Est-ce qu'une "mutation de l'an 600" a eu lieu en Austrasie ?

[Here is the paper that I presented on Saturday to the conference on 'L'Austrasie: Pouvoirs, espaces et identitésà la charnière de l’antiquité tardive et du moyen-âge' held in St-Dizier and Reims.  It was a very good conference and my congratulations go to the organisers, Bruno Dumézil, Sylvie Joye and Adrien Bayard.  It was great to catch up with my French friends and colleagues and make new contacts. 

It was, as it always is to me, a little vexing to see archaeological papers, including ones on Metz and its region, making no reference to Settlement and Social Organisation, which seems to be much better known among French historians than archaeologists, and thus restating things that I have been saying for 20 years, or posing questions to which I have already suggested answers, but there you go...  Enough of my 'amour propre'.

As a result of a whole series of mishaps - well, not so much mishaps as of me forgetting stuff (notes, drafts, adapters...) I ended up (re-)writing this during the conference.  As a result I make absolutely no claims to the accuracy or idiomatic quality of the French!

For non-francophones, the argument essentially goes like this (not much of it will be very surprising for followers of my work or this blog):

Introduction:

Paragraph 1: We might be able to answer, guardedly, 'yes' to the question 'was there a transformation of the year 600 in Austrasia?'

2: Some personal historiography tracing my interest in the subject back to Settlement and Social Organization.

3-6: Four preliminary remarks: This isn't a singular point of revolution cutting one long, static period off from another; the different thematic areas under review moved at different speeds on their own trajectories; the periods on either side of the proposed transformation weren't static; there were 6th-century precursors and 7th-century continuations.

A: The Transformation

A: Cemeteries and Grave-Goods

7: We've known there was an important shift in material culture c.600 since the C19th, but this came with other developments in burial ritual.  6th-century grave-goods were deposited according to various general norms.  These broke down in the C7th.

8: There was a major reduction in gender-related objects, especially feminine

9: Above-Ground Monuments became more frequent

10: There was a change in the organisation of cemeteries, with rows on tombs less prominent.  There were more, and smaller, cemeteries in the C7th than the C6th.  This probably represents the fragmentation of earlier, large communal cemeteries into more local ones.

B: 'Élite' graves

11: The 'aristocratic emulation model', which sees aristocrats being buried in churches after c.525 probably underestimates the unusual nature of early founders' graves.  There are clearly prestigious burials in the period 525-75 but they are often more subtly marked out.

12: Around 600, the means of demonstrating prestige in burial changed.  Various strategies involve 'separation' from the community, the breaking of norms, etc.  There were probably more burials in churches albeit at this date mainly in the urban centres and secondary agglomerations (vici, castra).

C: Implications

13: What were the implications of all this?  In the 6th century, burial reveals competition for social status.  This does not mean that, for example, the 'chieftains' of St-Dizier weren't from a powerful family: just that that power was transmitted with difficulty.  This situation made the early Merovingian state powerful

14: Around 600, the visible changes suggest a greater security of power and an ability to project status into the future.

15: This can be linked to a whole bunch of other transformations that suggest a more powerful aristocracy, at this time: legal changes, foundation of monasteries, increases in documents, etc etc.

16: There was a long list of other socio-economic changes at this time, many of which can be linked to a change in aristocratic power, in one way or another.

17: These changes altered the relations of power between king and aristocracy and gave Merovingian politics of the 7th century a different flavour from those of the 6th century.

Explanations

18-19: The explanation I put forward in 1995, linking these changes to the political crises brought about by royal minorities, especially in Austrasia, between 575 and 613.

20: That's still valuable but it needs to be broadened and deepened. First: there was a range of transformations across Western Europe at this time - some very similar to those in Austrasia, some not.  Austrasian politics can't explain all these.

21: I had too readily assumed that the political crisis in Austrasia would automatically lead to the aristocracy appropriating power to themselves and away from the kings and that that would naturally lead to a weakening of state power.  This may have been the result but it didn't have to be that way.

22: For a decline in consensus there must have been important changes.  These took place in the mid-C6th, with the plague, perhaps natural catastrophes, and Justinian's wars.  I will concentrate on the latter.

23: Between 476 and the 2nd quarter of the C6th, the West continued in a sort of political twilight zone.  Roman claims to power continued.

23: Justinian's ideology of reconquest undermined all these claims to power.

24: That required ideological response by the kings, who responded with imagination, above all using the Old Testament.

25: The aristocracy also required new bases of power, and chose ones which did not refer to old pre-Justinianic Roman ideas - like monasteries etc.

26: They were reinforced by other changes in ideas about time and history.

27: To conclude, a wave of changes swept across western Europe c.600.  These created a context in which the political crises in Austrasia c.600 had even more important results.  The Transformation of the Year 600 was not the only important phase of change in early medieval Europe but was very important because it marked the end of the Roman world.

The questions were very useful and focused on the linkage between Justinian and a crisis of consent.]

***

On a souvent dit qu'une communication qui pose une question dans son titre - comme les questions posées dans les manchettes du journal anglais 'The Daily Mail' - attend toujours la réponse 'non'. Je voudrais cependant suggérer qu'on aurait le droit de répondre à la question dans mon titre - est-ce qu'une mutation de l'an six cent a eu lieu en Austrasie? - d’une façon plus affirmatif, pourvu qu'on comprenne bien ce qu'on voudrait dire par le mot 'mutation'. 

J'ai publié, il y a vingt ans presque exactement - le livre est paru en Septembre 1995 - une étude de la région de Metz, fondé sur ma thèse de doctorat sur le même sujet. Dans ce livre j'ai proposé une phase de changements importants dans cette période comprenant le dernier quart du sixième siècle et le premier quart du septième.  Je travails maintenant sur une étude de l’Europe de l’ouest dans la période après les guerres de Justinien et avant le milieu du septième siècle. Les « mutations de l'an 600 » (entre guillemets) sont visibles dans la plupart des domaines de la société et la culture mérovingiennes et à travers beaucoup de l'Europe occidental.  Évidemment, je ne peux pas discuter cette longue liste de transformations.  J’ai choisi donc de concentrer sur quelques éléments qui concernent l’histoire socio-politique de l’Austrasie et qui peuvent contribuer à notre compréhension des tombes de St-Dizier.

Je voudrais faire quatre remarques préalables. 

1 : En premier, je souligne que je ne propose pas une vraie révolution dramatique qui bouleverse un monde antique assez statique ou, pour utiliser les termes plus Marxistes, un mode de production esclavagiste, pour le remplacer par un monde médiéval, ou un mode de production féodal, également peu changeant. Pour l'exprimer autrement, je n'envisage pas le choix devant nous comme le choix entre les positions extrêmes tenues parfois dans le débat sur la prétendue mutation de l'an mille, c'est à dire entre une révolution radicale, d'assez courte durée, renversant tout un système socio-économique, ou, par contre, un lent développement - ou même la continuité - qui se prolongeait pendant des siècles. J'envisage plutôt un moyen âge, un haut moyen âge même, dynamique, ponctué par des périodes de changement significatives assez fréquentes, dont la « mutation de l'an 600 » en était une.  Cela dit, je voudrais aussi suggérer que les changements qui ont eu lieu pendant les décennies autour de l'an 600 avaient une signification particulière.

2 : Deuxième remarque préalable: je ne vais pas suggérer que tous les changements ou transformations ont eu lieu à exactement la même date ou avec la même rapidité.  Évidemment, personne n'a sonné une cloche, le 31 Décembre 599 pour que tout-le-monde se change immédiatement.  Les sphères diverses ont eu chacune son propre rythme et son propre trajet.  Mais je voudrais proposer qu'elles se soient tous reliées et qu'en Austrasie un Schwerpunkt se trouvait dans les décennies juste avant et juste après l'an 600.

3 : En troisième: je ne voudrais pas suggérer que les périodes avant ou après  la mutation proposée ont été des périodes stables.  La période entre la déposition de l'empereur Romulus en 476 et les guerres de Justinien était une époque très particulière et très important qui mérite plus d'attention du part des historiens et des archéologues.  Je reviendrais à ce point.  Et le milieu du septième siècle a vu d’autres changements, surtout dans l’histoire des habitats. 

4 : Enfin, quatrièmement, il n’y avait pas une différence binaire « manichéenne » entre le sixième siècle et le septième.  Il y avait des précurseurs au sixième et de prolongements au septième, mais, vu les limitations de temps, il me faut décrire cette différence d’une façon peut-être un peu simplifiée.

2. La « mutation »

A. Cimetières et mobilier funéraire
Les archéologues du dix-neuvième siècle tardif ont reconnu l'importance des décennies autour de 600 en marquant une charnière entre deux phases de l'archéologie mérovingienne.  Cette phase – entre älter Merowingerzeit et jünger Merowingerzeit - reste confirmée par les études chronologiques, même si nous préférons aujourd'hui penser d'une période plus large, entre 575 et 625, plutôt qu'une simple rupture vers 600.  Ces changements étaient accompagnés des autres transformations dans les pratiques funéraires.  L'analyse des cimetières montre des transformations en la distribution de mobilier funéraire.  Aux sixième siècle mes analyses ont montré qu’il existait des règles ou des normes qui gouvernaient, d’une certaine manière, la distribution de mobilier dans les tombes.  Ces résultats ont été confirmés par d’autres analyses de cimetières dans d’autres parties du monde mérovingien.  Je pense en particulier aux analyses des cimetières de l’Allemagne du sud menés par Sebastien Brather.  Ces règles concernaient surtout l’âge et le sexe, et les trois tombes de chef de St-Dizier conforment exactement au schéma que j’ai proposé en 1995.  Ces règles sont beaucoup moins visibles au septième siècle. 

L’un des raisons pour ce fait est le nombre et la variété réduite des objets enterrés avec les morts.  Surtout les objets qui marquaient le sexe du défunt se réduisaient.  Les objets féminins sont beaucoup moins nombreux au septième siècle qu’au sixième.  Pendant que, parmi les tombes pourvues d'un mobilier, les armes sont plus répandues dans les tombes masculines du septième siècle, elles sont beaucoup moins nombreuses et moins variées ; souvent il n’y a qu’un seul scramasaxe ou une lance.  Dans les cimetières fondés au septième siècle, le dépôt de la céramique dans les tombes devient peu fréquent. 

Les monuments au-dessus de la tombe deviennent plus fréquents.  Ces monuments comprennent, par exemple, des stèles, des sarcophages avec couvercles visible en surface, des monuments faits d’anciennes pierres romaines, les petits murs autour de tombes ou groupes de tombes. 

L'organisation des nécropoles s’est changée.  Les célèbres rangées de tombes me semblent beaucoup moins rigides au septième siècle et les petits groupes de tombes, d'apparence familiale, deviennent plus fréquente.  La carte de distribution des nécropoles, y comprenant tous les sites possibles, montre beaucoup plus de cimetières du septième siècle que nécropoles du sixième.  Puisqu'il y a plus d'objets qui peuvent marquer l'existence d'un site du sixième siècle même dans un récit bref d'un découvert par hasard dans les revues du dix-neuvième siècle par exemple, cette différence doit être réel.  J'ai l'impression que les sites du sixième siècle sont plus grands, comprenant parfois des centaines de tombes.  Les nécropoles du septième siècle me paraissent plus petites, mais beaucoup plus nombreuses.  Sur la base de ces différences j'ai proposé l'existence de grandes nécropoles au sixième qui servaient de point focalisé d'une grande communauté y comprenant peut-être plusieurs habitats.  Ces cimetières fragmentaient au septième siècle et le ratio entre habitats et nécropoles devenait plus proche a un pour un. Ce n'est pas, sans doute, la seule explication possible mais il me semble raisonnable.

B. Tombes privilégiées

Avec ces mutations dans les rites funéraires on attendrait avec raison une transformation dans les manifestations de haut statut social dans les cimetières.  On a souvent proposé que les familles élites aient enterré leurs morts dans les églises après le premier quart du sixième siècle.  Cette hypothèse est sans doute valable pour une partie de l'aristocratie franque mais c'est fondé peut-être sur une sous-estimation de l'importance du contexte funéraire dans lequel ont été établis les grands cimetières du sixième siècle.  L'acte de fondation a exigé une grande manifestation du statut du fondateur et du statut social de sa famille.  Ce fait rend hasardeuse la comparaison entre les tombes privilégiés du cinquième siècle tardif ou du sixième siècle précoce et celles des phases suivantes.  L'analyse soigneuse des tombes de la période entre 525 et 575 - c'est à dire le zénith du rite d'inhumation avec mobilier - révèle des tombes bien différenciées de leurs contemporains.  Mais cette différentiation pouvait être assez subtile.  Nous avons vu des exemples hier et j’étais heureux de voir confirmés, avec des données plus scientifiques, des hypothèses qui je proposais depuis vingt ans. On exagérait les normes, comme à St-Dizier; l'emplacement de la tombe dans la nécropole pouvait importer, ou, également, la disposition du corps dans la tombe.

Autour de l'an 600, les tombes privilégiées était marquées par d'autres stratégies assez bien connues, surtout par le mot allemand Separierung.  Le plan du cimetière à Hayange en Moselle, par exemple, montre une petite zone funéraire avec quelques tombes, séparée du reste de la nécropole.  En plus, ces tombes sont orientées différemment aux autres. Autres tombes dans la région montrent la différence entre la famille du défunt et le reste de la communauté en transgressant des normes.  Donc, par exemple, des sujets âgés ou des enfants, ou membres d’autres groupes avec lesquels ce n’était pas la règle d’enterrer beaucoup d’objets, reçoivent des inhumations assez bien fournies de mobilier.  C’est probable que le nombre des membres des familles élites enterrés dans les églises croît à cette époque.  Il y a beaucoup plus d’églises connues dans la ville de Metz et dans les castella (à Tarquimpol par exemple) et vici de la région.  Il ne me semble pas, pourtant, que beaucoup d’églises ont été établies dans les communautés rurales de cette région avant le milieu du septième siècle. 

C : Implications

Quelles sont les implications de ces changements ?  L’analyse des cimetières par rangées classiques du sixième siècle montre que la hiérarchie sociale dans l’Austrasie était à cette date assez floue.  On ne peut appeler les tombes comme celles de St-Dizier « tombes de chefs » que si on accepte que le titre de « chef » ne décrive une position fixe, de statut formel.  Sans doute les gens comme ceux de St-Dizier étaient d’une famille puissante dans la communauté, mais leur autorité n’était pas établie.  Il a constamment dû être réaffirmé par des rites, des échanges, des manifestations publiques et les stratégies de mariage.  Les funérailles en étaient l’une des plus importants de telles occasions rituelles de la réaffirmation de liens sociaux, notamment à cause de la crise dans les relations de pouvoir locales que la mort a provoquée.  Le statut social dans les communautés rurales de l’Austrasie au sixième siècle n’a pas pu être facilement transmis d’une génération à la suivante.  La stratégie la plus effective pour établir une puissance locale était de chercher le patronat du roi merovingien ou de ces aristocrates palatins.  Cette situation a donné beaucoup d’avantages aux rois Mérovingiens du sixième siècle, en particulier dans leurs relations avec l’aristocratie, d’où venait la puissance de l’état Mérovingien précoce.

Par contre, les cimetières du septième siècle montrent une concurrence beaucoup réduit pour le pouvoir local.  La déposition des objets devient moins importante pour la manifestation ou la confirmation du statut.  Inversement, l’importance des monuments visible montre la capacité de projeter le statut ou le place d’une famille dans la société locale à l’avenir.  La séparation graduelle, dans la mort, des familles puissantes du reste de la communauté marque aussi cette augmentation de confiance et de pouvoir du part des familles aristocratiques locales.

Ces transformations, bien visibles dans les cimetières Austrasiens, conforment bien avec toute une série d’autres développements que l’on peut voir dans d’autres sources archéologiques ou écrites.  Je peux citer : l’apparition dans les sources des familles ou même les dynasties aristocratiques que l’on peut suivre à travers les documents et qui semblent avoir une contrôle plus assurée des titres comme comes ou dux; des transformations dans l’organisation fiscale et l’organisation militaire qui ont donné plus de pouvoir aux aristocrates ; lié à ça, les immunités paraissent; les signes plus nombreuses dans les lois d’une aristocratie indépendante; une augmentation fort évident dans l’importance et donc la survivance des documents, qui montrent une renforcement du pouvoir aristocratique ; les monastères célèbres fondés par les aristocrates. Etc.

Hors de ce thème strictement aristocratique, il y avait beaucoup d’autres mutations.  Il suffira peut-être de mentionner les transformations dans l’économie, dans les villes, dans la monnaie ; des transformations d’identités comme le gender et l’ethnicité (que j’ai discuté ailleurs) ; des transformations possibles dans la pratique de la guerre ; les développements dans les idées, et ce que Robert Markus a appelé « l’invasion ascétique ».

Les éléments que je viens de discuter soulignent le rôle central joué, en Austrasie, par les transformations dans le pouvoir local de l’aristocratie.  Celle-ci est devenue beaucoup plus puissante au niveau local.  Le pouvoir plus établi de ces aristocrates explique beaucoup des autres développements que je viens de lister – la croissance économique, les transformations dans les villes, la fondation des monastères ruraux – parfois parce qu’il les a pu soutenir et parfois parce qu’ils étaient eux-mêmes des stratégies pour solidifier ce pouvoir local ou régional.  Enfin, la domination des familles aristocrates était plus enracinée, et cela a changé les relations entre le pouvoir central et les puissants des localités.  Cela donne l’histoire politique du septième siècle des caractéristiques sensiblement différentes de celle du sixième.

3. Explication
Comment l’expliquer?  En 1995 j’ai proposé lier ces changements avec l’histoire politique des royaumes mérovingiens après l’assassinat de Sigebert I en 575.  Un des plus grands succès de Clovis et ses fils était d’établir le monopole de la légitimité royale de la dynastie mérovingienne par des stratégies bien connues.  C’est ça qui explique comment ont pu survivre des petits enfants, comme Childebert II, qui a succédé son père à l’âge de cinq ans, ou Clotaire II, qui n’avait que 4 mois quand il est devenu roi.  Cela ne serait pas possible dans aucun autre royaume de l’occident haut-médiévale à cette date, et c’est une signe remarquable du succès des premiers rois mérovingiens.  Mais cela a apporté également des problèmes quand il n’y avait pas un roi adulte parce qu’aucune faction aristocratique qui pouvait contrôler le palais pendant la minorité d’un roi n’avait le seule titre, ou le seul droit au pouvoir légitime accepté, sauf ce qu’elle pouvait établir par les opérations de la politique ou de force.  Ce manque de légitimité rend la politique, surtout en Austrasie, très incertaine, très hasardeuse et très floue, comme le sait tout-le-monde qui a jamais lu les histoires de Grégoire de Tours et de Frédégaire.  Les fameux aristocrates du récit de Grégoire – Loup, Gontran Boso, Rauching, Urso et Bethefried, la reine Brunehaut, et bien sûr l’évêque Égide de Reims – se sont concourus pour le contrôle du palais Austrasien et de la personne du jeune roi. 

Dans ce contexte, ce n’est pas difficile de voir pourquoi les factions aristocrates palatines ont dû, pour parler ainsi, acheter le soutien des hommes de pouvoir local avec des dons de droits plus permanents qu’auparavant.  C’est ça qui a commencé la transformation de l’aristocratie franque d’une aristocratie de service, et de gens de domination locale incertaine, en familles, même parfois en dynasties, de pouvoir établi qui on a pu commencer d’appeler – à la différence du sixième siècle – nobles - nobiles.  Évidemment c’était un long processus mais les événements des décennies autour de l’an 600 ont joué un rôle déterminant. 

Cette explication est peut-être valable pour l’Austrasie, et je ne voudrais pas la renoncer.  Cependant, il y a deux raisons pour vouloir une explication un peu plus large et peut-être plus profonde.  Premièrement, des transformations ont eu lieu à travers de l’Europe occidental à cette époque.  Elles ont pris de formes assez semblables dans quelques régions – l’Angleterre du sud et de l’est par exemple – mais elles ont eu d’autres formes dans d’autres régions, comme le nord de la Grande Bretagne et, peut-être, l’Espagne.  Bien qu’il y ait quelques raisons de lier les changements en Gaule aux mutations en Angleterre du sud, les événements de l’histoire politique Austrasienne ne suffisent pas pour expliquer un grand courant de change qui, entre la deuxième moitié du sixième siècle et le premier quart du septième enveloppait l’Europe de l’ouest de la Scandinavie jusqu’à l’Italie et l’Espagne.

Deuxièmement, j’acceptais auparavant avec peut-être trop d’alacrité l’existence d’un conflit d’intérêt presque naturel entre les puissants locaux ou régionaux et le pouvoir central du royaume.  J’ai présumé trop rapidement qu’une croissance de pouvoir aristocratique au plan local menait naturellement à un affaiblissement de l’autorité royale – c’est á dire ce qu’on appelle en anglais « a zero-sum game ».  Je pense que tout ça a bien été le résultat des changements mais ça n’a pas forcément dû être le cas.  Ce résultat n’arriverait pas automatiquement.  La noblesse romaine a évidemment été beaucoup plus puissante que la mérovingienne tardive aux plans local, régional et même suprarégional mais cela ne l’a pas empêché de participer dans les structures étatiques de l’Empire Romain; bien au contraire.

Pour que l’état franc perde le consentement de son aristocratie, il a dû arriver des changements très importants de mentalité entre le sixième siècle précoce et le septième siècle précoce.  De telles transformations ont été produites par les événements dramatiques du milieu du sixième siècle : la peste « jaune », peut-être des catastrophes naturelles et les guerres terribles de Justinien I.  Je voudrais seulement discuter ces dernières : les guerres.  Après la chute de l’empereur Romulus et l’assassinat de Julius Nepos, l’Europe de l’ouest est vécu dans une sorte de « twilight zone » politique : elle faisait partie de l’Empire Romain mais elle manque effectivement un empereur.  Les gens connaissaient que l’empire occidentale ne fonctionnait pas mais ils ne connaissaient pas que cette situation était définitive.  Les royaumes continuaient être organisées de façon romaine; l’administration romaine restait en place ; les titres officiels civils et militaires continuaient être valables.  C’est un mythe légiste que les rois barbares ne pouvaient devenir empereur, et c’est probable que quelques-uns abritaient des ambitions impériales.  S’ils n’ont jamais adopté le titre, c’est pourtant vrai que Clovis et Théodoric ont permis les gens de leur saluer comme augustus.  Si les Mérovingien, les Amal, les Balte ou les Gibichung ont pu battre leurs rivaux pendant cette période, il me semble très probable qu’ils prendraient le titre impérial.  Les prétentions célèbres de Théodebert I vers 540 (y compris ses efforts d’établir son capitale à Trèves) me semblent marquer les dernières ambitions de cette sorte.

L’idéologie et surtout les guerres lancées contre l’Ouest par Justinien ont terminé cette situation.  Justinien a annoncé la fin de l’Empire Romain de l’Ouest ; il l’a proclamé conquis par des barbares ; il a déclaré la nécessité de la reconquérir de ses rois sauvages.  Quand Justinien a cédé la Provence à Théodebert I, il est devenu le premier empereur de céder volontairement un territoire impérial.  Grâce à son idéologie il a bien pu le faire, sans aucun coût politique.   Mais les énoncés idéologiques de Justinien ont détruit tous les fondations de pouvoir légitime dans l’Ouest qui remontait ultimement à l’empereur et ses offices, ses titres, etc.  Quand les campagnes des armées est-romaines finissaient sans conquérir tout l’Ouest, une nouvelle frontière, des nouvelles limites, formelles même si assez peu définies, ont été établies.  Une nouvelle ligne de démarcation a été créée entre les zones qui étaient dans l’Empire Romain et celles qui n’étaient pas.  Et les rois de l’Ouest se retrouvaient en dehors, effectivement dans un nouveau barbaricum.

Cela a manifestement provoqué une grande crise dans la politique des royaumes occidentaux.  Il a fallu trouver d’autres moyens ou idiomes pour exprimer la légitimité du pouvoir, et d’autres fondations de l’autorité et les rois ont répondu avec beaucoup d’imagination.  Les rois francs de l’ère de Grégoire de Tours en fournissent de bons exemples, comme le fait aussi les rois Visigots de la même époque.  Comme Yitzhak Hen a montré dans un bel article, il y a longtemps, l’Ancien Testament du Bible a fourni une riche source des idées qui ont permis les rois de garder les mêmes idéals qu’auparavant – la justice, la piété, la générosité, la force dans la guerre – mais avec des nouvelles modèles bibliques.  Ce n’est pas par hasard que Chilpéric a nommé l’un de ses fils Samson.  Aussi anciens que soient les cheveux longs des rois francs, Chilpéric a considéré nécessaire une nouvelle association pour ce trait royal.  William Daly a montré les différences entre le Clovis de Grégoire de Tours et le Clovis des documents du temps du roi lui-même.  Ce n’est pas par hasard que le Clovis de Grégoire est bien moins romain, pas plus païen comme a pensé Daly, mais plutôt un vrai roi terrible de l’Ancien Testament.  Le transfert de la capitale de l’Austrasie à Metz doit être vu dans ce context.

La nouvelle aristocratie que j’ai discutée plus haut a aussi dû trouver de nouvelles bases de pouvoir, de nouvelles façons d’exprimer l’autorité légitime.  Les nouveaux monastères ruraux ne sont pas seulement les signes d’une nouvelle richesse et pouvoir aristocratiques et de ressources foncières plus stables, mais le choix particulier d’exprimer cette autorité dans une façon nouvelle, sans rapport au monde romain traditionnel pré-Justinianique. 

Tous ces changements ont été renforcés par d’autres idées concernant le temps et l’histoire, que je ne peux pas discuter aujourd’hui.  Pour l’instant, pourtant, il faut souligner que les guerres de Justinien et leurs effets sur l’idéologie et le pouvoir ont en grande partie dissous les liens traditionnels entre roi et aristocrate.  L’autorité a fallu être réimaginée et les relations de pouvoir aussi.  Je voudrais suggérer que c’était ça qui a donné le royaume mérovingien et l’histoire politique mérovingienne du septième et, peut-être, du huitième siècle leurs caractères distinctives.

Pour conclure, une vague de changements a parcouru l’Europe de l’ouest après les guerres de Justinien.  Elle a créé un contexte dans lequel les événements et la crise politiques mérovingiens entre 575 et 613 ont eu des effets même plus sérieux et, je voudrais suggérer, a donc changé l’Austrasie et le monde franc pour jamais.  La mutation de l’an 600 n’était pas le seul moment de transformation pendant le haut moyen-âge mais elle était néanmoins une des plus importants de l’histoire.  En ce qui concerne les mentalités elle a signalé la fin du monde romain.

The Genesis of the Frankish Aristocracy (Part 4 of 4)

The earliest Merovingian aristocrats: the ‘Flonheim-Gültlingen Horizon’

The period between the final demise of the Western Empire and the end of the first quarter of the sixth century has long been considered to form a fairly discrete chronological unit, in its first phase largely defined by a series of prestigious graves. From two of the best-known, this archaeological horizon is often known as the ‘Flonheim-Gültlingen Horizon’ or, from a specific form of metalwork and ornamentation, defined by the ‘polychrome’ style. When chronologies of objects were developed through typology and patterns of association, the last quarter of the fifth century and the first quarter of the sixth became known as Böhner’s Stufe I. The coherence of this phase has been confirmed by subsequent studies of other regions, refined through the use of computerised techniques.

These burials have long been the subject of discussion. The traditional reading is that they represent the leudes of Clovis, settled and granted lands in conquered territory. The dates of the burials thus represent the stages of the Frankish conquest of northern Gaul, the latter seen very much in line with the ‘moving front’ model. There is no reason to dispose of this interpretation, provided that one is clear about how one understands the power relationships involved, both between the king and the aristocrats and between the aristocrats and the remainder of the free population.

The burials of the first half of Böhner’s Stufe I are – classically – those of adult males, lavishly furnished with grave-goods: weaponry above all, but also with belt-sets (like the sword hilts decorated in particular styles), ceramics and bronze and glass vessels. Furnished inhumation (especially of male graves) had been less common in the middle quarters of the fifth century (a decline which I have associated with an uncertainty over how one displayed legitimate status in the de facto absence of the Empire but with no clear successors to that power either). With the burials of the last quarter of the fifth century, it burst back into fashion. Many of the graves under discussion are, furthermore, ‘founder graves’. Some may have been accompanied by above-ground monuments. Burial no.319 at Lavoye (département of Meuse) possibly had a barrow built above it; Childeric I’s famous grave in Tournai almost certainly did. Indeed, the relationship between burials like Lavoye 319 and Childeric’s grave has lain at the heart of the problem. Classically, the aristocratic graves, tombes de chef or Adelsgräber are seen to be copying the royal ‘mode funéraire’ established with Clovis’ interment of his father. Thus, runs the argument, when Clovis arranged for his own burial in a church (Holy Apostles, later Ste Geneviève) in Paris in 511, the Frankish aristocracy imitated this too and were interred under their own newly-founded Eigenkirche.

There are important problems with this interpretation. One is that of relative chronology. It is by no means clear that Childeric’s burial predates its ‘imitators’ – if we leave aside the universally-cited but entirely unreliable date given for Childeric’s death by Gregory of Tours, the Tournai burial has exactly the same absolute chronological indicators as Lavoye 319, for example: 474x491. Thus, when he buried his father, Clovis could have been developing a form of burial that was already being employed by local aristocrats to demonstrate their standing, but taking that demonstration to an extreme degree – as one might expect. The relative chronology of these burials and their use in establishing a political history of northern Gaul is also blurred, first, by a reliance upon Gregory of Tours’ dubious chronology of Clovis’ reign and, second, by circular arguments. Burials south of the Somme, for example, must date to after 480 because that was the date at which the Franks (to whom these burials are attributed) acquired this region; the Franks only occupied the lands south of the Somme after 480 because Frankish burials in those lands are all later than that date. When one adds the facts that the historical record provides no support for the vision of a steady, north-to-south advance of the Franks (as discussed above) and that there is no good a priori reason to assign these burials necessarily to invading Franks in any case, it becomes apparent that the traditional reading is no more than an elaborate construct. Whether Clovis started a new fashion by burying his father in this way or whether (as seems to me to be rather more likely) he employed an existing fashion in an unusually elaborate fashion to make a particularly important statement at a moment of dynastic crisis, is impossible to establish from the evidence as we have it.

Apart from issues of chronology, the ‘emulative’ nature of the late fifth- and sixth-century ‘tombes de chef’ is further questioned by the fact that such burials continue through the sixth century and even beyond, whereas Childeric’s grave is, as far as we know, unique amongst Frankish royal burials (with neither predecessors nor successors), especially if one looks more closely at cemeterial context. To found a new cemetery or a new part of a cemetery one might expect unusually lavish displays of grave-goods; that such displays were not exactly replicated in succeeding generations is not really surprising. The absence of such graves does not imply that the local aristocrats had taken to interring their dead under churches. The building of churches to serve as aristocratic mausolea does not, in any case, really take off until the seventh century whether in town or country. In the sixth century, if aristocratic burials took place under churches, they did so in the civitas-capitals and in the castra and vici, on which the pagi were centred, in other words in the administrative nodes of the kingdom.

Associated with this suggestion is the fact that, at least In Picardie, the ‘tombes de chef’ associated with the ‘Frankish conquest’ are actually away from the civitas-capitals and other centres of the region (figure 2 [This is just a net of Thiessen Polygons based on the towns of the area and laid over the distribution of burials, in the best traditions of the New Archaeology of the 1970s]). Taken together, these points shed an important light upon the nature of these early ‘aristocratic burials’. The rite of burial with grave-goods is essentially a transient display of status (or a claim to status) that requires an audience present either at the grave-side or along the route of the funerary procession. Burials in the countryside, like Lavoye 319 (in Lorraine rather than Picardie but likewise located some way from a civitas-capital) would thus represent demonstrations of status to other members of a rural community. Interestingly Françoise Vallet showed many years ago that these late fifth-century graves are, while often on different sites, found in roughly the same (thus peripheral) parts of the countryside as the late fourth- and early fifth-century lavish burials.

There are some key differences nevertheless. The changes of site or the foundation of new areas within cemeteries is one; the different forms of material culture are another. Rather than being imported from barbaricum, ultimately from the Danubian Hunnic realm, it now seems most likely that the costume represented by the grave-goods of the Flonheim-Gültlingen burials was of a more widespread later fifth-century type, using artefacts made in the Mediterranean and associated with the ‘barbarian’ late Roman armies. The ‘barbarian’ import of the costume is thus of a rather more subtle and specific form than was once thought. In a northern Gallic context, especially when one remembers the intimate connections between the Merovingians and the Loire army (demonstrated clearly enough in Childeric’s burial), such a ‘Roman-barbarian military’ identity would be associated with the Franks. Nonetheless, the material’s association with a new political order seems clear, as is further underlined by the fact that this material tends to appear in burials only from c.475, and thus the precise moment that the western Empire was dissolved, de facto if not de jure. Another difference between the graves of ‘Stufe I’ and those of the late fourth-/early fifth-century ‘horizon’ is that the former are overwhelmingly the burials of adult males.

If we take all of these features together a significant change is suggested. The rite itself makes clear that local instability continued. However, a rupture with the preceding situation is evident. The bases of local pre-eminence had changed; claiming legitimate imperial Roman status in the old way was now ruled out. Local authority was associated with the Franks and their military forces (once again demonstrating the Merovingians’ political advance from the south rather than the north). This might have involved changes in the local ‘pecking order’; new families might (as in the traditional interpretation) have been brought in and settled on lands by Childeric and Clovis. Alternatively, a local family might have sided with the Franks, adopted their identity and been given power in the community. Such a family could well have been that which had held sway since the fourth century or before, or it could have been an opportunistic rival. In each case, a dependence upon the Franks is clear enough. So too are the risks involved in the gamble. Unlike twentieth- and twenty-first-century historians, the inhabitants of the late fifth century did not know that this move towards the Franks would turn out to be the ‘right’ one. Furnished burials of Stufe I are not especially numerous, especially in its first half (the Flonheim-Gültlingen horizon proper); only after about 500 are women and children found in any numbers. At Lavoye itself only a dozen or so burials belong to the half-century between 475 and 525, compared with about 200 from the succeeding fifty to seventy-five years – although the group is characterised by well-furnished burials with clearly-marked gender differences. Even the probable family of the ‘chieftain’ of grave 319 do not appear to have associated themselves with him in death until the second quarter of the fifth century. Evidently it took time to convince the people of northern Gaul of what Hegel might have called the Reason of History! In such a situation the dependence of the subjects of these burials upon Frankish backing is underlined. The developments of the remainder of the sixth century (not the subject of this paper) only serve to emphasise this.

Closer to the urban or sub-urban nodes of the region, it may be that the families who supported the Franks demonstrated this link to their rivals and the potential distributors of patronage in burials in the civitas-capitals, the castra and the vici themselves, perhaps under any churches that existed at that time. Some of the burials of the period, grave 1760 at Krefeld-Gellep for instance, are found close by such nodal points. Again, though, a link to the new powers is clear. In defence of the old view, however, it must be repeated that the bulk of locally-important families simply (in terms of their archaeologically-visible traces) sat on the fence for much of this period. That said, the dynamics of the situation are clear. The economic stagnation of the period is amply demonstrated. The craft-specialisation visible in the polychrome objects of Stufe I soon disappears and the further decline of Argonne-Ware production by c.540 has been mentioned. Rural settlements and any urban occupation remain notable chiefly for their archaeological invisibility. Acquiring the resources to establish local leadership on a more solid footing, let alone breaking out of very local political arenas, was fast becoming a matter of association with the Frankish kingdom as it became ever more powerfully established in Gaul. This dynamic is even visible in the Triererland, where (in contrast to the so-called Föderatengräber horizon, c.375-c.450) some (albeit not many) Stufe I burials are known and where, as in the rest of northern Gaul, furnished burial had become common across rural communities by c.525, even if the epigraphic habit of the ‘senators’ continued in the civitas-capital itself.

When the Merovingians established their rule in Gaul north of the Loire, then, it can be fairly solidly established on the basis of the evidence we have that, even by the last quarter of the fifth century, they held the ‘whip hand’ in any dealings with the local aristocracy. Outside Trier, no independently powerful aristocracy existed (whether in socio-economic or cultural terms). There was no need for widespread purges, exiles or expropriations across the region. What made the core of the Merovingian kingdom so resilient was the fact that, by 500 at the latest, local leaders came to the kings for the basis of their authority. The creation of an independently wealthy, powerful Frankish nobility would, in the context I have outlined, have been a more difficult task than the acceptance of the existing situation. The class of landed magnates that we know so much about by the late seventh century and which was indeed (or at least could be), by the late eighth century at the latest, unusually wealthy in pan-European terms (richer indeed than many a king in the British Isles), was a much more recent creation.

The Genesis of the Frankish Aristocracy (Part 2 of 4

Part 1 of this piece can be found here

Transformations around 400


Thus far, the evidence points overwhelmingly to the facts that the northern Gallic social élite was, outside the Triererland, not especially wealthy and that, along with the region’s economy and most of its social structures, it was intimately connected to the imperial state focused upon Trier. Considering the main issue with which this article is concerned, we can conclude that, even were the Merovingians handed control of northern Gaul via treaty in a smooth transfer of political authority, they would not have inherited a powerful, independently wealthy regional aristocracy.

The preceding discussion renders almost predictable the effects on the region produced by political changes after c.380. In 381 Emperor Gratian moved the imperial court from northern Gaul to Italy and Milan. A series of changes is then visible across the region. In most areas villas enter a final phase of desertion, being abandoned by the second quarter of the fifth century. There were exceptions of course. In more southerly areas, around Paris, there is much better evidence of villa survival until rather later in the century, something that seems also be true in the Triererland. The picture, as before, is rarely a straightforward one of economic decline. In the south of the modern Netherlands, around 400 there is a late phase of construction on some rural sites, such as at Gennep. However, these are not villas of the old type. Even with these caveats, however, the impression cannot be avoided that the very late fourth and earlier fifth centuries constituted a period of profound change in the northern Gallic rural settlement pattern and economy. The development is again incompatible with an explanation in terms of an alleged ‘de-Romanisation’ (as is made clear by the continuing – indeed the increased – usage of Roman symbols in burials) or simply through a new military culture. The fifth-century end of the villas makes the latter explanation unlikely. The fourth-century aristocracy of the region had already, as we have seen, been very largely militarised and even those not involved in the army directly were linked to it economically. We cannot be sure that fifth-century aristocrats were markedly more militarised than most of their predecessors. Indeed, sixth-century Frankish law suggests that civic, Roman aristocrats were still a feature of the area’s social structures. If the fifth-century insecurity led to more fighting and greater (and more violent) competition for local leadership, then this affected the survival of villas not through a shift towards a more military state of mind, allegedly eschewing elaborate building, but through the need to spend surplus on local alliances and the equipment of a retinue, leaving little for the upkeep of stone buildings. Aristocrats had to choose where to spend their limited resources and the times ultimately demanded that they choose politics and security over architectural embellishment. Ultimately, the final demise of the northern Gallic villa is an economic issue, not one of a shift in mentalities – even if the latter can reasonably be postulated.

This impression is underlined by study of the region’s towns, which underwent further dramatic contraction and in one or two cases died out completely. There is little trace of occupation on the intermediate settlements, the vici and castra. This is partly related to the problems of dating very late Roman occupation. The two principal supports for such chronologies are coins and finewares and both are problematic after c.400. The latest developments of Argonne Ware pottery, to which we shall shortly return, were not recognised as such until about 1990, which probably means that traces of fifth-century occupation had earlier been wrongly assigned to the fourth century instead. Additionally, the region’s coin supply dried up early in the fifth century after the closure of the Trier mint. While undoubtedly making the identification of late Roman levels very difficult, these changes are themselves significant. The end of coinage and the failure of local powers to mint replacements, after the end of a series of silver imitation solidi in the middle quarters of the century, imply a significant reduction in the scale and complexity of the economy.

Truly monetized commerce requires a neutral medium of exchange and a guarantee of a coin’s value, accepted by both parties to a transaction. The government of a state or polity has the power to provide such a guarantee, moreover one which can be accepted across large distances. With the crisis of the imperial state in northern Gaul around 400, such guarantees disappeared and the areas over which objects were traded shrank accordingly. In whose name the silver imitation solidi, already mentioned, were struck remains mysterious but these coins nevertheless enabled some monetary transactions to take place across a reasonable distance in the middle quarter of the century. Their face value was nevertheless fairly high and the absence of small change is a crucial index of a downturn in the extent of the economy’s monetization. Such coins possibly served other purposes than the strictly commercial, as was the case with the gold solidi. When these silver coins, which are not numerous in any case, ceased to be struck, coinage in the region was limited to imported Eastern Roman solidi until the Frankish rulers began to strike solidi themselves in the sixth century. The function of this type of high-value coinage (1/72 lb. of gold) might very well have been more political than economic. Small denomination coinage remained absent until the seventh century.

Other coins were available nonetheless. The frequency with which Roman coins are found in the pouches buried with sixth-century Merovingian males suggests that such coins continued to serve as handy units of bullion. Their use was more limited than that of a properly minted and guaranteed currency. It has long been known that, in the sixth century, scales or balances are known in northern Gallic burials. Frequently found in lavishly-furnished graves, their symbolism seems to refer to a role in vouchsafing ‘weights and measures’ and this might (though there are other interpretations) have been related to determining the correct quantity of precious metal in old coins. Although these data come from a later period than that which under consideration, they seem suggestive of mechanisms that could have existed as the late imperial monetary economy collapsed. If we combine this evidence with the conclusions just reached about the relative power of the local aristocracy, it is clear that the word of such a local leader would not be recognised by both parties to a transaction over wide areas: another feature in restricting the distances over which commercial exchanges might be made. Some evidence, to which we will return, suggests that the standing of northern Gallic aristocratic families might have been somewhat more secure in the early fifth century than it was a hundred years later and this could have extended the zones over which their word was held to be good, but the general point will surely stand. With the collapse of monetary exchange, the only other mechanism for long distance movement of goods was that associated with the imperial economy but, in the context we have outlined, this too was fading fast.

It is here that Wickham’s attention to the ceramic data is important. His account is as follows:

In northern Gaul around 400 by far the commonest fine ware in the sigillata tradition was Argonne ware … often quite elaborately decorated with a roller wheel … with a 400km radius of distribution from the Rhine to well south of the Loire … [I]t continued into the late sixth century; it reached less than 200km by now … but survived a century into the Merovingian period as a production on a substantial scale.

If this conclusion can be reached from this evidence, then there must – clearly – be something wrong with the model I have sketched. Something about the other evidence, whether of the rural and urban settlement sites or of the burials, to which I will shortly return, must conceal a crucial element in the equation or else the way we read such data is fundamentally mistaken. The picture of imperial crisis and collapse in the region, after c.380, that I have drawn from the written sources must also be wide of the mark. Wickham has (as we have seen) ways of explaining the exiguous settlement evidence in terms of a shift in aristocratic culture to a more military model, which would fit with the idea of the region’s militarisation. This latter proposal is not entirely satisfactory for reasons that have been discussed, but the main point is that Wickham presents a coherent, rounded argument.

Whether intended this way or not, a fair and straightforward reading of the passage quoted is as follows: this pottery was distributed over an area in excess of 500,000 km2 and continued to be produced ‘on a substantial scale’ through the fifth century to the end of the sixth century, even if the area over which it was distributed had shrunk by half by then. The image presented by such a reading is, however, misleading. If we examine Didier Bayard’s study of this form of ceramics, a rather different picture emerges. We find (figure 1) that in his early fifth-century Phase 2, almost all Argonne ware is found within a 300km-radius of the kilns (6 sites yielding such pottery beyond that radius compared with 66 within it) and within in a ‘box’ 500km (east-west) by 300km (north-south). That is an impressive area of 150,000 km2, but still considerably less than that implied by Wickham’s statement. More to the point, by the time of Bayard’s Phase 3 (roughly 440s-460s) this had contracted further. All of the finds he catalogued from the middle decades of the fifth century lay within a 300-km radius and most (67-79%) of them within 200km. Most lie in a box covering 120,000 km2, less than half the area calculated on the basis of the 300km radius of distribution. Thus, this contraction, which a straightforward reading of Wickham’s account implies was something that happened slowly over the fifth and sixth centuries, actually happened quite suddenly around the middle of the fifth, with the abandonment of the Rhine forts. By the time of the political end of the western Empire in the late fifth century (Bayard’s Phase 4) the distribution of Argonne ware had contracted so that 98% of it was found within a 200km radius – in fact within a 200kmx200km box (a considerably smaller surface area) – though fairly evenly distributed within that zone. Argonne ware does continue into the late sixth century but it is important to clarify that the last decorated phase dies out around 540 and that thereafter only standard undecorated forms were produced. So, rather than being distributed across somewhere between 125,000 and over half a million square kilometres during the late fifth and sixth centuries, the impression easily gained from Wickham’s statement, this pottery was in fact only traded across 40,000km2 during this period. In comparative terms, nevertheless, that might represent a widespread distribution of material, but how it relates to other post-imperial ceramics needs to be reassessed. It is now, for example, suggested that some post-imperial wares made in Leicestershire were distributed over an area ranging from the Channel coast to Yorkshire, a not dissimilar reach. It is also important to note the end of decoration in the early sixth century and the restriction in the range of forms, both of which features underline an economic change not unfairly characterised as decline.

The last phases of occupation on the Rhine forts are shadowy and a sophisticated reinterpretation, pondering whether they were still bases for regular troops or, moving away slightly from the usual narrative, centres for local warlords, is overdue. Either way, it seems clear that after the middle of the fifth century whoever did control these forts was no longer in a position to be able to guarantee a market for the products of the Argonne kilns on anything like the old scale. Overall, the link between the collapse of the state and severe economic contraction could not be clearer.

The archaeological cemetery evidence fits this picture of crisis. From about the time that Gratian moved the court back to Italy, the number of lavishly furnished burials in northern Gaul increases steadily. In these burials, men are interred with weapons and, more frequently the belt-sets and brooches that were the insignia of imperial office. In some cases they were accompanied by burials of women and children, the former buried with a wide range of new jewellery forms, notably brooches. The latter and the desire to fit this change in the record into the old narrative of barbarian conquest led to the assignment of these graves to incoming ‘Germanic’ settlers. A closer examination of the archaeological data (the rite itself and the artefacts deposited), freed from these assumptions, combines with the lack of any documentary historical support for the notion to compel a more subtle reading. This sees the subjects of these burials, as yet comparatively few in number and found in small clusters, often on larger cemeteries, as representing locally powerful families whose status was called into question by the death of a member. Given what has been said about the bases of the northern Gallic aristocracy’s power, so closely related to the presence and legitimation of the Roman state it should be no surprise that their local standing should have been jeopardised by the removal of effective, regular governmental presence. It should equally be unsurprising that the Moselle valley, where the wealthiest nobles seem to have been concentrated, is largely free from such burials at this time. The choice of items, and their symbolism, also makes sense in the context described. In the absence of effective imperial presence, the bases of a family’s legitimate authority were proclaimed, especially when an adult male member died, questioning the inheritance of such authority. In this situation, legitimate power was proclaimed by the use of badges that made a link with imperial power. Otherwise they stressed traditional Roman aristocratic virtues and pastimes, such as hunting. The women’s costume, one imagines, made a comment about their status as a chaste wife, a good mother, and so on. As imperial presence grew ever more distant, the use of the badges of office waned accordingly, although other symbolism persisted. Nonetheless, examination of the ritual in comparative perspective suggests that, as yet, the power of these families was not decisively threatened. In a slightly later period, the distribution of furnished burials was far more widespread across communities, and the choice (and number) of goods related to the life-cycle and gender. Rather than being concentrated in the burials of a particular kindred, but spread across subjects of both sexes and all ages, grave-goods were focussed upon mature adult males and younger women.

On the eve of incorporation into the Merovingian kingdom, the northern Gallic aristocracy was even less wealthy than it had been before and its status within local communities was more under threat as the effective legitimacy of a claimed link with the Empire faded. Although this does not imply that many aristocratic families had necessarily lost their local pre-eminence, it seems to be the case that the social, political and economic arenas within which they lived had shrunk considerably. It is against this backdrop that the famous passages of Salvian’s De Gubernatio Dei should be understood. Long taken, doubtless wrongly, as the paradigm for late Roman western aristocracy, Salvian’s comments must be placed in a very specific chronological and geographical context. The assumption that his tirades against the corrupt aristocracy of his times were aimed at the magnates of the Trier region whence he hailed (and whence he had fled, not least as a result of the actions of these rapacious individuals) is not certain but is a reasonable working hypothesis. We have already seen that the Triererland was an exceptional region of northern Gaul. Archaeological data make it clear that we should have no reason at all to generalise from the aristocrats of the lower Moselle valley. What has perhaps been less fully discussed is the precise moment that Salvian was describing. Writing in the 440s, it is reasonable to suppose that his account of the tyrannical curiales belongs to the 430s or perhaps slightly earlier; the issue turns on how recent one supposes that Salvian’s arrival in the south was at the time of his writing. If the picture he painted does belong to the 430s then it is quite instructive when viewed against the archaeological evidence.

In our current state of knowledge, this decade would lie towards the end of the period of occupation of the Triererland’s villas. The sharp decline in the distribution of Argonne ware and the end of occupation of the Rhine forts in the 440s have also been mentioned, and the politically-active generation of the region would largely have been children (at most) when even a usurper emperor last ruled at Trier. The area was fast approaching a severe, critical point and it is unsurprising that it had become a political hot-house. There was no imperial presence to regulate those who claimed to wield power in its name and none of the usual rotation of offices that was part of the efficient management of patronage. Thus those who could continued to cling onto their ‘legitimate’ power, and in the critical situation of the second quarter of the fifth century they exploited it to the maximum. Without the opportunity to share this power, their opponents could only adopt the strategies mentioned by Salvian: either to wield local authority without formal imperial legitimation, that is to say to become rebels or bagaudae (in the eyes of the imperial government or of those who claimed to act in its name) or to turn to the barbarians for support. The three responses to crisis described by Salvian (claiming legitimate power; claiming power without allegedly imperial legitimation; and turning to the barbarians for support) were, in general, the options available to the political classes throughout the fifth century west, but around Trier they took on a particular form and intensity. The fourth option, the one taken by Salvian, was to flee to areas where the Empire’s writ still ran, and he does not seem to have been the only one to have chosen this course of action. In the Triererland of the 430s-440s, this must have seemed an attractive choice, especially as (unlike us) contemporaries did not know that the Empire would not return. Indeed their knowledge of history doubtless suggested that, eventually, inevitably, it would. For these reasons, the decisions to join the barbarians or to follow the ‘bagaudic’ course – those that seem to modern observers to be the ‘far-sighted’ or ‘realistic’ options – must have been taken by contemporaries very much in extremis. On their periodic forays back into northern Gaul (fizzling out in the 440s – as we know but contemporaries did not), the representatives of the Empire dealt equally harshly with bagaudae and barbarians. As well as creating these risks, turning one’s back on the traditional bases of political power brought all sorts of other identities into question, not least one’s masculinity. That the depredations of those who claimed a legitimate imperial basis for their power should have driven their rivals to take these actions is a graphic indication of how critical the situation on the lower Moselle had become.

Part 3 here.

The Genesis of the Frankish Aristocracy (Part 1 of 4)

[Here - broken down into four parts for - comparative - ease of reading, is a piece I have been working on of late.  It is still very much in first draft form and thus very woolly, un-foot-noted and unchecked.  When it is foot-noted, checked and edited down, I will send it off to a journal and take it down from the blog, so if you wish to comment or otherwise have any input - which will duly be acknowledged - now is the time. 

Essentially the piece confronts a key element in the debate over whether or not the Merovingian aristocracy was an independently wealthy magnate class or - essentially - a service aristocracy dependent upon the kings.  It deals with the assumption, which would be very important, if not fatal, for the second interpretation (which has generally been my own), that there were established Gallo-Roman and Frankish aristocracies/magnate classes existing in northern Gaul when the Merovingians took over.  Using a full range of evidence and paying close attention to regional diversity, the paper demonstrates (I hope!), first, that outside the Triererland the late Roman aristocracy was not an independently wealthy nobility of the type known elsewhere, second (Part 2) that the crisis of c.400 reduced the Gallo-Roman aristocracy's wealth and power further, third (Part 3) that, via a close study of Frankish migration and its mechanisms, we can see that the Frankish leaders who settled in Gaul in the fifth century were already closely dependent upon the Merovingians by c.500 at least, and fourth (Part 4) that a consideration of the archaeological traces of the northern Gallic aristocracy between 475 and 525 underline the point established in the rest of the article: that neither the Franks nor the Gallo-Romans presented the Merovingians with a powerful landed aristocracy with which to contend.  The mighty landed aristocrats of the seventh, eighth and especially ninth centuries were members of a class that was a later creation (of c.600).]

The nature of the Frankish aristocracy has featured heavily in the historiography of Merovingian Gaul. One of the main problems has been whether or not the northern Gaulish aristocracy, which we might term Frankish (as opposed to the more Gallo-Roman magnates of Aquitaine and Provence or the hybrid Gallo-Roman/Burgundian/Frankish élite of Burgundy), was formed of families whose wealth, local standing and power existed independently of the patronage of the Merovingian royal dynasty. This debate has never been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Perhaps, one hopes, it never will be (at least in its entirety) but a new contribution is nevertheless required. Chris Wickham’s monumental Framing of the Middle Ages recently presented a strong case for the wealth and independence, indeed for what he suggested was, in comparative perspective, the quite unusual wealth and independence, of the northern Gallic Frankish aristocracy throughout the early medieval era.

Wickham’s contribution is unusual in that it made well-informed use of archaeological as well as documentary sources and, perhaps more importantly, excavated material other than that normally employed for this kind of enquiry. Most previous studies have drawn mainly upon the evidence of excavated cemeteries for an archaeological insight into local social structures, giving at best a partial image. Wickham however employed ceramic data, which now exists in sufficient quantity and quality for reasonable observations to be made – something that was not true even twenty years ago. This would itself be reason enough for a re-examination of the economic bases of the Frankish aristocracy.

Wickham’s case is solid and well-argued and, for the second half the period covered by his survey (thus c.600-c.800), his conclusions seem entirely valid. Moreover, they are in harmony with what has, perhaps, always been the most common interpretation and with other recent scholarly work which has suggested a more direct continuity between the Gallo-Roman nobility of the region and the land-owning magnates of the Carolingian world. This paper argues against this trend. In a companion essay I deal with the nature of the sixth-century northern Gallic aristocracy and its transformation around the turn of the sixth and seventh centuries. Here, I address a fundamental basis of the ‘established aristocracy’ view. That is the nature of the social élite that existed in northern Gaul at the time of the establishment of the Merovingian kingdom. This paper questions the validity of Wickham’s (and others’) assumption that the Merovingian kings had to confront already-established Gallo-Roman and Frankish aristocracies in the creation of their realm.

Like Wickham’s discussion, it will use the whole range of data available to us, documentary, archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic. As well as chronological change, geographical diversity will be noted. One problem with the period covered by this paper, the late fourth and fifth centuries, is the general absence of written evidence. This means that the overwhelming bulk of the evidence used will be archaeological. Nevertheless, a great advantage of this form of data, and of the cemetery material in particular, is that, as well as being increasingly voluminous, it is securely anchored in time and space, allowing us to explore change through time, something which, as noted, has not always been recognised in previous studies, even Wickham’s. It will also allow us to shed a critical light upon the handful of well-worn fragments of written evidence which do seem to treat with the social structures of the region, most notably Salvian’s On the Governance of God.

Late Roman Background

The obvious preliminary to any discussion of the Merovingian aristocracy in northern Gaul is to examine the regional élite during the late Roman Empire. If a magnate stratum can be shown to have existed there, with secure local pre-eminence and secure control of extensive estates, how the Frankish kings could reduce such a group to the level of a service aristocracy would constitute a sizable historical problem, though not an insurmountable one. After all, such a reduction need not involve forcible displacement or dispossession, let alone the widespread slaughter, of such aristocrats. In fact, however, this problem does not, on closer inspection, really present itself. Across most of the region, the late Roman aristocracy was not composed of independently wealthy, powerful landowners. It seems to have been every bit as dependent upon the state as I would argue that their Merovingian descendants were. There were variations in the degree to which this was the case and at least one region where it certainly was not true but, as a broad categorisation, it will suffice.

This conclusion is based principally upon the archaeological evidence. The northern Gallic aristocracy had never been the wealthiest in Gaul. Studies have suggested that it was less locally dominant than its counterparts in southern Gaul even at the time of the Roman conquest. An exception to this rule might have been found in the civitas of the Treveri, in the lower Moselle valley, and the unusual character of the aristocracy in this area persisted throughout our period and beyond. In the prosperous early imperial era, northern Gaul saw the creation of numerous villas, but these tended to be fairly small establishments. A crucial change occurred after the third-century turmoil, when these settlements were either abandoned or (probably to an even greater degree than is currently known) changed decisively in their form and archaeological visibility. Increasing stress has recently been laid on the fact that better quality excavation and analysis reveal that many fewer of these sites were abandoned than had been believed. This has been vital in reassessing the settlement pattern and economy of late Roman northern Gaul. Nonetheless, even the more subtle analyses suggest that the rates of abandonment were very high, frequently in the region of 50%.

Concentration upon continuity of occupation also ignores a very important aspect of the problem – the change in the character of the settlement itself. The classical villa, stone-built with tiled roofs and, frequently, mosaic floors, often with under-floor hypocausts, manifests a particular set of social and economic relationships between the owner of the villa buildings and other inhabitants of the locality. Whatever the precise function of the site, whether working farm, ‘country house’ or hunting lodge (and this surely varied from site to site and from one phase of occupation to another), the villas reveal an ability to concentrate surplus and spend it upon the construction of a building that made a permanent mark upon the landscape. Such a building made a claim for the owner’s active subscription to a particular set of cultural attitudes associated with the Roman Empire, however those attitudes were played with and modified in local context. Stone-quarrying, tile-manufacture and mosaic-construction all required specialist manufactures and industries, organised transport networks and so on. Though the potential sophistication of timber architecture should not be neglected, it remains the case that the construction and maintenance of stone buildings necessitated a more complex matrix of specialist skills and industries. The change from these structures to timber, thatch- or shingle-roofed halls therefore marks a vitally important change in the nature of the local social élite and of the northern Gallic economy.

Debate on this change has hitherto tended to focus upon whether the shifts involved implied an economic decline. It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that, in some ways at least, this must have been the case, but the best explanation of the transformation of the northern Gallic countryside in late antiquity seems to be to link it to the nature of the Roman Empire that emerged after the ‘third-century crisis’. It has for some time been noted that the evident change in the region’s settlement actually post-dates the conventional dates of the ‘crisis’, coming after Gaul’s reincorporation into the legitimate Roman Empire by Aurelian, who crushed the separate ‘Gallic Empire’ in the 270s. This precise political historical context can be combined with what we know of the Late Empire’s political economy to produce the following reconstruction.

One effect of the third century’s economic difficulties was, as is well known, an increase in the levying of taxes, and in the payment of state employees, in kind. Another well-known late imperial characteristic was the residence of the emperors on the frontiers, in the west most often at Trier (former home of the Gallic emperors). This presence was associated with a concentration of higher-grade troops near the Emperor himself and renewed emphasis on frontier defence and military operations against the barbarians (classic signs of imperial good management). This change, the shift in the system of taxation and payment, and other reorganisations of the hierarchy of troop-types within the army resulted in troops being concentrated in northern Gaul but spread over a wider expanse of the countryside. These features were crucial to the survival of the ensuing ‘inside-out’ late Roman Empire.

These points can be combined with the suppression of the Gallic Empire to suggest that the transformation of the northern Gaulish countryside resulted from the harnessing of the region’s surplus to the maintenance of the huge imperial presence now more or less permanently stationed in the area. Confiscation of the lands belonging to supporters of the Gallic imperial regime may have been associated with other expropriations or ‘compulsory purchases’ to ensure that the production of foodstuffs and other materials was geared to the supply of the large number of troops and civil servants. This hypothesis sidesteps the old argument about economic decline. Production could have continued on a scale commensurate with, or even greater than, that which existed before, but far less of the surplus would have accrued to the region’s local élite. This could nonetheless have meant a decline of sorts – in aristocratic wealth and in some of the industries that had hitherto existed to maintain high-status dwellings and way of life. Some slack was nevertheless taken up by the imperial presence in the region. The regional distribution of the late Roman northern Gallic fine-ware, Argonne Ware, seems geared to the supply of the frontier bases and the Rhenish glass industry flourished as well. The scale of production created by this demand might have stimulated the export of these classes of material further afield, to Britain and elsewhere. Indeed northern Gaulish products were traded far beyond the imperial frontier. Bronze bowls known as the ‘Vestland Type’, because of the concentration of find-spots in Norway, seem for example to have been produced in the Meuse valley. The precise form of exchange represented by this ‘export’ doubtless varied between a possibly ‘normal’ market exchange with barbarian communities immediately beyond the limes, through exchange with what resemble ‘gateway communities’ around the Baltic coasts, to diplomatic payments to the interior of Germania Magna. To whom any profits from the commercial transactions included within this range fell is impossible to establish. Some of it doubtless went to the imperial treasury, other elements probably ‘piggy-backed’ upon the empire’s ‘command economy’ and ended up with those to whom this was entrusted, and some surely represented independent commercial enterprises conducted by such producers, perhaps generated by the possibilities attendant upon large-scale imperially-sponsored manufacture. Some, therefore, must have ended up in the hands of the northern Gallic aristocracy, probably explaining the continued existence, as such, and refurbishment of at least some of the region’s villas.

Overall, though, the nature of this élite very likely changed too. If the majority of northern Gallic land was now imperially-owned, it could nevertheless have been leased to palatine aristocrats on long-term emphyteutic leases. Other parcels of land might have been used to reward civil and military service and still others could have been used for the traditional retirement gifts to soldiers. In all of these cases it is easy to see how insufficient surplus remained for estate-owners to continue the construction and maintenance of old-style villa buildings. Either possession of the territories and revenues was temporary or the land was not owned on a very large scale. One imagines that the managers of fiscal or imperial estates would not, furthermore, be retaining more of the fruits of the lands for which they were responsible than was necessary for the upkeep of ordinary dwellings and storage facilities. In this context the observable developments in the late Roman landscape of northern Gaul are easily explicable, without resort of ideas of economic decline or a rejection of Romanitas.

The latter concept, although much promoted in recent years, is particularly unlikely. Building a villa in the fourth century did not make a political statement in the same way as the construction of such a building in the centuries around the birth of Christ, in that it did not represent a new form of monumentalisation that differed from that which went before and proclaimed an adherence to new social, cultural and political modes of life. Nonetheless, the continued centring of Roman aristocratic culture on the villa cannot be denied. Furthermore, if one looks at the symbolism of the grave goods deposited in burials during the time of crisis around 400 (to be discussed shortly) one can see that they focus overwhelmingly upon the traditional symbols of Roman aristocratic life, the bases of social distinction and élite pastimes. A continuing subscription to precisely these well-established modes of Roman aristocratic life is clearly attested. The idea that the regional élite engaged in some form of active ‘de-Romanisation’, let alone ‘anti-Romanisation’ is extremely improbable.

Wickham presents a more interesting and subtle modification of the idea under the heading of the region’s militarisation, a process which is certainly demonstrable. Buildings within late Roman fortifications have frequently proved difficult to detect, leading Wickham to suggest that the late imperial military did not invest resources in lavishly-appointed dwellings. Therefore, runs the argument, a more militarised aristocratic culture would involve much less attention devoted to lavish building. This is an interesting possibility but it seems less plausible if scrutinised closely. The absence of buildings within late Roman forts is sometimes possibly explained by a lack of excavation within the walls, and on occasion, doubtless, by the failure to detect structures on top of more elaborate and indeed more sought-after early imperial phases. Nonetheless a relative reduction in the permanence and elaboration of officers’ quarters is a hypothesis worth testing and, if accurate, could be significant in the ways that Wickham suggests. It might be the case that the Roman army’s officer corps had (when compared with civilian private building) never invested in especially elaborate dwellings within their forts. If so, though, even if there were not a decline in the relative sophistication of their quarters, a militarisation hypothesis could explain a shift from investment in buildings to an investment in other forms of display. The Roman army’s officer corps was especially fond of its ‘awe-inspiring’ costume and adornment. State factories, interestingly known as barbaricaria, were devoted to the gilding and ornamentation of officers’ armour. All these points support Wickham’s idea.

However, other points counter it. One is that the late Roman ‘soldier emperors’ were very far from neglecting their private quarters and constructed new and very elaborate palaces (most notably, perhaps, at Salona in Dalmatia). The lavish villas in the immediate hinterland of Trier, the imperial capital, also suggest that imperial officers, at the higher end at least (some of whom, surely, were military), still desired impressive homes. A vital factor might have been late Roman aristocratic culture, which tended to avoid spending private money on public building, something which doubtless goes far to explaining the changes on urban sites. The early imperial army had sponsored local markets and private craftsmen to a considerable degree, in a way that paralleled the use of private money on civic projects in the civilian sphere. Given the fluidity that existed between civil and military careers at this time, this is not surprising. The later army, by contrast (and again unsurprisingly given the contemporary nature of civilian political life), was supplied overwhelmingly via the state and its workshops. Roman officers might, like their civilian counterparts, have spent money on private dwellings (urban and rural) but not on the public structures of their barracks. Given Late Roman law’s frequent enactments about officers who stayed away from their regiments for long periods of time, this suggestion gains further credibility. These laws demonstrate that military service continued to be an option for the Roman aristocracy and that it was encompassed within the usual aristocratic norms of otium and negotium. Roman officers seem to have spent large amounts of time living away from their barracks. Further, when, during the fifth century, we can examine areas of Gaul where the Roman aristocracy became militarised but remained wealthy, we see that they continued to spend money on their villae (even if, admittedly, less than before) as well as maintaining retinues and taking part in campaigns. A simple militarisation of the northern Gallic aristocratic culture seems, then, to be unsatisfactory as an explanation for the reduction in the number and scale of villas.

This thesis proposed here, relating changes in the region’s settlement pattern and economy to changes in the late imperial state, accounts for the developments on urban as well as rural sites. Late Roman northern Gallic towns famously underwent serious contraction. This has largely been judged from the length of the late imperial walled circuits, a blunt method which must give misleading results in at least some cases, such as that of Bavay, where the town walls only enclosed the forum. Even so, recent excavation confirms the abandonment of large areas of early Roman towns. These restricted urban ‘enceintes’ probably do not mark economic decline as such. Where details of their above-ground appearance are known, they often show care and attempts at decoration. That the foundations (frequently the only element retrieved archaeologically, of course) include large amounts of reused masonry from demolished early Roman buildings and grave monuments permits no extrapolations about the haste or emergency conditions in which the walls were built. The period of these walls’ construction is much less well established than was once thought. Rather than having been thrown up rapidly in the last quarter of the third century in response to barbarian invasions, their construction could have extended through the fourth century and possibly beyond. Nonetheless the use, in the walls’ foundations, of large quantities of often good-quality sculpture from cemeteries and public buildings makes a statement about urban change that cannot be lightly dismissed.

These fortifications and their scale have valuable things to tell us nonetheless. I suggest that their short length results partly from the well-documented unwillingness of late Roman local aristocrats to spend their money upon public building projects. It might also stem, to some extent, from a lack of independently wealthy aristocrats in the towns’ hinterlands. This decline in the prosperity of the northern Gallic elite probably also lies behind the reduction in the scale of occupation in towns as the small landowners, those not employed to manage imperial estates, seem, as we have noted, to have generally lacked the secure control of surplus necessary to sponsor urban development and manufactures, town houses and so on. A further factor, quite well understood in Britain, would be the rise of lesser settlements, the so-called vici (now often themselves fortified as castra or castella). These settlements often arose as markets and by the late imperial period had probably done much to erode the civitas-capitals’ dominance as economic central places, in economic terms. The Gallic urban hierarchy underwent significant changes in the late imperial era, with some sites (like Verdun, in northern Gaul) gaining civitas status. Slightly further south, by the sixth century (when Gregory of Tours famously remarked upon the fact) the castrum of Dijon had become notably more important than its civitas-capital, Langres. Against such a back-drop it should not be surprising if intermediate settlements rose in importance relative to that of the cities.

The general thesis proposed here to explain late imperial change in northern Gaul is confirmed to some extent by exceptions to what seems to be the general rule. One is the region around Trier, which, although quite badly hit in the third century in terms of the rate of villa-abandonment, nevertheless has the largest and most lavish examples of fourth-century northern Gallic villas (as intimated earlier). Trier itself, of course, saw a rash of public building focused on the imperial presence there and that is the crucial issue. With the emperors and their senior palatine aristocrats resident there for much of the late third and fourth century, it is no surprise that resources could be spent on the city, or that wealth found its way into Trier’s immediate surroundings. When one considers that the prosperity of the aristocrats of the Treveri had been unusual in the early and even pre-Roman eras, the fact that the Triererland bucks the general trend should scarcely be unexpected. The idea that imperial patronage was the main factor determining variations from the norm gains further support at Metz, the next city on the Moselle, to the south of Trier. If Trier’s abnormally long walled circuit probably belongs to the early Roman period, then the 72 hectares enclosed at Metz make that city’s walls by far the longest late Roman enceinte in northern Gaul, perhaps in all of Gaul. The castra of the civitas of Metz also have unusually long walled circuits. This exceptional scale of fortification surely relates to the presence around Trier of troops available for such building projects. An inscription documents the construction of the Langmauer, a long wall presumably enclosing an estate, by a unit of primani.

Even if it does not explain the decline in the number and elaboration of villas, the militarisation of northern Gaul is nevertheless a feature of the region’s archaeology which supports the general hypothesis. The fortification of granaries and other rural sites seems to be associated (as indeed may the walling of urban administrative centres and some villages) with a concern to ensure the safety of supplies ear-marked for the army. The deployment of symbols in inhumations in the region, especially when these become more lavish in the century’s last decades, underlines the close link between imperial (probably especially military) service and local status. For most of the period before 400, official belt-sets and brooches, the badges of rank in the army and civil service, are the most common grave-goods in male burials.

Part 2 Here