The birth of France : warriors, bishops, and long-haired kings

Depicts the vitality of a barbarian people, the decadence of a dying empire, and the crucial role of the development of Christianity while tracing the saga of the earliest kings of France The rulers of Frankish Gaul exuded crude vitality and a freewheeling spirit. Sadistic Queen Fredegund, known for her magnetic sexual allure, favored assassination as the most convenient way to dispose of her enemies. Emperor Lothair kept six women as lovers under his various roofs; dying at age 77, his last words were an enraged cry against the God who had dared to lay low a great king. His father, Clovis, a Catholic convert, led a ruthless career of conquest with all the radiance of a consecrated hero. This full-blooded chronicle maps the troubled centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire when poetic, inventive Celts and pragmatic Romans merge with tough Franks on the Christian soil that became medieval France. Scherman (The Flowering of Ireland takes her saga through the last Merovingian "sluggard kings" dissolute, weak, lazy -- up to Charles, the Christian savior of Europe, who used the church as a war chest to underwrite his military campaigns. This is a rare appreciation of the literary, artistic, architectural, and musical aspects of the culture Contents Genealogy of the Merovingian Kings Prelude: The Forgotten Kings PART I: WARRIORS AND BISHOPS Chapter 1: Roman Gaul Chapter 2: The Germans Chapter 3: Christianity PART II: THE LONG-HAIRED KINGS Chapter 4: Clovis Chapter 5: The Sons of Clovis Chapter 6: Gregory’s Kings Chapter 7: Fredegund and Brunhild PART III: THE TRANSITION Chapter 8: The Mayors of the Palace Chapter 9: The Merovingian Legacy Notes Bibliography Index A history of the Teutonic warrior chieftains who were the first kings of France from roughly the fifth century to the eighth century.