Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2014

 

The Issue of Territorial Division in the Merovingian Dynasty: An Interpretation of the Political Orientation of the Historia Francorum

(Abstract)

 

Chen Wenhai and Wang Wenjing

 

Territorial division has traditionally been held to be a typical feature of the political structure of the early medieval Kingdom of the Franks. The main source for this approach is certain judgments in Gregory of Tours' Historia Francorum. However, a careful ordering and analysis of relevant textual information in the Historia Francorum shows that although separatist political forces were rampant on the political scene in the early years of the Kingdom of the Franks, factors making for national unity had not completely disappeared, nor had territorial division become a "true legitimate" tradition. The fundamental reason the historian so zealously propounded the idea of "legitimate division" was that he was both a beneficiary of the Frankish political divisions and a spokesman for the separatist forces.