OSTROGOTHS• Encountered a well-preserved system

of Roman government when they invaded Italy in 489 AD– King Theodoric was determined to

preserve this system• Program of civil government,

called civilitas implemented under his leadership

– Aimed to preserve Roman administrative system, economy, and culture

– Roman tradition of orderly government was maintained more successfully by Ostrogoths than in any other Germanic kingdom Theodoric

CIVILITAS• Theodoric retained Roman

administrators in order to continue the preexisting system– Did not entrust these jobs to his

fellow tribesmen• Ostrogothic warriors given a

purely military role– Supported by land given

to them by wealthy Italian landowners who were required to set aside portions of their estates for the use of the Ostrogoths

Ostrogoth coin

SOCIETY AND CULTURE• Ostrogoths lived alongside the

Romans but separately from them– Under the leadership of their

own chieftains and governed according to their own customs and traditons

• Also practiced their own religion– Arianism

• Believed Jesus was inferior to God the Father because God the Father had created Jesus

• Theodoric tolerated the religion of his Italian subjects and governed them impartially

Theodoric

DIPLOMACY• Theodoric’s ultimate ambition was to

blend Roman and Germanic traditions and provide peaceful environment for the growth of culture– Used marriage diplomacy to achieve

peace• Arranged marriage between

Vandal king and his sister• Married sister of Clovis, king of the

Franks• One daughter married king of the

Burgundians and another married the king of the Visigoths

– Created an intricate system of alliances that involved the leaders of most of the German tribes

Clovis

LEGACY• Theodoric’s legacy of good government

did not last long– Shortly after his death in 526, the

armies of Justinian besieged Italy– A few decades later, the Lombards

invaded Italy• Much of what Theodoric had

accomplished was lost• But some of the Roman cultural

legacy that he had tried to preserve survived

– Notably the Roman system of education with its emphasis on the 7 Liberal Arts

» Logic, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music

Theodoric’s tomb

CLOVIS• Rise of the Franks is closely tied to the parallel

rise of one Frankish chieftain, Clovis– Started as just one of many petty Frankish

chieftains but, by his death in 511, he had become the powerful barbarian rule in the West

• Extraordinarily ruthless in achieving this goal

– Also successful in enlarging Frankish territory• Took southwest Germany from the

Alamanni and drove Visigoths out of southern France

• Controlled most of what is modern-day France and modern-day Western Germany by 511

– As well as Belgium, Luxembourg, and southeastern Netherlands

CONVERSION

• Converted to Christianity– Historians doubt the sincerity of

his conversion because it had no impact on his violent behavior

– But it did open the way for the Franks to be genuinely converted to Christianity by bishops and missionaries over the following century

– Conversion also gave Clovis a political advantage

• Gave him a justification to attack the Arian Visigoths

ADMINISTRATION

• All higher levels of Roman administration had collapsed before the conquests of Clovis and he had no idea of how to preserve what still existed– Appointed loyal followers to rule

areas of his kingdom• Called “counts”• Appeared as though he

preserved semblance of old Roman administrative practices

– But his kingdom remained a primitive German monarchy

MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY• Claimed to be descended from some pre-

Christian god and thereby had a divine right to rule– Real power rested on the loyalty of the

counts• Basically illiterate warriors who knew

nothing of Roman law and government• Viewed kingdom as private property of ruler

and his family– Divided up among surviving sons when a

king died• Roman tradition of maintaining order

through efficient corps of highly trained administrators did not survive under these conditions– Rational administration based on law was

replaced by one based on personal ties

Childeric, Merovingian king

Kingdom divided among four sons when Clovis

died in 511

Only one son, Clothar I, survived ensuing civil

war

When Clothar I died in 562, kingdom was again

divided between his four sons—resulting in

the creation of four more-or-less independent

subkingdoms

These four sons also continually fought among themselves

Ultimate victor was Clothar II of Neustria,

who became sole ruler of reunited kingdon

A LITTLE HOPE

• Violent time– Also possible to glimpse another

world where poets and intellectuals still tried to preserve Latin culture and where saints maintained high standards of Christian life

• Like tiny islands of peace, culture, and piety in a vast ocean of savage violence

• But they were there to preserve a little piece of civilization and culture in a world dominated by vicious and bloodthirsty rulers

FUSION

• Slow fusion of Franks and Gallo-Romans also took place during Merovingian Period– Two cultures would gradually merge together to

eventually produce an entirely new nation and civilization

• Frankish language and Gallo-Roman Latin merged to eventually become French

• Roman Church gradually modified the more brutal and crude Frankish traditions and customs

• But fusion did not take place in government– Roman institutions replaced by Frankish ones

• Formed the foundation for early medieval government everywhere in Western and Central Europe

ROMAN THEORY OF THE STATE

• Roman idea of the state was that the fundamental duty of sovereign authority was to promote and protect public welfare– Enacted appropriate laws

and collected taxes to do this

• Taxes used to maintain army, a professional civil service, and a program of public works

– In return the citizen was expected to be loyal to the state

FRANKISH SYSTEM

• Frankish kingdom was only united by the personal loyalty of warrior-nobles to their king and through their ability to command loyalty from their followers– No concept of king as public official

• He was a war leader• Had no bureaucracy

• Counts were different from old Roman administrators– Maintained order within their territory but were not paid

by the state– Lived instead off income king provided for them– Relationship with king was based on personality loyalty

• When a king was unable to retain this loyalty, counts tend to become independent and defied the ruler

THE LAW• Frankish “law” was radically different from

Roman law– Roman law based on the assumption that

individual laws should reflect universal principles of justice

• Franks did not believe this• Frankish laws were simply the ancient

customs of the tribe– Unwritten, handed down from

generation to generation by word of mouth

• No concept that law of the conqueror should be imposed on the conquered

– A man’s law was part of his inheritance and not to be tampered with

SALIC CODE• Every crime, from smashing someone’s

head in, to adultery, to murder was punishable by a fine

• Why?– A crime against an individual had

traditionally involved the relatives of both the criminal and the victim

• Duty of relatives of murdered man was to get vengence on murderer and his relatives

– But these sort of vendettas and blood feuds often weakened the fighting strength of the tribe

• Fines were devised to provide an honorable alternative to wiping out entire families or clans

GUILT OR INNOCENCE• Only way to determine

guilt or innocence was to appeal to the supernatural

– Compurgation

• Bunch of men would swear oath that the accused was not guilty

– Ordeal

• Ordeal of hot iron

• Ordeal of cold water

• Trial by combat

LEGAL EVOLUTION

• Frankish legal institutions common to most Germanic tribes– Use of compurgation and

ordeal would be the dominant way to determine guilt all the way to the beginning of the 13th century

• At that point, the Church prohibited priests from participating in such trials and alternative methods of determining guilt or innocence had to be devised

CHURCH AND STATE• Frankish rulers realized that alliance with the Church

was valuable– Made generous gifts of property and privileges to

the clergy • Huge tracts of land• Right to try clergy in Church courts• Immunity

– Church gave up some independence in exchange for gifts

• Most rural churches had a lay patron who could appoint local priest

• Kings began to appoint bishops– No longer elected by lay people

• Hierarchy of Church became increasingly Germanic

– Accompanied by decline in clerical literacy and religious discipline

A DARK AGE?• Complex economic organization of old Roman Empire fell apart under

the Franks– Mainly through neglect– Franks were basically warriors and had little interest in trade,

commerce, and urban life• Kings did not consider the encouragement of commerce to be

their job– Did not keep up roads and bridges, did not police trade routes,

and did not protect merchants– Trade almost completely disappeared in the interior of Europe

as a result» Some seaborn trade along Mediterranean coast survived

• France became a predominantly agricultural region with a localized, self-sufficient economy

– Little money in circulation and few merchants– A Dark Age

RISE OF MAYOR OF THE PALACE

• Last strong Merovingian king was Dagobert (629-638)– Kingdom split up again after his death

and kings came and went with alarming frequency

• During this period of royal weakness, real power passed to the Mayor of the Palace

– Chief officer in the king’s household• Under King Dagobert, Pepin of Landen

made position of Mayor of the Palace hereditary to his family

– Family known as the Carolingians

Dagobert

CAROLINGIANS ON THE RISE• Pepin of Landen’s grandson, Pepin of

Heristal, reunited kingdom– In name of King Theodoric III

• But Pepin was real ruler of the kingdom as Mayor of the Palace

• Charles Martel became Mayor of the Palace in 714– Increased size of kingdom by

defeating the Frisians and Bavarians

– Strengthened hold over puppet Merovingian ruler

– Carolingian family was on the rise and the days of the Merovingians even as puppet rulers were numbered

Charles Martel

SUMMARY• A mingling of Roman and Frankish cultures took place during

the 6th and 7th centuries AD

– But it was accompanied by a terrible decay in the standards of civilization

• German kingship and primitive customary law replaced the institutions of the Roman state

• Roman order gave way to frequent internal warfare

• Christianity was generally accepted but in a debased form

• Tendencies towards local self-sufficiency and a primitive agrarian economy were greatly accentuated

• In language, Frankish German mixed with the Latin of Gallo-Romans to become French