Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Gibbon and the later Roman Empire: causes and circumstances
- 2 Gibbon and Justinian
- 3 Gibbon and the middle period of the Byzantine Empire
- 4 Byzantine soldiers, missionaries and diplomacy under Gibbon's eyes
- 5 Gibbon and the later Byzantine Empires
- 6 Gibbon and the Merovingians
- 7 Gibbon, Hodgkin, and the invaders of Italy
- 8 Gibbon and the early Middle Ages in eighteenth-century Europe
- 9 Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the Holy City’: revision and religion in the Decline and fall
- 10 Gibbon and international relations
- 11 Gibbon's Roman Empire as a universal monarchy: the Decline and fall and the imperial idea in early modern Europe
- 12 The conception of Gibbon's History
- 13 Winston Churchill and Gibbon
- Epilogue
- Index
6 - Gibbon and the Merovingians
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Gibbon and the later Roman Empire: causes and circumstances
- 2 Gibbon and Justinian
- 3 Gibbon and the middle period of the Byzantine Empire
- 4 Byzantine soldiers, missionaries and diplomacy under Gibbon's eyes
- 5 Gibbon and the later Byzantine Empires
- 6 Gibbon and the Merovingians
- 7 Gibbon, Hodgkin, and the invaders of Italy
- 8 Gibbon and the early Middle Ages in eighteenth-century Europe
- 9 Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the Holy City’: revision and religion in the Decline and fall
- 10 Gibbon and international relations
- 11 Gibbon's Roman Empire as a universal monarchy: the Decline and fall and the imperial idea in early modern Europe
- 12 The conception of Gibbon's History
- 13 Winston Churchill and Gibbon
- Epilogue
- Index
Summary
Gibbon's account of the Merovingian kingdom occupies an interesting position in the Decline and fall. The chapter in question, chapter 38, is placed immediately before the ‘General observations on the fall of the Roman Empire in the west’, even though those observations might as reasonably have followed Gibbon's account of Odoacer, of Visigothic Spain or of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, in chapters 36, 37 and 39 respectively. Nor can it be chance that the author chose to structure his work in this way. In the opening paragraph of chapter 37, the chapter which concludes with a discussion of Vandal and Visigothic Arianism, Gibbon explains that ‘I have purposely delayed the consideration of two religious events, interesting in the study of human nature, and important in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. I. The institution of the monastic life; and, II. The conversion of the Northern barbarians.’ Since the positioning of these two discussions was deliberate, it is reasonable to assume the same for the ordering of the accounts of the creation of the successor states and their early history. It follows, therefore, that Gibbon saw chapter 38 of the Decline and fall, and consequently the history of the Franks, with their pendants, the Visigoths and the Anglo-Saxons, as a culmination in the history of the western Empire. Yet while the Merovingian kingdom held a special interest for Gibbon, that interest was not expressed in narrative form.
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- Edward Gibbon and Empire , pp. 117 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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