majority of the population, making revolution, rebellion and collapse unlikely.
Merovingian soft power and illusions were effective for the general population and most of the nobility. Their mode of operation as ritual kings made them an almost reclusive star that could be seen but not comprehended and or touched. The peasantry were the main benefactors of this system and of the low clergy. Merovingian kingship embodied feudalism and the system of localist economic redistribution, with the monarch refusing relations in mercantile realms and using excess profit as redistribution as part of a wider palatial economy, with a proto-manorial rural economy. More reminiscent frankly of the Bronze Age styled redistributive systems of Assyria than anything likened to the dominate of Rome. The lack of currency for taboo and cultural purposes is especially important here. And the rituals that the Merovingian kings, some of which centered upon dealings with the Church, the nobility or consecration of the state to God, but a greater portion was in fact leaned towards acquiring and building the concept of a people-king and of creating a consensus of the ruled, which was made evident and or clear in the body of the bloodline that ruled the Franks.
In the case of the Peppinids (the dynasty of Charles I), began their lifetime as Mayor of the Palace. Their duties to run the government in stead of the Merovingian bloodline, which busied themselves with other tasks. Their existence hinged upon effective power and governance, rather than upon firm ideologies and this was the argument of Gregory of Tours for the Peppinid change, that the effective government was more important than pointless ritualism... This is the origin of the term, 'do nothing kings.' The shunning of this form of government would be proven greatly wrong, as the children of Charles I, his heirs in progeny would be picked off for being poor governors and replaced by governments attempting to embody systems more similar to the Merovingians, especially in France. And how incorrectly proven was Gregory of Tours by the Papacy in the coming centuries, when strong effective power of monarchs was bested by soft power, 'illusions,' rituals and legal rhetoric from the Papacy. With the spectre of the Merovingians being rose up to dethrone kings and impose submission upon Frankish monarchs until the death of Boniface VIII.
Anyway, the common medieval opinion taken by legal experts, from all angles (even those in support of the monarchs) held that Pepin II deposed the Merovingians not with hard power alone. He did so with the consent and hence permission of the Papacy, who was besought by the Mayor of the Palace as to the issue. Without the Papacy challenging and countering the power of the Merovingian taboos and rituals, Pepin II likely does nothing. Even Gregory of Tours implied that Pepin II feared the idea of touching the hair of the king and of dethroning him, hence why he solemnly sought the Pope to remove his anxiety and make sure that Heaven would not curse him. As the Papacy, with its Christian legalism and set of mores by this time exceeded in Pepin II that of his taboo and superstition from a Germanic pagan root, he was able the depose Childeric III with the power of the Papacy backing him. I personally am not sure why the Papacy under Zachary wished to do this. My feeling is that the Papacy wished to have a more centralized power to assist it against the Eastern Empire and its Iconoclast reforms or in the potentiality of a Papal-Lombard conflict.
If the Papacy remains in tandem with the Merovingians. I can see the Merovingian monarchs developing into a unique system that rules as ritual-kings. A set of codes and rites will be created in the future and a more thorough palatial system set in place, with some type of attendant caste (eunuchs possibly) alongside a shogun-like Mayor of the Palace and a court of nobles and clergyman, who all effectively control the governing of the country. Merovingian power will be in the series of laws, rites and customs and in appealing to the peasantry and low clergy to protect it from potential usurpation. In a scenario like this, the Merovingian monarch could be able to keep his enemies in check with the fear of being attacked from the bottom and from the top. Imagine a system wherein the king runs a faction made up of priests, monks, peasants and a eunuch-like grouping.
Anyway, the Capet developed this way to a large degree and they were never overthrown. Their monarchy declined more pronouncedly the more centralizing occurred, we may contend. Both in the main branch and in the cadet branches of Bourbon and Valois, significant centralizing is followed by declines and a greater instability following such. Mainly because effective absolute monarch models require excessive energy upon the court, which is not always inherited by the succeeding court and hence the system cracks more readily and the governmental makeup changes.
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That seems like a big ask though, and as you point out the Papacy quite enjoyed being the ritual monarch themselves. its hard to imagine this system surviving between the three poles of the Merovingians, the Papacy, and the Mayors of the Palace, and thats just internal tensions.