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HEIKO STEUER Archaeology and history: Proposals on the social structure of the Merovingian kingdom Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Klavs Randsborg (Hrsg.): The birth of Europe : archaeology and social development in the first millennium A.D. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1989, S. [100] - 122

Archaeology and History:Proposals on the Social Structure of the

Merovingian Kingdomby HEIKO STEUER

1. Preliminary remarks

In recent years, research into the structure of Ger-manic society during its prehistoric to earlymodern periods has gained new momentumthrough the rapidly expanding archaeological database. So great is the scale of increase that it evendemands a reassessment of the written sources ofinformation. This paper, accordingly, is addressedto a confrontation of archaeological data with thewritten sources. I have been occupied with suchproblems for many years, and it goes without say-ing that my conception of Germanic social organi-zation has changed in the course of time (Steuer1980, 1982, 1984, 1986-87, 1988). The central ele-ments of the structure of society in the Merovin-gian kingdom can be summarized as follows: inthe period between prehistory and the medievalstate the Merovingians formed a ranked societywith differences of rank between and within fami-lies; powerful individuals were supported bygroups of followers. In the following sections I shallpresent, in an admittedly somewhat provisionaland disparate form, a series of observations onboth the historical and archaeological sides of thepicture.

2. Historic foundations

The Frankish kingdom of the Merovingians andthe later Carolingian Empire were both foundedon the concept of Personenverbandstaaten - states ofunited people. This is an intrinsically Germanictradition, and not one stemming from classical an-tiquity. The Personenverbandstaat is neither one ofterritorial area nor of fixed borders. It reflects shift-ing personal relations. And the concept, as usedhere, can be construed as the opposite of the later

institutionalized state. An empire (Reich), or a stateof united people, existed wherever the king resid-ed with his band of warriors and his royal wealth.Tribes from many Germanic groups, such as theGoths and the Vandals, migrated through Europe,even reaching as far as the north African littoral:the community of king and his followers, or Per-sonenverbandstaat, is thus to be conceived not interms of territory, but in terms of individuals, theirsettlements, and ultimately their burials. Further-more, within the Frankish kingdom, family rela-tions, bonds which reached beyond any narrow af-filiation to a war band, the assumption of officesand titular posts — such as that of count — andthe granting of property as rewards, were all fac-tors which provided the individual, high-rankingmembers of the leading groups with widely dis-persed properties (Streubesitz). This was a processdirectly opposed to concepts of enclosed proper-ties or sharply demarcated areas of domination andownership.

Moreover, the different types of office (Amt) alsoexercised dispersed authority: hence the conceptof Streugrafschaft. An individual holding a positionin the Alamannic area might thus have exercisedhis authority in various parts of the kingdom. Infact, the concepts of districts, provinces (Page) andcounties do not occur till very late in the Carolin-gian period (Borgolte 1984, 248 pp.). The statestructures under Chlodwig, founder of theFrankish kingdom, arose with the installation ofofficials, dukes and counts, who were assignedland. But it must be stressed that this property wasnot open to inheritance.

The central significance of the war bands in theconstruction of the Frankish kingdom has long

Archaeology and History: Proposals on the Social Structure of the Merovingian Kingdom 101

been evident to historians. "The French Kings'war band... (did not merely)... form the core ofthe army... (but this)... archaic retinue became animportant element in the royal gentry and in theformation of the state" (Schulze 1985, 47). Schulzecontinues his summary: "The right to hold a bodyof followers was obviously restricted to the royalfamily in the Merovingian period" (ibid. 1985,49). Donat similarly writes: "The nobility, namedin the reporting sources, did in fact belong moreor less closely to the royal family, or were high-ranking officials" (1988, 12).

The present state of the debate on social struc-tures in the 7th century is perhaps most clearly ex-pressed by W. Stromer (1988, 224): "The lastgreat tribe to emerge, the Bavarians, seems to havebeen a voluntary group of free peasants, joiningarms together under a leading duchy. Fundamen-tally, the whole tribe was organized as a body offollowers, a structure which we see as a founda-tion for early states". "The rule of the Bavarianduke in the earliest era is the form of control byretainers" (ibid. 1988, 225). Several groups of re-tainers must, in this case, have been united, sinceonly five genealogiae were recorded in the Lex Baiu-

variorum. Free retainer warriors ruled the countrywith the duke, creating large courts; and huge con-tributions of land for outstanding services gradu-ally formed the basis for some rather loose formof property rights (ibid.). It was not until 770 thatthe Lex Baiuvariorum records the first known inci-dence of inheritance rights over a fief, and thusmarks the beginning of continuous property rights.

At the beginning of the 7th century, Dominus

Chlotharius rex, Chlotar II (584-629), issued the ol-dest edition of the Lex Alamannorum to a congrega-tion which included 33 bishops, 34 dukes and 72counts (Schmidt-Wiegan 1988, 64). This congre-gation consisted mainly of the king's retainers,whose individual centres of power were spreadover the whole territory like a net. These officialscame from very different ethnic groups; they wereof variably ranking descent; and they were highlymobile. The offices of the royal retainers were tem-porary, and they were extremely well-paid. Whenan official died, his property reverted to the king,so that the build-up of a dynasty, or the concen-tration of power on a territorial basis, could not,as indeed-it should not in this political system, oc-cur. (In the western Gothic Reich of Spain, under

King Eurich, there are, however, instances of landinheritance in special cases (Wolfram 1983, 15).

The presence of these retinues as accumulatedpower only, is also reflected in all so-called tribalrights in so far as these applied not to a district,but to a people. The Lex Alamannorum thus appliedto the Alamans, whether they lived in Alamannia,in the Frankish settlements or in Italy (Kottje1987).

In Italy we find a late demonstration of widelydispersed retainers safeguarding the conqueredareas. After 774, the Carolingians began to securethe newly conquered province of Lombardy. Thiswas undertaken through a determined policy ofbuilding up a loyal nobility, and filling all impor-tant posts with nobles from north of the Alps.These included 360 Franks, 160 Alamanni, 15Bavarians and 2 Burgundians; in total over three-quarters of the counts and margraves came fromthe north. In their previous settlements all of themhad possessed additional dispersed land and eachbrought a big vassal company (Hlawitzka 1960).The social order of this train of followers itself ledto an extension of the base of the hierarchy.

There is no doubt about the importance of theretinue or train of followers in the Merovingianperiod. Indeed, this concept also applies to areasoutside the Frankish kingdom to the north, andprobably also to the east. The most eloquent writ-ten evidence for these areas remains the epic poemBeowulf in which we find all aspects of the struc-tures of personal relations characteristic of a Per-

sonenverbandstaat. Power (in Beowulf) depends on thetrains of warriors and the king's wealth, but alsoon property, which could be given away (tem-porarily) in payment. The leading groups of theGoths (Gautar), the Swedes (Sviar) and the Danesare all related to each other. High-ranking warri-ors — like Beowulf himself — are portrayed asleaving home at an early age to stay at the courtsof foreign kings; often adopted as sons, they mightthus return later with their own bands of warriorsto give military assistance. The king presentsBeowulf with property, and also with weapons andgold. It is thus not sufficient merely to considerthe salient archaeological artefacts of the Migra-tion Period in Scandinavia — the boarhelmets, themagnificent inherited swords, the burial moundsor the ringgold —, one must also look at the pic-ture of political power structures in early state-

102 Heiko Steuer

hood; and these structures do not stop at fronti-ers, but stretch far beyond them owing to well-established personal relationships. The poem canbe dated by the following circumstances: KingHygelac (Beowulf's uncle) fights the Frisians in theFrankish kingdom, a conflict which is referred toby Gregory of Tours as occurring in 516-522 (Hist.

Franc. III, 3). The grave at Sutton Hoo has estab-lished a factual background to the poem (Bruce-Mitford 1975, 1978, 1983). It should also be not-ed that Beowulf was written not in Denmark orsouthern Scandinavia, where the eponymous herolived and acted, but in England and in Old En-glish between the 7th and 9th centuries.

The archaeological connections between Eng-land, Scandinavia and the Frankish kingdom havebeen repeatedly demonstrated in the archaeologi-cal literature. I shall here refer only to the customof using the ringsword as a retainer symbol, andthe custom of wearing a magnificent helmet as asign of belonging to a particular group-ideology(Steuer 1987). In the Frankish kingdom suchswords were used to give proof of the relations sub-sisting between retainers. This was also true inScandinavia (Arrhenius 1985), where the"Frankish" model was repeatedly copied as high-ranking warriors, who had themselves been serv-ing as retainers at foreign courts, returned to theirhomelands bringing with them experiences fromother political structures. Traditional chiefs withtheir limited numbers of subjects and limited eco-nomic resources could not compete in this systemwhich favoured wide support and high mobility.A king of the Frankish type, the leader of a bodyof retainers from throughout his extensive realm,had countless connections and was able to drawon support, and exercise power, wherever he hap-pened to be. He was thus also in a position to takepower away from the traditional chiefs.

A number of interesting problems are posed inattempting to use archaeological methods to traceterritorial leaders who were participating in a pow-er system based on mobility and personal relations.Regional chiefdom territories, as suggested forsouthern Norway in the immediately post-Romanperiod (Myhre 1987) and also for the Danish is-lands in the late Roman period (Hedeager 1980),are — in my opinion — not so obvious. Socialstructures based on dispersed retinues were cer-tainly introduced into Gaul under the Frankish

king Chlodwig, since they are documented in thewritten records; but among the Germanic tribesthey are probably older. Already in the early im-perial period of Ariovist we may note that the coreof Germanic political units was formed by retain-ers. It is probably here that we should look for theroots of the later Personenverbandstaat, since Ari-ovist' s warriors and a large group called the Suebsconstituted a rather similar organization.

It is notable that the traditional, early Romanperiod German tribal communities and their chiefsdisappear, as do their tribal names, from the writ-ten Late Roman sources. The Franks and the Ala-mans of the latter period are representatives, inshort, of a new kind of group formation.

Such a development is repeated in the early his-tory of all the Germanic peoples of the MigrationPeriod, and is also reflected in the archaeologicalrecord. Groups of retainers from the time of Ari-ovist and the Suebs have been detected in contem-porary weapon graves (Peschel 1977, 1978a,1978b). A retinue can also be traced in the so-called princely graves of Lubsow type (c. lst-2ndcentury A.D.), in the princely graves of theHassleben-Leuna-Himlingje type (c. 300 A.D.),in the stately graves from the Attila and Childericera, and in the magnificent burial sites from theReihengriiber civilization (6th-7th centuries) (Steuer1982).

Such bodies of leaders accompanied by theirretinues were both the cause and the mainstay ofthe migrations. Their catalysts were the RomanEmpire and its army, in which Germanic troopswere often incorporated as complete fighting units.Returning groups of retainers and followers werethus destined to change the social structure in theirnative lands. This poses the question of whetherthe graves containing rich imported Roman arti-cles indicate repatriated barbarian mercenaries orperhaps even Roman citizens (Rausing 1987). Iwould assert, indeed, that the princely graves ofthe Hassleben-Leuna-Himlingje horizon reflectsuch retainer structures in society, in much thesame way as the later princely graves containinggoldhandles, spathae, ring-swords or helmets(Steuer 1987).

To conclude, the Frankish kingdom was a Per-

sonenverbandstaat. As such, it exerted an influenceon the North, and caused similar political struc-tures to emerge in the Scandinavian area from the


beginning of the 6th century. To the East, too,there was a similar development, though it wassomewhat delayed (Vignatiova 1987, Charvat1987): there has been some discussion about theevidence for bodies of retainers and privateproperty at the time of the empire of MagnaMoravia.

At the end of the Migration Period Chlodwigfounded the Merovingian Frankish kingdom inwestern and central Europe. This kingdom soonunited the scattered Germanic tribal societies ofthe Franks, the Burgundians, the Alamanni, theThuringians and, periodically, the Bavarians too.Initially this Germanic acquisition of land tookplace partly with and partly without the consentof the Roman population. Consent is manifestedin the system of accommodation, the so-calledhospitalitas (Goffart 1980, Wolfram 1983, Behrends1986). The subsequent acquisition of land duringthe period of the kingdom's expansion also tookplace partly with and partly without the consentof an already established Germanic population; bywhich is meant simply that the Frankish aristocra-cy acquired the areas inhabited by the Alamanniand Thuringians. The conquering groups were —according to the written sources — war bands thathad separated from the old tribal societies. Theleader in question paid the war bands in land, i.e.property rights passed into their hands, but withan in-built form of dependency on the king, andwith the proviso that the right to hold land wasfor a lifetime only: it was not inheritable.

Based on the above observations and concepts,the remainder of this paper will also consider theongoing discussions between Western and Marxistscholars concerning the time when property rightswere established as so-called feudal property, andwhen the change occurred from tribal or genteelnobility (artistocracy) to feudal nobility (Donat1987; 1988). I would like to propose that the emer-gence of temporary manorial property rights, independency on a king, coincides with the forma-tion of the Frankish kingdom. In the Frankishkingdom of the 5th/6th century allotments exist-ed no longer as freehold private property, but asfeudal property. During the period between the5th and 8th centuries feudal conditions of produc-tion and the basic feudal classes were thus formed(Donat 1988, 10). By pushing back the date of theemergence of feudal conditions of production I

presuppose at the same time that the rural popu-lation buried in the Reihengrfiber sites is wholly tobe interpreted as one of manorial households (Do-nat 1988, 21; and Bohner 1958, 336 ff.).

3. Archaeological foundations

Investigations concerning Merovingian social or-ganization based on archaeological source materialare aimed at elucidating, or identifying, questionsof rank, the emergence of the nobility, and its le-gal and political significance. These questions areoften based on models of society which presupposea class division according to the fixed steps of theWergeld of the Leges barbarorum, for instance in con-nection with the legal classification "serf/unfree,freeborn, noble" . It therefore seemed appropri-ate to compute the quantity and evaluate thewealth of the grave goods included in Merovin-gian burials — weapons, jewelry, tools — and alsoto take into account the overall splendour of theburial practices themselves. The first analyses ofgrave goods from the Merovingian period onlyconsidered the graves of men and evaluated theweapons included in them. According to the wayin which these burials were equipped, researchersthought themselves able to gauge the legal statusof the deceased as respectively noble, freeborn orunfree. Such studies, however, do not lead to con-vincing results. Christlein's study (1973) took intoaccount all goods included in the graves of bothmen and women. These goods were counted andevaluated, and a classification of the Reihengriiber

produced from the results: they range from quali-ty group A (poor or without any grave goods in-cluded) to D (almost royal) — a classification inwhich group C would describe Adelsgraber (nobles'graves). Various summaries of these qualitygroups are given in the tables (Figs. 1-2). Thegroups were equated with social ranks; thus graveswith swords or pairs of fibulae, for example, areascribed by Christlein to group B — rich freebornswith authority at the local level; graves with bronzecontainers, riding tackle, gold jewelry andweapons decorated with precious metals, to groupC — exceptionally rich freeborns or optimates withmore than merely local control; and graves withextraordinary objects, mainly imported, to groupD — the rank of reguli or duces.

Criticism of this particular approach was mainlyvoiced because it assumes uniform burial practices

General

Significance

Markedlypoor/poor

Male Graves

No grave goods/" sax" ; down and arrows;undecorated belt buckles

No grave goods / glass beads; Aknife

Female Graves

Quality

Group

104 Heiko Steuer

Fibulae; hair pin (bronze); ear- Brings (bronze/silver); headnecklace; pendants; belt attach-ments; leg bindings; shoebuckles; silver finger ring; glassvessel (6th century)

Averagely Sword; "sax"; lance; shield;wealthy/

decorated belt buckles; glasswealthy vessel (6th century)

Complete fibula jewellery; hair Cpin (bronze or silver); earrings(silver, gold); bead necklace;pendants; belt chain attach-ments; leg bindings; shoebuckles; gold finger ring;bronzc vessel; bronze fittedwooden chest; glass vessel(7th century)

Above Sword; "sax"; "ango", axe;averagely lance; shield; decorated beltwealthy buckles; snaffle and horse har-

ness; gold finger ring; bronzevessel; bronze fitted woodenbucket; glass vessel(7th century)

Unusually Like C, in addition specially manufactured

Dwealthy objects

Fig. 1. Ranking criteria and their respective order at the top of the social scale, Roman imperial territory in south-westernGermany and Alemannia in the same region ca. 300-400 and ca. 500-650 A.D. (after Christlein 1978).

over a time-span from 500 to 750 AD, and froman extensive geographic area stretching fromnorthern France to northern Italy, a distance ofover 1000 km. It also assumes consistent be-havioural patterns through time and space of a so-ciety made up of very different tribal groups(Steuer 1982). Comparisons of this type are there-fore valid only where they involve contemporarygraves within one burial site, or when they dealwith neighbouring burial sites.

Samson (1987) is one of the most recent scho-lars to voice reservations about Christlein'smethod. These go beyond my own collected"counter-examples" , which he refers to as anec-dotal, and are more fundamental in character. Hestresses the point that we can only penetrate intothe former social reality if we take into account notmerely the buried individual and the objectsdeposited in his/her grave, but also the motives ofthe group which arranged the burial and decidedon the objects included in it. New research has also

been conducted on English data. Harke (1987) haspresented a dissertation in which he analyses theAnglo-Saxon weapon graves of the 5th to 7th cen-turies. His analysis provides further confirmationthat the supposed equation between the weaponsin the grave, weaponry and social structure doesnot correspond to reality. It also suggests that theprobabilities of being able to identify social legali-ties, or social roles, through the archaeologicalrecord are slim. His thesis reads as follows: (1) Asalso on the Continent, one fifth of all graves, i.e.half of the men's graves, contain weapons. (2) Anincrease in the quantity of weapons in the graves,reaching a maximum around the middle of the 6thcentury, can invariably be registered. (3) Theweapons in the graves are always a selection of theactual weaponry, that is to say that the status, andnot the function, of the warrior, is represented indeath. Besides, it is definitely the lifestyle, ratherthan the function, of the deceased that is reflectedin the equipment in the grave, as shown by the


Roman Imperial

Alemannia

Archaeological

Quality

territory ca. 300-400

Characteristics

Group

Tribunus, Vir Duke, Regulus Dspectabilis,later bishop (?)

High ranking officer(Praefectus cohortis), richlandowner, high govern-ment official, richmerchant

Optimates with territorial Gold jewellery; silveredauthority belt and weapon fittings;

silver, bronze and glassvessels

Mid-ranking officer (Cen-turio), average andsmaller landowners,tenant farmers, merchants

Rich freemen with localauthority (rich farmersetc.)

Silver jewellery; bronzebelt fittings; bronzevessels

(C)-B

Alemannia ca. 500-600 Archaeological Characteristics Quality Group

Duke Specially manufactured objects(not for sale)

Freemen with above Bronze fittings; horse fittings, goldaverage wealth

finder rings; gold handled swords

People with average wealth Pairs of fibulae; swords etc.

Fig. 2. Ranking criteria and their respective order as based on the "Reihengrdber" from Alemannia in the sixth to early seventhcenturies A.D. (after Christlein 1978).

inclusion of drinking goblets. (4) The weaponryincluded is attached to particular families, and onlyrepresents an act of symbolism. Solberg (1985) hasincidentally attempted a similar approach for theburials of the Merovingian and Viking periodsfound in Norway. But in his study he has, in myview, jumped to conclusions about the relation-ship between weaponry found in graves and so-cial status.

New analyses of the tribal laws of the 7th and8th centuries have likewise shown that the legalposition of the freeborn has nothing in commonwith, nor is it equivalent to, their social or eco-nomic situation. Thus there is no necessary rela-tion between tribal rights or statements of Wergeld

and the contents of graves; the latter belong to acompletely different area, namely that of lifestyle.Furthermore, the differentiation between nobili and

liberi, between nobles and freeborn, appears verylate. Originally the Frankish law made no men-tion of nobles, only freeborn, the only "nobles"being of the Merovingian dynastic line. It was onlyafter 770, in a supplement to the lex Baiuvariorum,

that nobles appeared in their own right, alongsidethe freeborn. Hitherto only the family of the dukeAgilofinger — related to the king of Lombardy —was mentioned in the texts, along with five otherfamilies (genealogiae).

There is yet another way of summarising thepresent state of research: in general, the centralEuropean archaeologist prefes an inductive ap-proach; and this also holds good for the socio-historical analyses of the Reihengriiber and the ob-jects included in them. This has led inter alia toa quantifying description as exemplified by Christ-lein's approach. Since it is convenient to sort the

• Aristocratic graves about 600 A.DQravefields.distribution area.7th century

106 Heiko Steuer

archaeological material into prearranged slots, thisprocedure enjoys great popularity. The artificial-ly determined "cut-off ' points on a continuum be-tween few and many grave goods are used to de-fine quality groups A to D, while the choice of onlycertain objects (e.g. bronze containers or ridingtackle) as the main characteristics of these groupstends to obscure the continuum and to define, orreinforce, cut-off points where none exists in real-ity. I grant that this kind of quantifying analysisdoes have its merits, in that it may ease commu-nication between archaeologists, but its claims tobridge the gap between the archaeological findingsand their social and historical interpretation aremerely illusory.

I would also like to express serious misgivingsas to whether the statistical-topographical analysesof the range of finds within (for example) "core"and "periphery" areas will enable us to describeearly statehood. We can only achieve this by me-ans of archaeology if we presuppose undisturbedtribal developments during the emergence of agenteel nobility and a chiefdomship which entailedthe formation of territorial entities (cf. Hedeager1980 and Myhre 1987, with the above comments).The written sources from the Merovingian peri-od, however, suggest in the main groups of peo-ple independent of any set territorialism.

A different approach opts for a deductive metho-dology. In the following I will attempt to use ar-chaeological material to analyse, or corroborate,relevant information extracted from the documen-tary sources, in particular the formation of a statebased on a system of retainers and their propertyrights. This will be undertaken in the form of tenpropositions; these I will propound, but will not beable to demonstrate fully here. The propositionsare aimed at deducing the social behaviour of apopulation that buries its dead in the so-called Rei-

hengriiber practice, and the concomitant establish-ment of a state organization that is not a simplekingdom, but an empire of united people, in facta Personenverband.

4. The propositions

The Migration Period came to an end on the Con-tinent with the creation of the Merovingian king-dom under Clovis and his sons. Incorporated intothis empire were the Franks, the Burgundians, theThuringians, the Alamannic and other Germanic

Fig. 3. Distribution of "Reihengrdber" cemeteries of theseventh century A.D. in the north-western part of the Euro-pean continent, and selected aristocratic graves from about 600A.D. (after Muller-Wille 1983 (etc.)).

tribal groups. This was one of the most decisivechanges in the history of the Germanic peoples.A specific way of life led by the leading groups wi-thin the Merovingian kingdom was reflected intheir burial practices.

4.1 My first proposition refers to the social ord-er of the Germanic population generally in theperiod between 480 and 750 AD. It states that theso-called Reihengraer burial custom (fig. 3), withits extensive use of grave goods, is the expressionof an important facet of the way of life in theMerovingian period: a way of life compunded ofretinue, warfare, banquets and heroic ballads.This particular burial custom had its origins in thewidely branching network of the Merovingian roy-al family. The burial of Childeric, the FrankishMerovingian king — and Roman general — wasundertaken by his son Clovis. The burial had for-eign features, both Eastern and Roman in charac-ter, and was to set a standard, or create a fashion,for all high-ranking individuals and their kin inthe emerging Merovingian Empire. Depending ontheir wealth and possessions, families now under-took the burial of their deceased kinsfolk with par-ticular significance being attached to the individu-al's renown. People displayed a particular be-haviour in mortuary ritual in order to impress theirneighbours and thus demonstrate their social rank.In this context family (familia) refers to the largerextended family which goes beyond kith and kinand includes servants. What was at issue in theburial process was not the preparation of the de-ceased for the after-life, as this was unnecessaryor inappropriate in a largely Christian society.

Archaeology and History: Proposals on the Social Structure of the Merovingian Kingdom 10 7

More important was the manifestation of the fa-mily's own rank through a suitably striking buri-al of one of its members. (The Frankish nobleswere practically all Christians since the baptismof Clovis and his army: (fig. 4)). It should be not-ed that the Christian faith served to legitimize therule of the Merovingians when they establishedtheir state — a situation to be repeated some 500years later by the Danish king Harald who hadChrist put on his famous runestone.

Periods of innovation, Griinderzeiten (Kossack1974), repeatedly lead to strikingly "representa-tive" burial practices. A visit to the cemeteries ofthe latter half of the 19th century would readilyconfirm this.

4.2 My second proposition therefore states thatthe social organization of the Merovingian king-dom, based on the structures of retinues, was thatof an open, ranked society, and that the funeraryevidence for this period mirrors differences in ranknot only within families in the broadest sense(familia), but between families. The material valueof the goods included in graves and the splendourof the burial thus display "rank", but not socialstrata or fixed classes or even group membership,which would have run across the whole of societyas do modern classes. Burial variation within high-ranking families, usually called "nobles" in thescientific literature, covers anything from smalllandowners to high-ranking officians in theMerovingian case.

Starting from the centres of the Merovingiankingdom, the practice of the Reihengriiber spreadacross the entire realm, also influencing neigh-bouring regions such as England and southernScandinavia. But over distances of several hundredkilometres and over several generations in time,this burial practice could not, in the nature ofthings, remain consistent or subject to the sameimmutable norm. The community of a particularvillage would conform its behaviour to that of itsneighbours as regards burial practice throughmutual observation and comparison. Yet thegreater the distance involved, the less people wouldknow of each other's behaviour, thus giving riseto divergencies in practice. There are, for instance,differences between Frankish and Alamannic orBavarian (or ratheir between western and southernand eastern) burial sites which cannot be interpret-

ed in terms of social or even ethnic disparities.Thus, archaeological groupings determined ac-

cording to the quantity or value of grave goods in-cluded in burials may lead not to a social stratumor class definition of the population groups of theMerovingian period, but merely to a descriptionof local (and contingent) factors. Stated in this waymy second proposition is in particular a counter-proposal to previous approaches aimed at quantify-ing grave goods with statistical procedures, rightdown to cluster analysis and dendrogrammes,which shed no light on past social reality. The open,ranked society of the Merovingians followed nostandardized behavioural patterns, in burial prac-tice. The advent of social standardization in factmarked the end of the development from an open,ranked society to a true state society, which hasclasses into which individuals are born. Such astate, in this case the beginning of the Carolingianera, cannot be ascertained through studies of gravegoods simply because these were no longer in use.

Families in open, ranked societies require bothfor the presentation of their respective rank, andfor the expression of their behavioural patterns oflife, a burial practice which varies in splendour ac-cording to the "means" and status of the deceasedand his family. The crucial factor is the burialprocess. The objective of the activities surround-ing the burial was to demonstrate the rank notmerely of the deceased, but also of the group towhich he/she belonged, especially its head. I pro-pose, therefore, that the splendour of the burialand the opulence of the grave goods were intend-ed to reflect rank within and between families, andto impress individuals from outside the group. Anote of caution, however, should be voiced aboutthe objects buried with the dead: a belligerentlifestyle leads to a basic attire, weapons, banquet-ing materials, etc., which are likely to be associatedwith all individuals of high rank, not just a few.

4.3 My third proposition claims that the exis-tence of war bands can be proved archaeological-ly. In the first half of the 6th century swords werelaid in the graves of certain men; these swords dis-played an intertwined pair of rings on the pom-mel — the so-called ringswords. Moreover, it canbe observed that the rings, made out of preciousmaterials, including gold, were mounted on theweapons at different times; some examples even

108

Heiko Steuer

Fig. 4. Crosses on helmets of the Merovingian period (after Steuer 1987).

show that rings had been removed (Not until the7th century were swords produced with a devicefor mounting rings or with rings pre-cast intoplace). Swords of this type are found not only inthe Frankish Empire, but also beyond it, in En-gland, Scandinavia and Italy. Recently, I haveeven come across an example, shorn of rings, fromHungary. Not all the swords have gold-platedpommels; there are also normal weapons amongthe group of ringswords. How should we interpretthis interesting phenomenon?

In a paper written in 1987 I tried to show howwe can gain an understanding of a society throughthis long-debated custom of applying so-called"oath-rings" to sword pommels (for a discussionof the rings see in particular Evison 1967 & 1975).I conceived the owners of these swords as mem-bers of a group of followers who were awarded thistoken or sign by their lord — a lord who mighthave been king or one of his high-ranking officialswho could "bind" and "pay" other warriors.Here we are once again dealing with groups of fol-lowers of varying rank, but merely in the form of

individuals whose graves were discovered bychance. The warriors buried in the "Fiirstengrab

(royal grave) of Krefeld-Gellep, or from the graveat Beckum (Doppelfeld, Pirling 1966; Muller-Wille 1983) were without doubt members of abody of followers. The individual warrior buriedat Schretzheim (Klingenberg, Koch 1974) could,in terms of wealth, be a low-ranking member ofa body of followers. The decisive factor for ourpurpose is that warriors similar in terms of theirsocial function received burials of varying"wealth" from their relatives. The amount ofgoods included in their graves reflected the fortuneof their family, the ringswords their social rank andproximity to the king. The gold-handled spathaeof the early 6th century presumably had a similarfunction a generation earlier (Ament 1970; Steuer1987). Werner (1980) declares the golden open-ended bracelets (Kolbenarmringe) in the graves ofhigh-ranking individuals of Childeric's time —another generation earlier — to be a sign of mem-bership of a stirps regia, an explanation which cer-tainly goes too far. But through their gold value

Baggergraben

PP


these rings may in fact indicate rank and mem-bership of a royal body of followers. This assump-tion finds confirmation in a comparison with thegraves of the Danish Islands and finds fromSweden which contain gold snake-head and open-end bracelets (Kyhlberg 1986). The open-endbracelet in Childeric's own tomb does not con-tradict this interpretation; as we have seen, thesons of kings grew up as followers at other kings'courts. The ringswords in England and Swedenhave to be seen in a similar light. Warriors fromthese countries were in the royal band of follow-ers of the Frankish kingdom, and later returnedto their homelands, an observation which is alsoindicated by the special almandine decoration oftheir swords (Arrhenius 1985). In settlements nearburial places containing ringswords — at Krefeld-Gellep for example — land may have been givento the deceased owners of such weapons as rewardsof property for service to a lord.

Graves with gold-handles spathae, such as Flon-heim, or graves with ringswords, like Krefled-Gellep, often belong to the earliest burials in thecemeteries in question (Pirling 1986).

4.4 My fourth proposition states that the earli-est burials in a particular burial place are to berecognised as those of the relatives of landedproprietors; an indication of the fact that thisproperty was not yet hereditary. For my next ex-ample I wish to look at the so-called "Thuringian-Frankish burial places of nobles and followers ofthe 6/7th century near Zeuzleben" close to Wiirz-burg (Wamser 1984). The oldest and "richest"grave, number 25, is of a woman; it is placed atthe centre and formed the origin of the burial sitein question. It consists of a huge wooden cham-ber measuring c. 3 by 5 metres, and embeddedalmost 4.5 metres deep; the reconstruction (fig. 5)shows a three-storey building. Here, in the firsthalf of the 6th century, a woman was interred witha four-wheeled wagon and the harnesses for a teamof horses which were buried in a nearby grave.Wamser, who excavated the entire burial site, in-terprets his findings as follows: those buried in itwere members of a noble lordship with warriorsand servants — a high-ranking body of followers.The grave-house over burial 25, and similar struc-tures in the cemetery, are seen as memoria for thedead, and do not, in spite of the grave goods they

Fig. 5. Reconstruction of the grave with several levels at Zeuzle-ben (grave 25) (after Wamser 1984).

contain, contradict the Christian (Arian) faith. Itis important to keep the following circumstancesin mind: the "wealthiest" grave was also the earli-est in the cemetery, a so-called founder's grave;but the person buried in this particular example

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1 10 Heiko Steuer

was a woman. We know from written traditionthat she could never have been the head of a fa-mily nor the landlord, but she might have beenhis wife. To assess the rank of the first burial weshould look not at the individual buried in it, butrather at those who did the burying.

The aspects important to the following argu-ments have already been rehearsed: the body offollowers, manorial lordship, nobility and Chris-tianity. The first person buried in the cemetery hadbeen given — from whence and by whom? —manorial disposition over this land. The individu-al's fortune allowed, indeed required, the represen-tative burial of his deceased wife to demonstratehis, the highest, rank in the settlement. The buri-al place then became a burial site for all othermembers of the familia, their blood relatives andtheir followers, though not all were buried with thesame splendour, of course. If the husband had diedfirst, he would have received a striking burial fromhis family, his wife or his sons, as can be provedfrom many other examples of the so-called found-ers' graves. These thus indicate the rank of theland-receiving family, the new landlords. The fol-lowing examples may be cited: the burial place atHufingen, the "normal" Alamannic village bu-rial site in the Gewann "Auf Hohen" (Gewann isa plot of land in a village), and the nobles'cemetery "An der Giersalde" with the founder'sgrave in a burial chamber which has been dated(dendrochronologically) to 606 AD. Among thegoods included in this grave is a precious harnesswith two silver phalerae of Christian content: anew lord gaining important influence in the previ-ously settled mark and expressing this influencethrough representative burial practices, althoughhe was Christian. A further example of a high-ranking Christian grave is the burial of Eschwegein Hessen with silver phalerae showing pictorialrepresentations of both Christian and pagan con-tent (Fingerlin 1985; Sippel 1987). It should bestressed once more that the social positions of theMerovingian period were not hereditary, but tem-porary.

Whether, as described above, the Carolingiansmilitarily secured their Lombard lands through thesettlement of high-ranking Franks, Alamans andBavarians, or whether the Thuringian empire, orthat of the Alamans, in the 6th century, was po-litically connected with the Frankish realm, the

process was the same: holders of important posi-tions were settled in crucial localities. The richlyfurnished graves on the old military roads have infact always been associated with the holders of suchpositions. For example, Schmidt (1976) interpretsThuringian graves equipped with Frankish goodsas being those of officials, as does Paulsen (1967)for Alamannic graves at Niederstotzingen in Wurt-temberg (fig. 6). It was not always high-rankingFrankish nobles who gained important positions,however; individuals from other tribes were alsoable to become officials, but in such cases they re-mained dependent on the king and formed partof his retinue. Archaeologists have also suggestedthe existence of these officials on the basis of theso-called magnificent graves, the Adelsgráber, thegraves of Christlein's categories C and D (1973).It is noticeable that such rich graves are particu-larly to be found on the eastern edge of theFrankish kingdom, where it extends towards theAlamans and Saxons (Bohem 1985; Muller-Wille1983) (figs. 3 and 7). Officials with temporary po-sitions of power clearly wished to display their rankin death and therefore received magnificent graves(Kossack 1974). The widely dispersed Merovin-gian royal family did not need to do so, and wasfor a long period interred in specially constructedor selected churches (Kruger 1971). Moreover wedo not find any magnificent graves for severalgenerations in the life-span of many of the Reihen-

griiberfelder, , because no "nobility" was attached totheir specific locality. Thus, in the case of theRubenach-Reihengriiberfeld, it could be shown thatthe series of particularly rich graves in thecemetery, supposed by Ament (1973) to be thoseof a family attached to a certain area, were in factrich graves belonging to different families that hadcome to the locality at various times (Wierczorek1988).

4.5 As my fifth proposition, I conclude that thegranting of land can be demonstrated archaeolog-ically even in later generations in an old commu-nity. This can be achieved, I suggest, through theso-called separate cemeteries. These existed for

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some time during the filling of a cemetery; theyoften contain a founder's grave and other rich trap-pings. As an example I may point to the burialplaces of Fridingen and Kirchhiem (fig. 8). Therehave been attempts to interpret the developmentof these separate cemeteries as a visual expressionof a single family's separation from the commu-nity and thus a reflection of an emerging nobility.In a critique of this interpretation (1982) I point-ed out that such separate cemeteries often exhibitnot only differing wealth, but also diverging buri-al practices; these include burial inside large tumu-li, within circular trenches and under mortuaryhouses. I interpreted this phenomenon as evidenceof the arrival of a family from outside, which joinedthe existing community. High rank is not preclud-ed. On the contrary, in the above context, thereceipt of land can, I believe, be inferred: a newfamily, in other words, has gained or received landproperty rights in the vicinity of an existing set-tlement. Once again we have reason to assume agift or donation from the king himself or from

another high-ranking official. In the Alamannicarea this procdure can be demonstrated during theFrankish integration of the area into the Merovin-gian kingdom. The burial site of Niederstotzingenwith its rich warriors' graves has similarly beeninterpreted as a Frankish-founded posting-stationon an important land-route (fig. 6). The reorgani-zation of the settlement system through the aban-donment of settlements and burial sites of theHemmingen type (Muller 1976) in the periodaround 500 AD also represents 'Frankish interfer-ence — a point I will return to later. I stress thatwe are thus able, from the archaeological record,to recognise land donations and, concurrently, thedevelopment of manorial lordship in its earliestform. (Manorial lordship later turns into "localnobility", and in addition we see lordship withscattered land property in many places).

The spread of this practice of creating separatecemeteries actually moves from east to west, fromthe Frankish to Alamannic areas, in the 6th and

7th centuries. This is exemplified in a recent map


(fig. 7) compiled by Bohme (1985). After the con-solidation of the Merovingian kingdom there wasno more unclaimed land. Instead the land was or-ganized, granted and thoroughly structured by theking and his highest-ranking officials. From itsvery beginning the Merovingian kingdom was"free" — in fact, an open society with ranks,although there were also dependencies on the royalor ducal lord. This is the inference that can bedrawn from the archaeological record. Theweapons in the grave, an expression of the rankof the free warrior (Bodmer 1957), were grantedby the king or lord in question together with landas an economic basis. I believe we can actuallydemonstrate several stages in the granting of landafter the emergence of the Reihengraber civilization;we can do so, I suggest, by means of certain kindsof grave goods like gold-handled spathae or ring-swords, or even more clearly by means of the tem-poral sequence of founder's grave, separatecemetery and church founder's grave.

We should constantly bear in mind the writtensources concerning the role of followers in the for-mation of the Frankish kingdom. The royal bodyof followers, the trustis dominica, was rewarded withland and did not always stay at the court of theking; its members belonged to the highest — rank-ing leading groups of the empire, the optimates. Ar-chaeology can furnish evidence for some of theseoptimates, and at the same time for the growth andspread of the Frankish Empire. An early group,identifiable through the presence of gold-handledspathae, was granted land and settled in the cen-tral Frankish and bordering Alamannic region; thenext group, associated with ringswords, alreadyincluded the entire new Frankish sphere of in-fluence, and at the same time reflected the inten-sive character of the Frankish model of social struc-ture for the neighbouring areas in England, north-ern Italy and Scandinavia, whence members of theroyal followers had presumably come and whitherthey had carried the idea of empire formation backnorth again (Arrhenius 1985).

As early as the time of the Roman Empire, Ger-man mercenaries had carried the Roman way oflife into the Germanic regions, such as central Ger-many and the Danish islands (Rausing 1987).Something comparable happened during theMigration Period; the burial place at Hogom innorthern Sweden may serve as one example

Fig. 9. Early medieval church with rich contemporary graves,on the ruins of a Roman bath, at Regensburg (after Rieckhoff-Pauli 1987).

(Ramqvist & Muller-Wille 1988). But this is notthe place to expand on the relationship betweenthe later graves of Sutton Hoo, the Swedish Ven-del and the Alamannic burials, deduced from theinclusion in each of decorated pressed metal sheetsand their pictorial content.

4.6 My sixth proposition puts the so-calledchurch founders' graves into line with founders'graves and separate cemeteries. The church found-ers' graves situated in their own churches charac-terise the later phase of the Reihengraer practice,i.e. the 7th and 8th centuries. We are dealing herewith burials that are located in a central site in achurch, but that may also contain precious goods.The church was in effect built as a cemetery forthe land holder's family. At the same time it be-came the centre of a parish, and later attracted theburials of other dependent families (Kruger 1971;Christlein 1974; Fehring 1987). The confirmationof this process lies in the very history of the funer-ary churches of the royal Frankish dynasty, begin-nig with Clovis who was buried in the church ofSt. Genevieve in Paris, which he himself had builtin the year 511. Other great Franks chose theirburial places in and around churches too; i.e. theywould erect churches for their burial if they were

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114 Heiko Steuer

"sufficiently Christian" . Subsequently othermembers of the family may also have builtchurches over their graves. The findings at Flon-heim (Ament 1970) and Morken (Bohner 1959)may be cited as examples. The foundation of achurch as a burial place was an important meansof perpetuating the memory of one's forefathers(Schulze 1986, 41; Donat 1988, 20). There wereseveral ways of doing this: a church might, for in-stance, be erected near an existing burial place —as at Morken, Flonheim or Staubing in Bavaria.In Staubing the rich burials were situated in frontof the church. Near Regensburg a church was builtover the ruins of a Roman bath; around it wereseveral rich graves (Rieckhoff-Pauli 1987) (fig. 9).Or, alternatively, a church might be built in thevicinity of a village and attract a number of graves,while the other families in the settlement continuedto bury their dead on the old burial site (eg.Bulach, Wittislingen). Churches were also being

built without being used for the burial of theirfounder or owner or members of his family.

Without being able to challenge Christlein'spreviously mentioned discussion here, we can saythat as a consequence of land gifts and the evidenceof landlords, the newly built churches with graveswere the latest link in the following chain: found-ers' graves, separate cemeteries, church founders'graves. Moreover, once again we can observe thedevelopment spreading from west to east (figs. 7& 10). Thus the structuring of manorial lordship,and the consolidation of the system of ownedchurches and the parish churches of organizedChristianity, ran parallel to each other without anynecessary interdependence (see Dannheimer1987); Roth 1981; Muller & Knaut 1987). In-cidentally the spread of the consolidation of nobleproprietorship from west to east is in particularshown by the richest graves of quality levels C-D(about 300 of which are known), by the separate

Fig. 10. Church-buildings in south-western Germany before A.D. ca. 700 (after Roth 1981).

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cemeteries (50 of which could certainly be named),and by the graves within churches (of which 50could be counted in 1970, as against 70-80 today).

The emergence of the Reihengriiber practice andthe end of this burial custom, or rather the aban-donment_of the burial places associated with it, de-fine a period which covers the consolidation of the

Frankish kingdom and the power of the Merovin-gian kings. We cannot therefore posit any con-tinuity between the graves with burial goods in theFrankish cemeteries of north-east Gallia of the4th/5th centuries, or the early Alamannic burialplaces of south-west Germany, and the burialplaces of Merovingian times, as Werner assumed

116 Heiko Steuer

in his famous article "Zur Entstehung der Rei-hengraberzivilisation" (1950). The power and de-pendency relationships that developed in the4th/5th centuries created a pattern of settlementthat was later changed because the Merovingians,on gaining the upper hand, created a newproprietorship situation. The old burial placeswere abandoned because the old families had lostimportance. At the same time, old burial practicesdisappeared, such as the north-south alignment ofgraves. Weapons and precious materials charac-terized the way of life both before and after thechange, but there is certainly no continuity. Suchchanges in burial practices can also be registeredin the Alamannic area around the year 500 andshortly after as the Franks expanded their powerand integrated this region into their empire (i.e.the abandonment of the Hemmingen-type burialplaces).

The end of the Reihengriiber practice was thusbrought about on the one hand by the consolida-tion of the ecclesiastical organisation, on the otherby the manorial lords.

4.7 Soon dependent farmsteaders had to burytheir dead near the churches which belonged totheir lords. As already proposed by Last and my-self (Last & Steuer 1969) in a review of Stein (1967)concerning 8th century nobles' graves, only thelast of the freeborns could avoid doing so. Myseventh proposition therefore claims that it was notthe nobles who were buried in the weapon gravesof the 8th century, but the last freeborn, or in-dependent farmsteaders, who still remained in-dependent of the great manorial lordships andtheir churches. While the latter no longer had todemonstrate their consolidated rank through in-clusion of grave goods, it remained a necessarypractice for the last of the freeborns to do so. Theynow buried their dead right next to their own farm-stead, at the edge of the farm's fence. One of thebest examples is arguably the settlement of Kirch-heim near Munich (Christlein 1981; Geisler 1988;Steuer 1987 & 1988; Osterhaus 1987) (fig. 11). Itwas not until recently, once settlements started tobe analyzed, that this aspect of the burial practicesof Merovingian times has come to be recognised.Graves with weapons and spurs of the final Rei-

hengreiber period, earlier interpreted as nobles'graves, can now be assigned to farmsteads in a vil-

lage. Forming groups of 10-30 burials, theyrepresent, it may be presumed, the small cemeteryof the inhabitants (familia) of a farmstead.

4.8 My eighth proposition interprets the rob-bing of graves (Roth 1977 & 1978), the systemat-ic plundering of Merovingian period cemeteries,as a sign of a social situation characterized by thepredominance of fewer and more powerful lordswho held the majority of the rural population insubjection. The abandonment of the Reihengrfiber

cemeteries and the shift of burial place for certainfamilies to the church or to the farmstead are in-terconnected events stretched out over a longerperiod of time. Up to 75 % of the burials may havebeen robbed (fig. 12). There is hardly any periodin prehistory or early history in which the earliercemeteries of the same population were robbed tosuch an extent. Various explanations of thisphenomenon have been offered: it was allegedlycaused by a scarcity of precious metals; or by aneconomic decline that turned the iron in the gravesinto a precious commodity; or by the influence ofChristianity that diminished the importance of an-cestors. But each of these explanations can berefuted. The plundering of the cemeteries of one'sown people, and with it the obvious disregard forthe peace and inviolability of one's dead ancestors,also reflects a break with the past. Irthe Migra-tion Period brought about what appears to havebeen a revolutionary change of the older socialstructures, which led to the development of the Rei-hengriiber practice — parallel to the emergence ofthe Frankish kingdom — then the changes lead-ing to the abandonment of the Reihengraber sitesand to the increase in grave robberies must havebeen even stronger. It seems as if families had lostthe desire or the right, or even the possibility, ofprotecting the peace of their ancestors and ofrespecting the dead and their graves. Kinship rela-tionships and family ties must have become unim-portant, lineage irrelevant, and so been cut off(Steuer 1980).

As an interpretation of the phenomenon, I pro-pose that manorial lordship was consolidated atthis time and became totally accepted. Nobles andfreeborn families, whose judicial status wasguaranteed by law and birth no longer needed todemonstrate their social role through luxuriousgrave goods and burial practices. Dependent fa-

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milies who no longer had free command over theirbelongings, and who could be relocated, givenaway, resettled or separated at the whim of theirlord, were no longer able to keep up the cemeteryreserved for their family over generations or pro-vide their dead with precious goods. It is strikingthat very often it is the richly furnished founders'graves, i.e. the graves of the lords, that were notrobbed. Indeed, we can go further and claim thatit is precisely among the latter that those who or-ganized and carried out the tomb robberies shouldbe sought.

4.9 At this stage in our argument it becomesnecessary to move away from the burial practicesand look instead at the settlement pattern. Myninth proposition asserts that the constant socio-economic factor of settlement since the beginningof the Merovingian kingdom was not the villagebut the village mark. Excavations in Jutland, in

northern Germany and in the Netherlands haveshown that the settlements of the early Merovin-gian period were usually villages — single farm-steads not having been established in any area atthis time — and that these villages were not per-manent at the local level. Each generation movedfrom its previously fixed settlement site, but at thesame time remained within the borders of its mark.Waterbolk (1982), for instance, has convincinglyshown that in the Drenthe region in the Nether-lands, as is also evident in other areas, it was notthe village but the mark which had constituted theconstant settlement factor ever since La Tene timesor the Roman period. In those regions of theMerovingian kingdom that had formerly been Ro-man, such as south-west Germany, the size of themark may have stemmed from Roman subdivi-sions. (I refer to the Roman system of accommo-dation, the hospitalitas). In any case a single settle-ment.area or mark was a possession which the king,

118 Heiko Steuer

for example, would initially transfer to his follow-ers as a whole. Later several lords may have ownedproperty in a mark and severally wielded authori-ty over land and people.

The archaeological picture that emerges withregard to the Reihengraber civilisation now shows— with variants of course — not only that the set-tlement shifted within the mark, but also that thereis usually evidence for several cemeteries in thesame mark which may vary in size, wealth and thelength of time they were in use. Previously it wasassumed that the various burial places — mainlyconsisting of only a few graves — belonged to iso-lated farmsteads or hamlets which grew into a sin-gle village at a later date. Yet the results of recentexcavations have shown that during the history ofa mark and settlement within it, a number ofseparate localities for burial sites, reflecting theshifting settlement pattern within its territory,presumably existed. In other words, we have toreckon with a complex system of settlement andburial which is far from having been satisfactorilydiscovered or understood. In general terms we cansketch the process as follows: after receiving a mark,

the recipient follower founded a settlement for him-self and his people, and when either he or one ofthe leading members of his family died a burialplace was established (founder's grave). This bu-rial place continued to be filled even if its respec-tive village were subsequently transferred. If newfamilies joined the village in the course of time,either because another family replaced the lord orbecause it had gained property rights in the mark

and built a farmstead in the village, then this fa-mily could either bury its dead in the originalcemetery, by now far away, or establish a new bu-rial place (separate cemetery). This process couldthus lead to the creation of several new burial sitesin the same mark. When the village became perma-nently settled on one site — a development usual-ly coinciding with the erection of a church — it ispossible to capture the end of this process; it prob-ably made no sense to let the village move awayfrom the church. However, we should avoidmonocausal explanations, as changes in house con-struction show. For not long afterwards the post-hole technique of building houses was replaced bya construction which involved a solid stone foun-dation. This effectively put an end to the movementof villages. Those farmsteads which had been built

in the traditional post-hole manner, and becamefixed in space in the 8th century, now had to berenewed more frequently on the same site. This canalso be proved archaeologically (Steuer 1988).

The transfer of a village could only occur if theentire population were to decide on such a meas-ure, and the same is true for the establishment ofa new burial site. Yet once a single lord, and latera number of different lords, came to have rightsand property in a village, relocations of the oldtype were no longer practicable, or even desira-ble, especially since these lords owned scatteredproperty and did not live in the village themselves.The village thus remained in the same place as thechurch and its cemetery, and this situation has last-ed from the eighth century down to the presentday.

Two examples of this phenomenon in theMerovingian Empire can be cited (Steuer 1988).First, the excavated settlement site of Speyer-Vogelgesang. This is one example of a shifting vil-lage (Bernhard 1982): the farmsteads were movedseveral times from the 5th/6th century down to theMiddle Ages, before the settlement eventually dis-solved in the municipal borough of the town ofSpeyer. An area extending over a kilometre inlength is covered with traces of settlement. The se-cond example is the Mark of Wittislingen (Bohner1986) in southern Germany (fig. 13). Surface ex-ploration has revealed several as yet unexcavatedsettlement sites and a number of cemeteries. Thefindings suggest the presence of several farmsteadsin the Mark, and the following overall picture ofits settlement pattern emerges: namely, that thesite of the same village was repeatedly moved, andsubsequently new burial places were opened, pos-sibly by manorial lords who had amassed more andmore property in the Mark. This is suggested bythe rich burials accidentally discovered.

Schmid (1957) long since pointed out the lowlevel of stability within the noble families in theearly Middle Ages, and spoke of "fluctuating fa-milies" which led to a high mobility of property.Similarly Donat (1983, 23) writes: "Because thenobles' graves were often used only for a shortperiod and rarely exhibit family groups, they fur-nish evidence for a high mobility among the no-bles, which can only be explained by scatteredproperty in more than one place" (quoted byChristlein 1987). A parallel development from the

ReilergrabiiKirche +4./

St.Martin.++Grab der Adeligen

0-r++oppidum 973+

reiches Kriegergrab

E t+

Reitergrab0 reiches Kriegergrab

mit Goldblattkreuz


0 500 m

Fig. 13. The early medieval topography of Wittislingen (shadedareas = Alemannic settlements; crosses = cemeteries;circles = rich graves; F = early Alemannic settlement in Romanruin) (after Biihner 1986).

end of Merovingian times is the abandonment ofthe Reihengraer, their plundering and the emer-gence of cemeteries near churches as well as wi-thin villages. There is a remarkable dynamism inthe changes in the settlement area, the Mark, whichreflects one and the same social process: the con-solidation of a manorial structure. It may thus besuggested, though not demonstrated, that at thetime when the village was not yet hereditoryproperty, the land-lord, who was given the villageby the king, could rebuild it on a new site. Theconstantly changing property relations thus led tochanges in the village's structure. The dependenceof "free" warriors and their families on the kingor the highest-raking optimates who paid them withland, gradually turned into the dependence of therural population on a number of local nobles. Inturn this number diminished in proportion as thegreat manorial lords accumulated property andgained scattered property in many villages.

4.10 My tenth proposition links the statementsbased on, or the inferences drawn from, historicaland archaeological sources with a further source,that of place names. Hitherto it has been assumedin the relevant literature that the villages foundedsoon after the conquest usually remained fixed inthe same locality, underlying today's villages, andthat the names of the latter could consequently beprojected back in time. In fact, variability in thesettlement pattern and a fixed name only allow the

conclusion that it was not the shifting settlement,but the Mark, that carried this name.

The observation that settlements west of theRhine in Alsace bear names ending in -heim whilesettlements east of the Rhine have names endingin -ingen has always been interpreted as reflectingdifferent settlement and proprietorship movements(Fingerlin 1974, Janichen 1972); for the Alaman-nic people lived on both sides of the Rhine afterthe conquest. A novel political influence ofFrankish organizational practice west of the Rhineis thought to have brought in a new settlement pat-tern, which is reflected in the place names associat-ed with it: the Frankish practice of naming settle-ments with the suffix -heim in fact presupposes lo-cally stable villages, not least because of the fre-quent combinations with names denoting thedirection of the sun, such as Norheim, Sudheim,Westheim and Ostheim. (With shifting settlementsthe direction of the sun could not always remainthe same). Only the Mark themselves remainedconstant in their relative position. Whether the

-ingen names reflect a personal, older, genteel set-tlement organization, while the -heim names evincea more progressive manorial orientation, cannotbe resolved with certainty yet (Schubert 1983). Butattention should be drawn to the fact that through-out the Alamannic area, far into its easternmostregion, we know -heim settlements for which Rei-

hengriiber burial sites have been excavated (Kirch-heim, Sontheim) (Christlein 1978, catalogue). Thenaming of the settlements in question undoubtedlyrepresents a procedure relevant for social history;and if it is analysed in relation to the archaeologi-cal findings it will probably indicate the spread ofa certain type of manorial structure, or rather suc-cessive waves of land donation. The -heim namesoccurring far into the east probably reflect the ex-pansion of the Frankish Merovingians, and the giftof land to their followers.

5. Conclusions

If we try to discover the social structures and de-velopments of the Merovingian kingdom, then theevidence of the written sources can certainly helpus to understand the archaeological findings. Thecommon quantification of grave goods, however,presupposes a society which cannot be extractedfrom the written sources. Schulze (1985), in his"Grundstrukturen der Verfassung im Mit-

120

Heiko Steuer

telalter", asserts that the foundation of theFrankish kingdom was one of the most consequen-tial results of the Germanic Migration Period,with the Frankish manorial system as an elementof Germanic origin fulfilling a most decisiverole.

The Reihengráber are an expression of the open,ranked society of the Merovingian kingdom, inwhich the farmer-warriors were dependent on theking and a few magnates such as the dukes, mem-bers of the Merovingian family, in the broadestsense of the term, or on high officials. Landowner-ship characterized the situation right from the be-ginning of the conquest. Around 500 AD there wasas yet no feudal property, as Keller (1984) writes:"(the) optimates cultivated their land themselves orwith the help of serfs, like other estate owners" .He continues: "It was not until the land gifts inconnection with the expansion of the Frankish or-ganization of the kingdom that the nobles wereable to enforce a position beyond the communityof the settlement, as it is reflected by the growingnumber of nobles' graves or of graves in churches

from the 7th century onwards" (quoted by Donat1988, 26).

At the end of the Merovingian period, and itstransition to the Carolingian epoch, the open,ranked society was replaced by an hierarchicallystructured, closed society in which a noble classwith birthrights had emerged. This class societyno longer needed a luxurious burial cult for its ownself-presentation. It was characterized instead bystable property, settlement in fixed places, andsolidly built churches. Many archaeological facetsof the Reihengráber reflect this wider transition ofthe Merovingian kingdom from a state of follow-ers to the Carolingian Empire, a true feudal state.It would indeed be a fascinating task to follow upthe very similar but chronologically differentprocess for the Norse empires or the society of Ma-gna Moravia, again on the basis of archaeologicalsources.

To conclude, the formation and spread of themagnificent burials during and after the Migra-tion Period reflect the creation and spread of a stateorganization based on bodies of warriors.

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THE BIRTH OF EUROPE:

ARCHAEOLOGY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTIN THE FIRST MILLENNIUM A.D.

EDITED BY KLAVS RANDSBORG

ROMA 1989L'ERMA DI BRETSCHNEIDER

ANALECTA ROMANA INSTITUTI DANICIEdited by Accademia di Danimarca, 18 Via Omero, 00197 RomaEditor: Tage NielsenSub-editor: Karen Ascani, M.A.Photocomposition: Arti Grafiche Fratelli Palombi, RomaPrinted by F. Hendriksens Eftf., Copenhagen© «L'Erma. di Bretschneider, RomaISBN 88-7062-662-8

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