The Merovingian kings descended from the Sicambrian Franks, a Judaeo-Teuton people who by this time had settled large parts of France and Germany.
From the late fourth century a Frank, Clovis (r.c. 481-511) of the Merovingian dynasty, established a dominion which, under his successors, beyond Roman Gaul into Germany and north Italy.
Creators of the most effective and longest lasting successor state to emerge on the post-Roman world, the Merovingians rose to prominence under Clovis, who first forged various Frankish people into a unified kingdom.
He pushed forward to defeat, in 486, Syagrius king of Soissons, possibly the last commander of an outpost of the Roman Empire, before going on to crush the Burgundians and the Visigoths in the south.
Clovis combined great military success with skillful marriage alliances to build a dynasty that lasted two centuries, far longer than any earlier dynasty in the region.
For most of the two centuries after the death of Clovis, the Merovingians kings were among the most powerful and important of the rulers who came to power in Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Although the Merovingian dynasty’s political system was in clear decline by the seventh century, Frankish control was secured by the emergence of a Carolingian dynasty.
Merovingian dynasty
