Rois fainéants

 The Merovingians have always held an ambiguous position in medieval history.  On the one hand they are considered the founders of France, because, after all, the Merovingian dynasty ruled the Franks, the people who essentially gave France its name, "land of the Franks," rather than Gaul, which is what the Romans had called it.

On the other hand, they are often derided as "do-nothing kings," rois fainéants, which if said in French in a sneering tone really sounds bad.  And not only did they "do nothing," the account goes, they were barbarians! ethnic Germans, part of the supposed fall of Rome (on which see more here).

So how do we reconcile this image, the glorious founders of France, those who first adopted Christianity, with the concept of crude barbarians who were probably half pagan as well as murderers, to say nothing of being weaklings who sat around not doing anything?  Well, we don't.  Let's break it down.

Clovis, considered first king of France (481-511), did indeed adopt Christianity, doubtless urged on by his Christian wife. He also surely realized that getting along with the bishops, who were major political figures in Gaul at the time, would be a whole lot easier if he were Christian.  Saint Remigius, bishop of Reims, baptized him, as commemorated in the ivory carving seen below, dating to somewhat later.  Clovis is seen here sitting in a baptismal font.  Note the dove coming down with an ampoule of holy oil (used to consecrate kings).

 

The bishops of Reims never forgot this glorious moment.  From the tenth century or so on, most French kings were crowned at Reims, in honor to Clovis and tradition.  If one visits the thirteenth-century cathedral of Reims today (well worth a visit), one can see a plaque marking the spot where the baptism supposedly happened.

The Merovingians were a lively bunch.  Clovis's descendants all had it firmly in their minds that anyone descended from him ought to be king, and if Brother stood in the way, well, that was too bad for Brother.  Accounts from the sixth and seventh centuries are full of murders, poisonings, people hustled off to join a monastery whether they wanted to or not, people sent off on pilgrimage whether they wanted to go or not, betrayals, plots, and lots of wicked women.  Someone should make a mini-series out of it.  It would put Game of Thrones to shame.

And yet abruptly the accounts change.  According to Einhard, writing in Charlemagne's court in the early ninth century, two generations after the Merovingian dynasty ended in 751, these active, blood-thirsty kings, who often had multiple wives and concubines (and who founded and supported monasteries), were instead rois fainéants, weaklings who were cognitively impaired and had lost all their wealth on top of it.

Einhard describes them as having long hair and dangly beards, sitting on the throne with no idea what was going on, repeating whatever they were told to say by the mayor of the palace, that is the head of palace activities (we would say "chief of staff").  By a bizarre coincidence, Charlemagne's ancestors were mayors of the palace.

The Merovingian kings, Einhard continued, were driven around in ox carts, like peasants, because they were too feeble to ride a horse.  All they had was a single manor to call their own.  If it weren't for the kindly mayors of the palace, he indicated, they would have perished long since.  And it was almost an act of mercy, he suggested, for Pippin, Charlemagne's father, last mayor of the palace, to depose the last Merovingian king and make himself king instead.

For almost 1200 years historians have believed Einhard.

All of a sudden his creating the image of weakling kings makes a lot more sense.  The Merovingians had been kings of the Franks for three centuries before 751, appreciably longer than the US has existed.  The dynasty of Pippin and Charlemagne, the Carolingians, had to find a justification for deposing them.  Indeed, during the two generations between Pippin taking the throne and Einhard writing about it, royal accounts did not mention the Merovingians at all.  The deposition was too horrible to talk about.  Although Einhard claimed the pope approved the deposition, papal accounts from the 750s record nothing of the kind.

It was a lot better to suggest a confused old man (the last Merovingian) being "put out of his misery" by being sent to a monastery, and the mayor of the palace patriotically stepping up to be crowned because somebody had to do it, than to admit that the Carolingians were usurpers who had staged a coup.

© C. Dale Brittain 2025

For more on medieval kings, see my ebook, Positively Medieval:  Life and Society in the Middle Ages.  Also available in paperback.