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IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 118: Franks and Merovingians: East and West

Monday 2 July 2018, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World
Organiser:Isabel Moreira, Department of History, University of Utah
Moderator/Chair:Isabel Moreira, Department of History, University of Utah
Paper 118-aFrankish Federates and the Creation of the Merovingian Kingdom
(Language: English)
Ralph Mathisen, Department of History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Index terms: Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Military History, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 118-bA Dark Age in East and West?: Late Merovingian Connections to the Byzantine World
(Language: English)
Laury Sarti, Historisches Seminar, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Index terms: Military History, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 118-cThe Gundovald Affair in Light of Merovingian 'Domestic Politics'
(Language: English)
Till Stüber, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract

The Franks and the Merovingian kingdom were part of an interconnected Mediterranean world of peoples, powers, and politics. This session examines the history of the Franks and the Merovingians within the orbit of Roman and Byzantine interests. Two papers examine major political and historiographic issues. The first paper examines how Frankish federates played a larger role in imperial recruitment calculations than is generally acknowledged; the second paper discusses what the sources reveal about the relations between the Byzantine and Frankish world at a time of mutual estrangement from the mid-7th century, when the Byzantines were absorbed by the Arab threat and the Franks by internal struggles. The third paper provides a case history that highlights such connections: the paper examines the various implications of Gundovald's usurpation for understanding inner-Frankish relations and Merovingian connectedness to Byzantine interests at the end of the 6th century.