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Paris briefly
became the Frankish capital under Clovis I, who adopted Christianity and
was baptized at Reims ca. AD 498, the first of a long series of royal baptisms.
According to the late 6th century History of Gregory of Tours, Clovis'
conversion was largely due to the influence of his second wife, the Burgundian
Princess Clothilda.
In AD 507 Clovis defeated the Visigoths
at Voillé and took over Aquitaine. Eventually he gained control over
most of ancient Gaul, now called the Kingdom of the Franks. From his chosen
capital at Paris, Clovis coordinated the political and economic organization
of his kingdom with a council of bishops. There he instituted the Salic Law,
which codified
the traditions of the Salian Franks with Roman law, still in force in Provence
in southern France. Part of the Salic Law stipulated that a kingdom be equally
divided among the immediate heirs of a ruler. Clovis' immediate successors,
styling themselves "Merovingian" after a mythical ancestor named Meroves,
divided up the Frankish kingdom into three areas, Austrasia in the east,
Burgundia, and Neustria, the latter synonymous with France west of Burgundy.
With the conversion of Clovis to Christianity,
Paris was established as an important religious center. In about 510 Clovis
founded the church of Sainte- Geneviève (fig.1) on the West Bank at
the site of the saint's tomb. There Clovis was eventually buried, but later
interred at the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis. Sainte- Geneviève remained
in use for over 1200 years, until converted into the Panthéon during
the French Revolution.
Fig.1: View of Sainte-Geneviève from
the 1552 Plan de Bâle.
During the reign of Clovis' son Childebert
I, the original church at St-Germain des Près, then called
Sainte-Croix-et-Saint-Vincent was built in 556-558 (fig.2). St. Germain,
bishop of Paris and a principal inspiration for the church's creation, founded
the adjacent monastery of Saint Symphorien. Both the church and monastery
eventually became the Benedictine Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés, renamed
after St. Germain was canonized in 756. At this church, King Childebert placed
the tunic of St. Vincent taken from the Holy Land. The church also preserves
the remains of King Childebert, who died on the day of the church's consecration
in 558; and of St. Germain, initially buried under the portico of the primitive
church in 576 and later transferred to its interior. By 1020, the Saint
Symphorien chapel had been constructed to honor the memory of this saint,
who symbolically protects the rulers of the Merovingian dynasty, interred
here until the reign of Dagobert I.
Both St-Germain-des Prés, which
was rebuilt in the beginning of the 11th century, and Sainte-Geneviève
were decorated with marble and mosaic and roofed with bronze tiles. At
St-Germain, the marble columns in the triforium are all that remain from
the early 6th century church. The architecture of St-Germain, despite being
nearly destroyed by the Normans four times, still contains several Romanesque
elements including the nave and the exterior tower. The choir and apse
(fig.2) were influenced by the Gothic style. Sainte-Geneviève
and St-Germain also contained many excellent examples of Romanesque art including
portrait statues and capitals with biblical themes (fig.3), now preserved
at the Musée national du Moyen
Âge and Musée du Louvre. Some fragments of 13th century stained
glass at St-Germain-des-Prés have been recovered from the destroyed
Lady Chapel, built by Pierre de Montreuil. The life of St. Vincent was a
common subject,  along with scenes depicting Childebert I on horseback who
brought the relic from Spain. In the mid 6th century Childebert I also founded
the cathedral of St. Étienne (St. Stephen) on the the Île de
la Cité, which was eventually replaced in the 12th century by Notre-Dame
cathedral.
Fig.2: Gothic choir and apse of
St-Germain-des Prés (12th-13th centuries), showing flying buttresses
(photo: Athena Review).
When the Frankish King Dagobert I, reigning
from AD 628-637, offered his protection to the monks at the Abbey Church of
Saint-Denis in the northern part of Paris and was later buried there, this
began an unbroken line of French monarchs being interred at this church.
An underground crypt at Saint-Denis includes a small Merovingian area, and
a larger Carolingian section directly underlying the 12th century construction
of the Gothic choir and ambulatory.
The economic
power of the Church:
In organizing the Frankish government, Clovis and his successors
fully utilized the already well-established organizational power of the church.
Since the late Roman Empire, the town-based bishops were linked to local
representatives in county districts, whose counts (from comes, "companion"
to the emperor) held high positions in the army and government.
The economic power of the church had
solidified after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire
in AD 332. At that time Imperial statute allowed the church to take over
land taxes from Roman country villas, many owned by senators. Many villas
continued to function as viable economic entities after the 4th and 5th century
AD, now as the seats of counts. Other villas fell into ruins, and their stones
were reused to build new c ommunities or villages, a name obviously derived
from "villa" (MacKendrick
1972).
With the collapse of urban trade
caused by the fall of the Roman empire in the late 5th century, the prosperity
of villas and dependence by the bishops on their taxes helped "ruralize"
the early medieval economy, with a hierarchy of local dependencies leading
to feudalism. This only changed in the 11th-14th centuries, when town life
and commerce were revived in northern Europe (Pirenne 1936; Bloch 1943;
Bély 1996). Fig.3: Romanesque capital from St-Germain-des
Prés, showing Daniel in the Lion's den (photo: Athena
Review).
Under the Merovingian kings, most of the
actual local power went to the managers of the castles or estates, called
major domus or mayors, who frequently feuded with one another. After the
death in AD 639 of Dagobert I, considered the last effective Merovingian
king, the palace mayors formed an alliance to govern the kingdom. Out of
their ranks eventually arose a gifted war leader named Charles Martel (Charles
the Hammer) who repelled threats by Saxons and Frisians in northern Germany. By the early 8th century the Moslems had taken over Spain and also
threatened to invade France. In AD 732, Charles Martel stopped the Saracens
in a battle near Poitiers, ending their expansionist policies into western
Europe.
References:
Bély, L. (ed). 1996. Dictionnaire de l'Ancien Régime:
royaume de France, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle. Paris, Presses Universitaires
de France.
Bloch, M. 1943. Feudal Society. Vol.1 (tr. L.A. Manyon). Chicago,
University of Chicago Press.
Caesar, J. 50 BC. The Conquests of Gaul (tr. S.A. Handford,
1951, revised in 192 by J.F. Gardner). New York, Viking Penguin Inc.
Gregory of Tours (orig. 6c AD). History of the Franks. (tr.
E. Brehaut Ph.D, 1916). New York, Columbia University Press.
Mackendrick, P. 1972. Roman France. New York, St. Martin's
Press.
Pirenne, H. 1936. A History of Europe. (tr. B. Miall). New
Hyde Park, New York, University Books.
This article appears on pages 26-28 of Vol.4 No.2 of Athena
Review.
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