Barbarity

We use the word Barbarian to presume ourselves better.

It's all about ourselves.

Going MEDIEVAL

Sometimes it's refreshing to realize how many smart people (a) also hate the whole "oh the dirty stupid past" foolishness we like to bandy about a bit too much, and (b) also know better than to accept the most commonly held generalizations about the Dark Ages, barbarians, medieval/fantasy/The Dung Ages and so forth. Jeff Sypeck is one of those who reassures me that not everyone thinks uncritically about historical stereotyping. He's also introduced me to Amy Kaufman, whose paper he discusses above is easy reading, free, not so long as to scare one off a scholarly work, and accessibly written and reasoned. It's highly worth the click beyond.

The ideas under discussion - our "romanticization" of some of these ideas of The Past, and the consequences (ask Mark Twain) of ... well, what frankly is often called "branding" these days. Specifically, Kaufman looks at the same dynamic as embodied in the so-called Islamic State (side note: it's nice to see ANY use of the "so-called" anymore; even mainstream media seems entirely to have forgotten that ISIS is a made-up title and self-bestowed, and that using it straightforwardly confers legitimacy). It's a pretty chilling look, not least in the gender politics* involved.

*I refuse to call rape "sexual".

Readers here know, I have plenty to say about women's treatment in this world - doesn't matter "when", we are prey, and anyone who thinks otherwise is simply ignorant. But I don't consider things worse than they once were ... and I do not consider them BETTER, either. Like bubbles in wallpaper, the position may be pressed out of shape or shifted around, but one look at human trafficking, slavery being perfectly alive and well no matter its perceived absence in our own personal worlds, the lives of children across the globe - and the regressive state of nationalism and politics worldwide - leaves no doubt: human beings don't really change very much.

So just as bad as chronological snobbery - the idea that we have evolved beyond what we think we used to be, that the past was populated by morons and we today are educated and therefore actually more intelligent - is the offensive mistake of chronological romanticization. The good old days never were, and the bright new tomorrow isn't, at least so far.

As I grow older, the irony is that this view of humanity SAVES me from much of the fear so many of us find overwhelming. Knowing that we did not really clamber up from darkness and ignorance to a more enlightened place provides perspective that we're not about to fall off a cliff.

Hopefully.

Okay, I won't keep going on. But your thoughts would be most welcome. And please do read Sypeck's post, and Kaufman's Muscular Medievalism.

Collection

Costume nerd alert - that thing you see on the back of this seat? The "cracked" appearance in the silk? This is called shattering. Also, is that a stain I see on the front upholstery, under the cushion?

After all my television viewing reviewing of late, I'm interested in others' ethical takes on popular entertainment. Here's an interesting piece from Vulture.com on the fascism of The Walking Dead. I couldn't watch that show past one episode because of the violence, myself - as compelling as even just one show was, but being aware of its force, it's pretty arresting to see who has chosen to advertise with them - and why.

Curiously, and (ahem) blood-related to the diversity issues touched on in the TWD article above, here's a story about Trek's first Woman of Color as a main character. Sad that it's taken 50 years since Nichelle Nichols' turn as "ain't no maid" to reach this point, but Trek has always had a reputation for progressive inclusion and has had POC and women at the fore before. And now for intersectionality.

Today in "calling it Medieval means it's a relic of The Stupid, Stupid Past" news: our American junta. The thing about the stupidity of the past is? Like many artifacts, we DIY things back to life. Just because a dress doesn't fit anymore doesn't mean some asshat isn't going to recycle it as a scarf.

"Dark" Times ... (?)

This morning, a thought wandered around in my head a bit, and I'm curious what some of you might think.

As a researcher and writer of a period in history at which the so-called Dark Ages were born, one of the issues I have with my work is the dearth of primary sources. It's difficult in the extreme to research some of the key aspects of my plot: could, or even *would*, a community's midwife become a nurse to a single household? At what age did children begin to to to Christian services? At what age would a king's child have begun to go, and was that earlier? What did the Arian service look like?

I can structure a day around liturgical hours known beyond Catholicism during sixth century Christianity. I can provide the shape of a night's segmented sleep. I can hear the echo of the hushed voices in the palace at Ravenna.

But I'll always be up against the damned Dark Ages. The lack of voices to tell me what they thought, had to say, even did, in most contexts of their lives.

The lack of primary sources.

There are not a few folks who fear we are tipping into a dark age right now. Brexit, perhaps, is worrisome. Name-the-outcome of the U. S. election looks to folks of all persuasions like the invasion of the Barbarians.

But my readers know, I don't believe in Barbarians. I don't accept that the whole world went dark and stupid for a thousand years. I don't believe there are, as a bloc, genuine heroes and villains at the national/imperial/tribal level, one entire nation of people good, another evil.

And the thing is: even the most partisan believer in these things will agree. The entire reason we call them "The Dark Ages" is because we don't know as much about the period.

That we know humanity was actually dumber for one thousand years ... I don't think any honest lover or student of history can say that with integrity.

So here is the thought that came picking about my brains today.

Whatever comes on November 8, whatever we despair of the loss of privacy and the uprising of technology that takes away our autonomy, even (perhaps) our individuality ...

Nobody will be ignorant of what we thought about these times, any century any time soon.

Nobody will look back at the early twenty-first century (or whatever era they name us to be in future - The Antrhopocene has some traction, but it's a self-given nickname, and those don't always catch on) and WONDER WHO WE WERE.

We are going to be a hard lot to lose in time, is what I am saying. We are not opaque.

Indeed, one of the possible tragedies of this age is its vomitous ubiquity. There is a wide swath of our culture right now dedicated just to photographing food before we actually eat it, reporting on it, commentating it.

Which either fascinates somebody I've never met, or reflects something deep and internal about the current generations of living humanity in a way that tells us about a lot more than that tasty churro shot.

Heading for destruction?

I don't know.

But I do know this: Rome never burned in a way catastrophic enough her legacy was obliterated. And my society, my culture - whatever it is, with all its good and its bad and its laughability and its heartbreak - is not a relief cut into the Earth that is going to erode easily.

What is beautiful about humanity right now is not going to disappear.

What is ugly, we've ensured will endure, too.

Do you think there can ever be a Dark Age again? Do you even believe there ever truly has been a descent of mankind, ever a period in history marked by the absence of redemptive qualities?

Time and Chance (Neither Sharon K Penman nor Ecclesiastes)

It is perhaps not the sort of admission a writer should make; but more, I suspect, than would like to admit it may find what I'm about to post familiar ...

The WIP began, as many know, as an inspiration early in the research for The Ax and the Vase. I was fairly successful, during my work on Ax, in keeping the WIP on the backburner - not using it to distract myself from frustrations with the first novel - and not letting it steal me away on its own impetus either.

And so, the WIP has been in gestation for something like thirteen or fourteen years now.

It was brought to the front burner a year and a half ago or so, but this summer I have allowed the demands of work and life and other such silliness as that to keep me from dedicated writing.



Now and then, when we're not really working on them, writers do at least pull OUT our work (or pull it up, as on electronic devices). We look at it, we pat it on its evil/cute little plot-bunnied head, we expect it to speak, and often it fails to. For all works of creative writing have a habit of acting on their own, especially individual characters, running off and doing things we had no idea were in them, creating unexpected continuity issues to resolve - they have an even crueller tendency NOT to do this when we sit and look at them, bereft of active ideas or plans.

WIPs, when you pull them out and expect them to develop themselves, will stare you down like sullen teenagers. Mute, un-forthcoming, inert.

And so, it was a surprise to me, today, when the sullen thing spoke to me.

I pulled it up just now. Peered at it a bit. Scrolled to the end, because I don't really know where it needs to end, or why it seems to end so far beyond where it begins.

I would be hard-pressed, in short, to tell an agent honestly "what is the crisis here, what needs resolving?"

As a historical fiction author, I am inordinately attached to the idea that telling the stories of history itself is important, worthy, fascinating. But where the fascination lies, I seem to be very poor at defining. Why tell it? Um. It's cool. See? Where the king goes Catholic, instead of Arian, and the entire future of Christendom - and Western Europe - is decided? Neat, hm?



Ya gotta have an MDQ. History is great, but a story isn't just the litany events leading from point A to point B, where there's a new chapter or we lose interest.

And I had no idea why my WIP was going on into three generations of women I think are each a study in contrasts, and whose lives deserve to be shared. Three is a great storytelling trope, but why was I going into character #1's mom and daughter, when it was #1 who drew me initially? What has it been, all this time, telling me that mom is necessary, that we can't stop without daughter, that #1 should *not* stand alone ... ?

And what is the title of this thing?

Titles are hard. And hard-won. Authors can be extremely attached to a title, emotionally vulnerable to the idea of changing one. They're harder to write than poems, perhaps. Or they ARE poems, perhaps.



So today, scrolling to the end, and then back to the beginning, when I caught sight of that moment when the character has just opened up our action by giving birth to #1, and she realizes she has not born a son ... one phrase caught my eye.

Time for posterity later.

But; there is no later.

And that was when it clicked.

What I am writing about - and THIS, I have known for a long time, is the events that lead us into that period so many historians used to call (and, gallingly, most of the regular populace still call) The Dark Ages.

I'm writing about dissolution.

I'm writing about the end of a dynasty, not only from the point of view of #1, the child who had the wrong genital equipment, but also from the point of view of #2 - a character more vivid than 1's mother and her daughter - the freedwoman who literally births the END of the dynasty; the midwife who, perhaps, has her hands not only on the labours of her noblewomen, but on the pangs of a new era emerging.

That part came just now, just writing that paragraph. Exciting stuff; bear witness, y'all.

So the working title (and I feel it perhaps bears the wrong tone; so this too may pass) has become, Time for Posterity.

And the question is: how does it end?

How does a dynasty end? How does an era end? How does darkness begin? (Do I even believe there was an age of darkness appropriately to be named The Dark Ages - well, no - but it makes a hell of a story, and it's been sucking at me like a vortex for thirteen years, I realize.)



So, yaaaayyyy!

I'm about to become the AUTHOR of the Dark Ages, and I don't even believe in them!

Neato-spedito, as my brother used to say.

Hacksilver, Liberty, and Equality

We've discussed here in the past that the Frankish name came from the francisca, their emblematic blade, and that this name comes from a word meaning freedom or liberty.

The problem with etymologies and concepts is that their meaning is always filtered through perspective, and the contemporary understanding of the terms freedom and liberty are affected by our experience, our education, our PRIVILEGE, and the standard of living that defines just how free "free" is, and so on.

The expectation of liberty for someone whose life is dependent upon crops or weather or military success far more directly and immediately than, say, most modern Americans, is difficult if not impossible to understand or conceive.

Equality, too, is a different matter.

All this is by way of introduction to the concept of hacksilver.

In the societies of Late Antiquity in Europe, "Barbarian" peoples enacted the precepts of equality through distribution of wealth:  specifically, to soldiers, after conquest.  Booty was collected and evenly divided - and, by even, what I mean to convey is that equal portions were allotted to all by way of cutting down precious objects, not merely by division piece by piece.  A large vase of gold might be hammered then snipped to ensure egalitarian distribution:  hacksilver (or gold, copper, etc.).

With items indivisible in themselves, the award of some particular treasure was a mark of significant prestige, and all divisions had to be agreed upon.  A king would lose face in the profoundest way, if he presumed upon the division of booty. This led to one of the most famous incidents of Clovis' early reign, the legendary shattering of a great crystal vase:  the vase of my title.

The effect of a king's failure to provide for his forces with booty - and to divide that booty equally - was the deepest betrayal of his duty as a military leader.  To fail, as Clovis did in the incident of the Vase of Soissons, was unthinkable.  His spectacular revenge, then, becomes a matter not only of legend - but, more immediately, and for him, propaganda.  Proven a failure as a king, he has to prove his authority in order to hold the throne from which he can remediate this black mark on his prestige.

So hacksilver is more than the "barbarian" destruction of treasures, it is the reflection of a society so fully invested in equality for those who defend and fight for their king and people that to short-change any of them might be the end of their king.  It is the reflection of the "barbarian" definition of liberty - and equality.

And maybe it's an interesting look at an ancient recycling program!

Voices

Writers of nearly every sort have a fondness for what we call “voice” – the tone and unique patois of a character, the way one speaks as opposed to the next – the very feel of a novel, a screenplay, a poem, a story.  Setting can have, and contribute, to voice.  Age and education, native intelligence, expectations, fears, and desires.

Many authors, too, read our work out loud.  It’d be impossible not to write, to some degree, in our own voices, and as important as reading a work out loud is to making sure its weight and rhythm and the feel are all right, even this imposes us upon the work.  Public readings, if we’re fortunate enough to publish, reinforce the imposition of our own voice on a work, and audio books can bring new voices, in performance, to a piece.

And through all this, we have to maintain the integrity of the characters themselves.  Characters mustn’t break under the weight of interpretations and expectations – and, the more I read, the more I know how very difficult it is for a character to remain itself.  Right now, I’m reading a novel told in omniscient 3rd person, but incorporating literally hundreds of years of voices – rendered in spoken word, chronicle, correspondence, and secondhand reportage.  It’s a piece with remarkable scope, and quite well put together – yet there are times I can see the author too clearly.  A habit of beginning sentences with the word “and” … certain unique phrases appearing generations apart, recalling some other character’s voice … the reiterations of descriptions of setting, from points of view which should be more distinct.  It’s an author’s job to notice detail.  It is not their job to put the same detail in the perspective of EVERY character, unfortunately.  Lush as certain points of interest may be, not all voices should desribe them the same – indeed, not all characters should even care.  Once seven different scenes from markedly different periods and focusing on wildly different players – scenes concerned with very different action and motivation – have pointed at the same beautiful plant in the same way, I not only lose patience with vicariously gazing at the plant, but I lose my place in the world itself.

Ahm – so plants don’t need to have voices in a novel.

Back to my point.

The problem with an author’s voice overcoming their characters’ is that, of course, the book stops being about what it is about, and begins to be about the author’s preoccupations.

Now,of course, none of us would ever write, if we didn’t have preoccupations.  It’s in some way entirely the point.

This is why we have editing.

I have a problem with “just” and “actually” – fortunately, writing historical fiction set in Late Antiquity, I am somewhat freed from this foible:  the likelihood of an ancient Frankish throwing around quantities of qualifiers is blessedly remote, and so I hope Clovis suffers little from this predilection.

My other problems, which anyone here knows all too well already, are loquacity and a confidence in my own intelligence, which are most likely the issue I have to watch the hardest.  I’ve edited and polished and worked, but have little doubt that the characters in The Ax and the Vase are perhaps more culturally and educationally homogenous than they should be.  Personalities set them apart, but I could not bear to make any of them less than truly clever (see also:  my overarching defensiveness about “Barbarians” and The Stupid, Stupid Past …).  We have one boyish colt, and one oafish drunk, but as a whole, the population of The Ax and the Vase are a canny lot.  One hopes this does not constitute too much of a problem.

I like to hope that the key is *listening*.  Listening to the characters, and the story itself.  Each scene tells me what its participants need out of it, and that helps.  Each man and woman has a past, and a future.

I can discern the actual VOICE of Clovis – the breath, the timbre, the power and the volume – in everything he has said through the novel.  I know his youthful tone and the creaking changes of his voice with age.  I know the speed at which words came from his mouth, with every line he speaks, and can tell you where he breathes, where he doesn’t.  When he pauses.  When he silences others with his own silence.

I know the sound of his kinsman, Pharamond – and the rumble and grind of his other supporting player, the profligate, the comes, the older idol, Ragnachar.

It’s not enough to see their faces – to know the very quality of their skin, their hair, the color or the brightness and clarity of their eyes.  It’s not enough to know that one character has a club foot, and another is leathery and scarred, almost blue he is so tanned and aged and hard.  I have to know that that latter man has a voice reedy and thin with age, incongruously small in his warrior’s frame.  I have to hear not only the lilt and laughter of the crippled woman, but to hear how the slide of her walk syncopates with her words as she walks.  I have to know that she has hands and feet and a belly and clothes, how she moves, how her breath moves with her, how the words will be affected by that.

I have to remember Clovis is fifteen in this scene when I edit it, and almost forty-five the next day, when I’m looking at the other end of the novel.


***


The most beautiful speaking voice I have ever heard, live and in person, was that of Mikhail Gorbachev.  It was over twenty years ago, when he was still one of the most famous men on Earth, and realized – I had never heard him before:  only interpreters.  His voice was magnificent, not at all blustering nor loud, mellow, mellifluous, simple, and beautiful.  I found myself ignoring the translator, and lost only in the sound of this unassuming, astoundingly powerful figure, quite overjoyed to forget his speech and simply revel in the sound of beautifully spoken Russian.

I have never been a fan of French, and as much love as I have for the German language – for sheer loveliness of sound, for its curve and sharpness and audible precision, the most gorgeous language in the world, for me, has always been Russian.  I find the curved shapes of its verbal Ls  entrancing, the glottal bounce of its coupled vowels delightful.  Spoken with an honestly attractive voice, Russian is an incredible pleasure for the ear.  Its edges, sharp and pure, never cut to bleed, and its lightness and speed are exciting.  Women who swoon for the congested sound of French have never quite made sense to me.  But give me a few phrases thrown away in rapid-fire, carelessly crystal-clear Russian, and the wonder of language lights up my brain.

The deliberate and convicted sound of a man who literally changed the world, speaking with a mellow voice no less powerful for its lack of volume, was an experience I frankly treasure in a sacred way apart from politics or seeing-a-famous-person or romance or anything else.  Beauty IS, sometimes, its own reward, and Gorbachev’s speech is one of those unexpected moments in memory, which illustrated something about beauty well beyond the perfectly arched brow or a total babe everyone wants to get to know.  That I understood not a word without the translator only enhanced this.


Clovis spoke a language I would never recognize, even if I spoke all the living tongues in the world today.

But I know his voice.

Rougher and sharper than a Russian statesman.

Never quite so guttural as a brute of a “Barbarian”.

Not quite a low voice, not for a long time – he came to the throne in the barest flush of his youth.

But balanced.  Measured.  Strong, if not beautiful.

And … I hope … compelling enough to echo through fifteen centuries …

Queen Saint Clotilde's Life

I have not neglected to post about Clotilde, but I have failed in one thing, and that is to point out that she was in her time a VERY long-lived lady indeed.

In The Ax and the Vase, I placed her marriage to Clovis I at about age nineteen in 493 CE.  She was married to him until his death in 511, and so they had a little less than twenty years.

Given that Clotilde lived about SEVENTY years, it’s difficult to put her marriage into perspective.  All of the history touching on her centers upon the marriage, and even the tales of her life as a supposed bloodthirsty revenge-machine after his death, inciting war over decades-old other imaginary murders, tend to be brief in comparison with the hagiography of the saint who brought a king to Catholic Christianity.

The history of Christendom focuses heavily on Clovis I, First Catholic King in Europe – and, to be sure, I have myself framed The Ax and the Vase as exactly that story.  Clotilde’s role is venerated, and she earned her entire fame in history by being the importuning wife who brought a king to the Church – yet she herself is rarely examined except through the lens of her husband, her sons.  We have no tales of her alone, outside the context of the marriage and her children.  And that’s not the exclusive case of Frankish women in history.

Clotilde is, if we take what sources we have at historical value (we shouldn’t), the catalyst, the instigator.  It’s clear her personality was strong – and yet, the person passed down through the centuries is never her own.  Always the daughter, the wife, the mother, Clotilde is in some ways obscured by the very act which brought her the greatest power and the enduring fame of fifteen hundred years’ sanctification.

If Clovis was the first Catholic king in Europe, the mighty precedent of a faith and tradition which set the very course of western history itself after Rome’s “fall” …

Clotilde is the woman, the heart, the impetus, the persuader – who made it happen.

Clovis tends generally to be cast either as a Christian of the Arian faith – or, more often, as an outright pagan.  Historians and enthusiasts squabble enjoyably about “what kind” of pagan he was, but there is no question, his coming to Catholicism was both unexpectedly nonconformist in his day, and an epochal event in Gaul and, eventually, beyond.

If it had not been for the will of his wife, it’s quite possible Clovis never would have come to the Church.

Now, think about that.  Really consider – the course of European life for a thousand years, until the Reformation, the rebellion against that church, the extent and influence of the Catholic Church in most people’s lives and expectations, for so many centuries.  Think about the complexion of the world if he had been and remained a non-trinitarian Christian.  If he had never converted, and the Church grew, but never quite integrated with the royal houses of Europe as it was able to partially thanks to Clovis’ precedent.  The feudal world would have looked very different – the material world would have, without cathedrals and basilicas coming to represent and to attract the wealth and trade of cities.  Consider the increasingly-bound ties, through generations and centruies, of throne and mitre, of money and influence – and the very morality and way of life of such a vast swath of time and humanity.

Imagine that one of the fundamental precedents that set THIS world in motion, never occurred.  That Clovis never looked critically at the Roman Church – spiritual scion of the Roman empire he had assisted to *extinguish* in Gaul – that he remained Arian, or pagan, or perhaps that he did convert, but was never so powerful a monarch as he was to become.  Imagine a Catholic king surrounded by Arians and pagans, who succumbed to defeat at their hands, or who stayed at three small cities in Belgium, and was no tool for a growing Church to gain greater influence and power – and followers.

Because the followers – that is perhaps the greatest key to Clovis’ conversion and baptism, and their eventual effects and influence.

Clovis came to power by the CHARISMA of his blood.  And the stories of the thousands who followed him in ecstasies to the Catholic faith are consistent, whatever else we may say of the veracity or dependability of sources for Late Antiquity.  So are the tales of new converts who lashed out against Arians and pagans in the wake of the fervor accompanying the massive acceptance of Catholicism.

It is Clotilde, a woman Clovis may in part have chosen to marry precisely because of her religious connections, who brought him from friendly correspondence with bishops, to actual submission to her faith.

It is Clotilde, who lived seventy years – nearly three decades after the death of her king – whose influence on one man rendered so many more susceptible to conversion, to baptism, to the Church she had in fact importuned upon him for many years before he accepted.

Clotilde baptized their first son against the will of Clovis – and that son died.

Clovis resisted her testimony, her witnessing, for years – until, on the field of battle, he finally is said to have laid himself in HER G-d’s hands, and gained victory.  Became the king he did become.  And forged his relationship with her Church.



The thirty years after Clovis’ death seeem almost to bear no relationship to the foregoing tales of her conviction, her purity in faith.  The character left to history devolves to a vicious queen out to right ancient family wrongs, in revenge for her father’s (purported) murder – bringing Burgundy to war, and setting her sons to acts of bitterness and revenge which seem not only out of character with the story of Clovis’ life, but out of character with her own youth and queenship.

It is puzzling, in any research (or just causal reading) of a period, to come across a character so lionized and so demonized all at once, yet it is hardly uncommon.  Just as the saint and queen, depicted in her youth and matronhood as the highest ideal may become a crone obsessed with long-gone wrongs … a young woman of power and hope may become a poisoner, the tool of a story meant to illustrate sin and the worst in her gender.  For that matter, even the young warrior may become, over years of propaganda and lost human motivation, the scapegoat vilified for liking little boys, dissipated in wine and shame for a new king to conquer and damn him.  Ahem.

Over the years and years I have spent reading about all the figures of the time, I’ve found reason to doubt almost all the worst tales told.  Propaganda plays an enormous role in The Ax and the Vase, and anyone who reads it should keep in mind both that and the fact that the novel is told in first-person.  I consciously set Clovis up as a somewhat unreliable (and, in that bargain – *incomplete*) narrator, just as I make explicit every piece of propaganda he set forth – the making of his own legend.

The result ends up being that, though I feel her character has blood in her veins and flesh on her bones, Clotilde is done little more justice as a figure in history itself than she is most anywhere else.

None of us lives our lives with great attention paid to our posterity.  Those few who do often rotate around an axis of vanity; and personal forms of propaganda, at that – the well-chosen selfie, the stories told or posted subjectively.  Whether self-aware or not, we’re all writing our own life’s stories, and to author our lives with consideration far beyond how we look in the immediate is close to unheard-of.  So I couldn’t really write a novel in first-person, by a husband often frustrated by his queen – by a *man*, who could not see the woman in his bed as a saint nor a part of history – and DO her that justice.

I hope my readers do her a little better, and see beyond the constraints of creative narrative.

I know some, surely, see beyond the saint and the bitter dowager.  And see a remarkable woman, long-lived, and more than the sum of her husband, and her children.

Author's Notes - This Is the End

The final entries in the gloss:  starting points, sites of conquest, and money money money money.



TOXANDRIA
The realm of Childeric I, foederatus and King of the Franks (childerici regis).  Located within the area referred to by Rome as belgica, modern Belgium, it was ceded to the Franks by the Roman emperor Julian in 358 CE

Childeric held Arras, Boulougne (Bononia), and Tournai, the city representing here Clovis’ first capital.  The domain was not the backwater I have presented it as being; Childeric appears to have been extremely wealthy and perhaps not only in thanks to his position as an ally of the Empire.  Trade and travel throve here, and the art and fine craftsmanship of both Roman and Frankish entrepreneurs were all to be found within the area.


VINDINIUM
The city now known as Le Mans, mentioned by Gregory of Tours as having been ruled by Rigomer.  It did indeed have an amphitheater, which is still visible today; but the thermae, or baths, were demolished in the Imperial Crisis of the third century CE.  The city’s walls may be among the most complete surviving Gallo-Roman town fortifications.


VOUILLE'
The Battle of Vouille’, 507, was one of the greatest gains of actual territory in Clovis’ career, after Soissons.  With this fight, he subdued the Visigoths and likely completed an estrangement from Theodoric and the Ostragoths, and amassed Aquitainia and the major southern expanses of the sum of his consolidated territories, roughing out the outlines of what eventually we came to know as France.


WERGILD
Reparation money exacted for the murder of a member of one’s community:  the literal cost of taking someone’s life, or irrevocably compromising it.  Wergild might also be assigned for crimes other than murder, as in the rape of Tetrada, or for the death of livestock or catastrophic loss of property.  Interestingly, the wergild for a woman of childbearing age was extremely high; though women might not have held a position the modern mind would think of as powerful, their value to a community was undeniable, and their treatment was not strictly that of chattel.

The system of wergild valuation was formalized, and laws in existence at the time, as well as the lex salica set down in the final year of Clovis’ life and reign, address specific situations/personages in some detail.  The concept originally saved those in government—and many families—from having to deal with the alternative of blood-for-blood, thereby acting to control feuds and civil strife.  Where we might find the literal pricing of a person’s value … “barbaric” … the function of these laws was actually meant to reduce violence and provide deterrent to crime.  The hierarchy of wergild values provides an anthropological window into the society as a whole, and once again underscores the ultimate values in the Frankish system:  freedom and family.

Tetrada’s wergild would be thrice that of a male under twelve or over forty, or anyone else not a soldier in his prime.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

As we near the end of the Author's Notes series, it's interesting to observe how the glossary sort of fell out in an order that lent itself to this format in terms of theme and content.  Today's subjects:  places, places, and more places!



THURINGIA
One of the territories known to have been gained by Clovis, but not always firmly under his control, Thuringia was the font of allies and family for the king.  It was his close relation to the people of this region which both justified his claim upon it, and horrified because of the manner of his staking that claim.  Basina, Clovis’ mother, was a Thuringian queen before she scandalized the Franks by leaving her husband Bisinus (who had provided refuge for the exiled Frankish king) to marry Childeric.  Thuringian land occupied the eastern borders of those domains making up a part of Clovis’ story, situated north of Odovakar’s realm.



TOLBIAC
The Battle of Tolbiac, 496—site of Clovis’ conversion (most widely reported/accepted date).  Called Zulpich in many sources.  The “place-name problem” often prevalent for a British writer was a lesser issue for European/Roman geography in Late Antiquity.  For no reason better than accessibility for the unfamiliar reader, I’ve chosen Latinized forms of both personal and place names almost universally.


TONGEREN
Tongeren is one of the oldest cities in Belgium, predating even the advent of Julius Caesar.  The city was a Roman administrative center, and housed one of the first Catholic dioceses in the area, but was likely sacked in 451 by the Huns.  Chararic’s placement at Tongeren is a fiction, but the area is a likely one for someone associated with Clovis as early as the victory at Soissons, and places him in proximity with the smaller world of Clovis’ Belgic origins, as well as in a believable kin-geography.


TOURNAI
Clovis’ first capital, and the main of three cities held by Childeric in the province of belgica secunda, Tournai is also one of the oldest towns in Belgium.  Tournai lay east and slightly south of Bononia, with Arras between the two, farther to the south.  Tournai was and is situated on the Scheldt river, a conduit for trade and sustenance dating at least to the Roman period.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today, a look at princes and non-primogenitive inheritance.


SUCCESSION
Much has been made, over the centuries, of Salic Law, not least Title LIX, Concerning Private Property, which addressed the prohibition of feminine inheritance:  of Salic land no portion of the inheritance shall come to a woman: but the whole inheritance of the land shall come to the male sex.  Looming far larger at the time of the Merovingian dynasty, however, was the division of inheritance—a habit, at the royal level, which led to the perceived degeneration of Clovis’ descendants and their power.

Clovis’ decision to divide his kingdom in the manner of a patrimony, rather than to enact the now-familiar practice of primogeniture, has fascinated and frustrated historians and scholars for generations.  However, at the time, such an action was commonplace and unexceptional—and, of course, led to the notorious wars and factions so much a part of the dynastic history of the time.  The problem is another more applied by modern perspective than one which would have been recognized at the time.  As the sun comes up in the east, so the tradition was the tradition, and if it contained inconveniences, and even the seeds of strife, that was not the matter for a father (nor even a king) to presume to rectify.  Primogeniture was not merely foreign, it would have been inconceivable, in the sense of not occurring to those with estates.  If it obviously became conceivable to those inheriting, then the actions were as they were, and were as much accepted consequences as the tradition itself was accepted.


THEODORIC
454-526; King of the Ostrogoths (488-526), ruler of Italy (493-526), and regent of the Visigoths (511-526).  The name means king of the people (theud), and may be tied to a form of rulership referred to in ancient Germanic nations as Thiudans, a spiritual level of authority in contrast with reiks, the military or blood ruler.  This name, of course, unites those aspects.
Theodoric made much of his (possibly fictional) descent from the venerated Amal line, and varied his approach to Clovis and others with their value or threat to his position.  His queen, Audofleda, was Clovis’ sister; though the alliance forged by this marriage was not made of stern stuff.  Theodoric and Clovis, though they never warred directly, remained wary and at times antagonistic regardless of the relation.


THEUDERIC
484-533/534(?); inherited Austrasia, Rheims, and Metz.  First son of Clovis, whose mother was unrecorded but seems likely to have been a concubine/friedelehe.  Little is recorded of him before his father’s death, and there is no indication whatever that he was in any way  unhealthy.  His “palsy” in this story serves both as story arc for his character and also as the physical manifestation of unspoken conflict between Clovis and himself.  Much of what I have created for Theuderic’s character is utter fiction.
Early in his own reign, Theuderic sent his son Theudebert to battle the Scandinavian King Chlochilaich (better known, from the poem Beowulf, as Hygelac) who had invaded his realm. Theudebert defeated and killed Chlochilaich.  See the note on Theodoric for etymology of the name.    (Variations:  Thierry, Deitrich)



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today's edition will cover everything from Romanization to the archaic name Romans used to designate the Franks:


ROMANIZATION
Though there are historians and students whose misgivings regarding the Franks’ Romanitas may validly put it in question, the overwhelming slant of early sources and commentary on Clovis and his world in general indicates a high level of Roman assimilation among the Franks generally, especially at the level of government and nobility.  Of all the barbarian peoples, the Franks appear to have been singular in both their approach to Rome itself, but in their assimilation of culture, belief, social structure—and the preservation of their own extremely-difficult-to-define, from a modern perspective, identity (*).  There is reason to wonder  why Clotilde is said to have converted Clovis from Roman gods, but source material displays a strong identification of the Frankish people with the Roman—and Greek—culture, even in the absence of overall conformist points of reference, law, and hierarchy.  This is to say, the Franks appear to have appropriated Roman history and culture, recognizing it as prestigious, but maintained at the same time a strong cohesion at the same time.  Thus, Clovis was a “long-haired king”, a Frank, an independent entity capable of destroying Rome in the person of Syagrius—and also fully capable of recognizing that power might be had in Roman forms, and that, for instance, Catholics represented a strong force with which it was worthwhile to align himself.  His inheritance of Roman administrative and cultural structures was no more antithetical to his identity than his adoption of the Christian faith was entirely a betrayal of it.  The Franks being a pragmatic people, and Clovis a pragmatic king, the nonconformity he and they displayed among peer tribes and kingdoms in the barbarian world of Late Antiquity was a matter of decision and practicality as much as it was the manifestation of faith, religious manifest destiny, or advantage-making.
(*This may also illuminate the question of Clovis’ conversion to Catholic, rather than Arian, Christianity; see notes on Catholicism and Arianism for further discussion.)


SERVI
The Latin term for a servant bound to the land—to an estate, specifically—these were not slaves, but not fully free in the Frankish sense either.  Forerunner of the term serfs, which would become so familiar in later medieval times.  This term exists minimally in this work, as a hat-tip to medievalism and a necessary allusion to Romanization as well as societal stratification—but it is kept fairly unobtrusive as well, in light of the preconceptions attached to both the Roman and medieval associations.


SIBLINGS
Clovis is known to have had two siblings other than Audofleda – another like-named sister, Abdofled/Abofled, the youngest, and Lanthechild, who along with the other siblings is largely known for having converted from Arian to Catholic Christianity with Clovis.  There was, in a previous draft of this work, a storyline for Lanthechild.  However, in the interest of avoiding confusion, the character was entirely excised during the most extensive revision.  Abdofled does not appear in all sources, and was never included in any draft, for reasons which may be obvious.  I have wondered whether the vagaries of spelling simply created this sibling in duplication of the clearly-historical sister, Audofleda, but will confess to having put no research into this question.


SICAMBRIAN
This term appears most prominently in the legend of the baptism of Clovis, by some depicted as having occured concurrent with his conversion.  The name refers to the Romans’ poetic designation for the Franks.  It is derived from the name of the tribe Sicambri, a tribe first appearing in Roman histories just before the last half of the first century BCE.  The Sicambri were said to live at the mouth of the Rhine at that time, and Clovis’ Salian Franks would have been considered their descendants.  To use archaic names for tribes was a Latin poetic convention; thus Bishop Remigius’ reference to Clovis as “O Sicambrian” at the iconic moment of his baptism.  Other references to Franks as Sicambrians can be found in the panegyrics of the time.  Because it seems unlikely, outside such contexts as the rarefied rules of Roman literary usage, that the Franks would have referred to themselves by this name, I’ve maintained the famous line from Remigius, but eschewed this usage anywhere else.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today will be brief and miscellaneous.  Stay tuned tomorrow, for a look at ROMANIZATION!



RICCHAR
Not noted by sources as a king, Ricchar was brother to Ragnachar, and little discussed except as one of many minor rulers whose domains were usurped during Clovis’ career.  He is variously described as having been killed with Ragnachar at Cambrai, or with their other brother, Rigomer, at Vindinium, during Clovis’ unification of Frankish territories.


RIGOMER
Like Ricchar, a brother of Ragnachar and not noted as a king; likewise little discussed by sources.  However, Rigomer is noted in relation to Vindinium, so it is possible that as a Frankish prince he had some governance over the city.  He was killed between 508-511 in Clovis’ Frankish unification campaigns.


RIPUARIAN/SALIAN
The distinction often employed by historians to discuss Ripuarian (river-dwelling) and Salian (sea-dwelling) Franks was not employed during the period of Clovis’ rule, though the latter term can be found in ancient histories—outside the context generally understood today.  The designation “Frankish” appears to be a later development as well, though francia and francisca may have been in use, and have long been connected with the people of Clovis as, respectively, designations for their land and their totemic weapons, the battle-axes which figure so prominently in this tale.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today, Clovis' two comes come in at the top, followed by a look at the type of king he was (literally, literally), and I thought we should round off this post with the Saint who baptized the King.


PHARAMOND
FICTIONAL; originally called Merovech, I changed this character’s name the moment someone fist asked me about Dan Brown.  Pharamond’s name does belong to another semi-historical/legendary king of the Franks.


RAGNACHAR
Ragnachar is a historical king, seated at Cambrai, and known to have fought beside his kinsman, Clovis.  Tales of him dating from Gregory of Tours’ day depict a dissolute, villain enough to make even Childeric’s early dissipations mild by comparison.  Though there is always room for the possibility of bias and propaganda in primary sources, rehabilitation/revisionism would do away with too many good stories in this case, and so we have the older, less-powerful cousin who both envies and ties himself—for a time, loyally—to the arc of Clovis’ much brighter star.  The tales of “my Farro” come largely as recorded in sources; and, of course, one can take the particular type of sexual slurs against Ragnachar with all the veracity that belongs to Clotilde’s bloodthirsty family and some of the more magical legends attached to Clovis himself.


REGES CRINITI
“Long-haired kings”; Franks of the period attached symbolic importance to hair, and their kings wore long hair as a badge both of power and position.  Stories abound of those who were shorn or tonsured like monks in a metaphorical display of their loss of authority.  As is illustrated in Clotilde’s threats to the young son of Chararic and the aftermath, for a victim of being shorn thus to even speak of growing his hair back was a clear threat to any king who wanted to see him stripped of power.
Tangentially related to this is the reference to Basina’s scalping, after her adultery.  This was intended to echo as much the fate of Morgause at her son Gaheris’ hand, as to reflect the connection to the archetypal power of long hair for Frankish royalty.


REMIGIUS
Bishop Remigius of Rheims, born 437, lived to the year 533.  By the time of Clovis’ baptism (as calculated from 508, rather than 496), he had already attained seventy-one years, and he eventually far outlived Clovis himself, surviving to the impressive age of nearly ninety-six.  This alone would have lent him a literal venerability, and his character certainly lent Remi a fame at least as great, if not even greater, than Clovis’ own.





As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Laws and characters - today, supporting roles, fictional and non:


LEX SALICA
Salic Law, the sixth century codification of law first set down by Clovis I.  Alaric II of the Visigoths, much maligned in these pages, was known definitively to have compiled his own code of Roman laws, the Breviary of Alaric, or brevarium.  The sixty-five chapers of Clovis’ pactus legis salicae represent traditions and punishments far predating his own rule, but synthesized to bring Franks and Gallo Romans under one system (though not equally; they are not treated precisely alike).  There is little Christian influence or input in the codification, and it demonstrates the priorities of Frankish society—with family above all other concerns, and loss of freedom or financial stability being the worst possible punishments.  The clearest thrust of these statutes is to minimize feuding, outlining tariffs and penalties clearly reflecting the specific value of relationships, and each member of a community’s worth within it.


MAGNERIC
FICTIONAL.  Both a bridge to the generation mostly destroyed in my version of Clovis’ accession, and an example of the nature of Frankish society in Roman Gaul, Magneric allowed me to represent both the newness of Catholicism and the old-guard of those more insular nobles who came before Clovis’ rule.


ODOVAKAR
Patrician of Rome whose ethnicity varies wildly across the sources, Odovakar deposed Romulus Augustulus and ruled during the ‘reign’ of Julius Nepos, the final Emperor in the West.  Already nearing fifty by the time Clovis came to his throne, he was nonetheless a staggering power in Italy and beyond.  His protracted standoff with Theodoric the Ostrogoth in northern Italy did end over a dining table, though some of the dramatic legends about this event are here omitted.  Variants:  Odoacer, Odovacer, Odoaker, possibly Adovacrius.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today we have two uncles and a sword.  Stay tuned tomorrow, when we'll go all lex salica up in here!


GUNDOBALD
King of Burgundy 473-516, uncle of Clotilde.  Gregory of Tours condemns Gundobald for the murder and the usurpation of his three brothers’ inheritances in a bid for their father Gundioc’s kingdom.  Clotilde was said to have been exiled, but was able to escape into marriage with Clovis as Gundobald feared the Frankish ruler’s strength.  Gundobald maintained a state of war with his last brother, Godegesil, for years, and each of them prevailed upon Clovis not knowing that the other had, begging for assistance against one another.  In the end, having promised tribute to Clovis, Gundobald is said to have broken this promise, and besieged Godegesil at Vienne, finally defeating the latter with the help of a traitor within the city.  Late in his life, he converted to Catholicism, and was succeeded on the throne of Burgundy by his son Sigismund.


GODEGESIL
Uncle and guardian of Clotilde, Godegesil quartered his niece at his capital in Geneva, where she was educated in the Catholic church.  Godegesil engaged with his brother Gundobald in conflicts over their inheritance for many years.  Though relieved by the support of Clovis for some time, he was finally destroyed in 501 during Gundobald’s siege of Vienne, after Clovis’ withdrawal and the betrayal of an artisan who helped Gundobald past the defenses after Godegesil expelled commoners from the protection of the city.


HEREBRAND
Accurately or not, as a kid who grew up reading Arthurian stories, I confess to an affection for the idea of naming a king’s sword.  This name is made up of two authentic naming-elements:  hari/here, meaning army; and brand, meaning blade or sword.  Pattern-welded swords exist among the artifacts of the period, and represent an extremely prized symbol and treasure for any warrior or king.  In Clovis’ early career, Herebrand would have represented an almost unattainably precious treasure; even with his increased prosperity and power over the years, it would have been a symbol of great potency and value.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Ugh

Well, since it's been a whole eight days since I had to call in to work with a bad back, it's a good thing I've gotten myself a nice cold now - wouldn't want to work an entire week straight, after all.

SIGH.

So while I'm home and in pain today, I'll share a highly intriguing piece of costume (and jewelry) history, as The History Blog takes a look at the Revninge woman pendant.

And another look at jewelry, this time in the Anglo Saxon arts.  I can see, too, from the link, that I am going to have to get myself addicted to The British Museum blog.  The HB's post introduces me to a phrase I have not seen before, but find charming - "animal salad."  Hee.

And, from the British Museum blog (I probably shouldn't reduce them to an acronym, hm?), here is a great post with wonderful photos of the Lycurgus ... lamp.  And a curator's question - how do you graphically render "something which was never intended to exist in a tangible way" - perhaps the least-forseen lament about bitcoin I've ever encountered.  Interesting post, though!

Blade People

(One of mine is here ...)

It is a curiosity of antiquity/Late Antiquity, that there were major populations (to use the term “nation” calls to mind too many modern notions to be useful or worthwhile) who took their names from weaponry.  The ultimate derivation of the name now pronounced "Franks" is their throwing-ax, the francisca – which, interestingly enough, seems to bear a fundamental kinship also with their word for liberty (again, “freedom” is the wrong word, evoking certain specifics beside the point of what was meant in ancient context).

The Saxons, too, took their name from a blade, the seax, which was more a dagger than an ax – but equally as much a part of daily life as the Franks’ tool of choice.

Digging (perhaps with a pickax) farther back, we find the labris, the ancient Minoan double-headed ax, which gave its name not to a people, but to that classically enshrined place, and concept, the labyrinth:  “the place of the ax”.  There is an archaeological site in Turkey, the city of Labraunda, whose name also seems to derive from that of the weapon.

For some of us (though hardly for all) today, the idea of imbuing a weapon with spirit – indeed, with the spirit of an entire people (or a people’s being imbued with the spirit of a weapon) – is perhaps strange.  Yet, throughout human history, weapons – especially blades – have been the subject of our most sophisticated technology, the axis around which entire economies might revolve, the expression of our liberty – as in the Franks – and the ultimate statement of our power, our autonomy, our ingenuity … our purpose.  The highest arts are employed in the making of our blades, the greatest resources, the most skilled of our craftspeople, and the limits of our innovation.

Swords are not merely beautiful, but of extraordinary material value.  Anyone familiar with the +Ulfberh+t, the katana – with pattern welding, or the advent from bronze to steel, understands that the chemistry and artistry of blade-making surpass their concrete presence, and easily pass into a mystical reverence, into symbology we carry with us every day and no longer even see, after sometimes thousands of years of history.

In North America, the pipe tomahawk was an explicit reference to the choice our indigenous peoples had, in dealing with the Europeans:  weapon, or peace-pipe.

In Rome, the fasces – an ax lashed together with a bundle of rods – was a representation of the unity of its citizens (the many rods, held together as one), and its blade … or the absence thereof … spoke to the power over life and death held by the man before whom it was carried.  The fasces’ adornment with a laurel wreath meant, not peace as we define the concept today, but *victory* for Rome.

In Egypt, victorious pharaohs were buried with, and depicted with, the khopesh, the monarch’s blade.

In my own home as a kid growing up, the saber of my grandfather, accoutrement of his World War I uniform, was a symbol of his service.  Of the service, indeed, of all American veterans, perhaps all the way back to our Revolution – a concrete emblem of pride and protection, which we honored silently, but very definitely, as an artifact of one part of what patriotism takes from its people in order to provide for our freedoms.

Antenna Swords
Image:  Wikimedia

Even rarefied, as attenuated as possible from the implication of actual death or warfare, polished and embellished and more the product of art than … well, saber-rattling intent … the sword’s beauty is not that of an idyll, a human face or a landscape.  The charisma of a blade is – literally – edgy, and I don’t intend a joke, but the real observation.  We are put on our guard by certain types of beauty, and we like the brand of wariness an inert blade can still instill.  Precious metals and jewels make us marvel, but it is the (again, I don’t mean to make a joke here) point of the thing which creates the energy of our admiration of a magnificent weapon.

I could say the same for our attraction to certain types of people, or relationships, but that is perhaps a post for another day …

We wear jewelry wrought in blades.  Damascene designs favor beautiful scimitars, ships of war – and goth girl and boy baubles, certainly, focus on daggers and swords and bleeding hearts and blood red glass jewels – but brooches I could wear easily to work come in the form of a great variety of figural weapons.

This post could descend into all the psychosexual implications and images of blades, but I think that truly is irrelevant at the highest level.  Humanity is a bitter – and beautiful – tangle, but a sword can be breathtaking without the breath being too hot and heavy (and I write this blog, as we recall, to the standard that my mom, my nieces, or my coworkers can read it).  In any case, sexuality in symbolism is a post I’ve been saving up, so I don’t want to blow it and use that material here.

Are there artifacts in your home, in your jewelry box, or simply the clutter of your mind, tied to swords or axes or daggers?  We are STILL – all – people of many blades, even those of us who have not named our national identity after a weapon.  You may not even see yours, or the ones lurking around you.  But they are there …  Where are they?  In the painting in the hall?  In the little bronze your great aunt once had sitting on a mantel?  Actual swords, or art reproductions … even just the tiny crest on some forgotten heirloom emblem passed down from someone’s government, or actual military service …

Where are your blades … ?  And what do they mean to you?

The First Queen

Clovis’ mother was the Thuringian Queen, Basina.  Famed for the scandal she caused in leaving her first husband, Bisinus, to marry Clovis’ father Childeric, she was clearly a woman of remarkable power in a society not poor in the exploits and strength of women.  It was Basina who gave Clovis his name, a rare fact preserved in a history full of men.  Of course, a very great deal of what composes “history” in this period is stitched from legend and half-truths, propaganda and hagiography.

Clovis, I would say, was highly interested in propaganda, and I make it an explicit point in The Ax and the Vase that he depended heavily upon it in his quest to increase his kingdom from the Roman province of Belgica Secunda into a vast Frankish power standing in its own right.  The legend of his vengeance concerning the Vase at Soissons was only one of many tales which have a distinctive flavor about them, of making a public point for the sake of display.  His conversion, and fairly worthwhile evidence that he modeled himself on Constantine, follow a pattern of propaganda it was impossible not to manipulate intentionally, as I believe the king himself must have done, in the writing of his story.  He wrote it himself first, after all.

It’s not impossible he could have had an example in legend-making from the mother who gave him life, gave him his name, and gave him, even, the legend of a Merovingian dynasty (unnamed at that time, of course) itself.

Basina is said to have used King Childeric, Clovis’ father, to make a point upon their wedding night.  Before she will consummate their marriage, she sends Childeric outside thrice to look about him and tell her what he sees each time.  The first time he steps out, he sees a lion.  The second, he sees bears, wolves, or leopards.  The third, he reports seeing marmots or dogs, “lesser animals.”

Each iteration of Childeric’s investigations illustrates a deterioration, first shown in Gregory, which must have been perceived by contemporaries, of the dynasty Clovis founded.  The Merovingians started out strong, to be sure – Clovis’ conquests, his wealth, his production of princes, his career and his rule were in many ways the paragon of monarchical success.  He was the biggest thing the Franks had ever seen, and there was pride, fear, and resentment both within his life and beyond it.  The epochal developments of his reign – Clovis became the first Catholic king in Western Europe; he set forth the famous (infamous) Salic Law – were themselves the stuff of legend, and could have been no accident as such.  Yet when his kingdom passed on to his four sons, divided as patrimony between them, the power held by one lion was compromised by the division, and the Merovingian legacy (far from being Christ’s bloodline) became a famous litany of family squabbles.

Of course, the likelihood that the tale of the lion and the lesser beasts, told a generation or so after Clovis’ own death, was really told before even his birth, is slender at best.  This doesn’t stop me from using the story in any case.  In telling certain stories, those who are familiar with the attendant legends expect to see how this piece or that part may be handled; and the story reflects and fits so well with Basina’s character it would have been unthinkable to leave out this story.

Then, as tends to happen – I cut so much of her out that the tale was lost.  Indeed, Basina herself lasts only a few pages now, and is sacrificed very early in the going indeed; victim of an arbitrary but nagging need I had to be rid of her.  She ends by suffering much the same fate of Morgause at the hands of her son Agravain, but without the bloodshed.  Basina, instead, is shut out of society – the worst punishment a Frank could suffer, in a culture utterly bound by family ties.

In some ways, the loss of this powerful feminine presence may be a great loss for the novel, but as a woman writing first-person from the POV of a decidedly male character, I could not abide her presence.  Perhaps instinctively, perhaps even jealously, as the feminine author of this legendary king, I could not brook the presence of any other feminine force which brought him into being.  Indeed, until the advent of Queen Clotilde, the novel is notably unbalanced by female characters; even Clovis’ friedelehe, Evochilde, dies with little more accomplished than bearing his first son, Theuderic.

The French remember the end of the Merovingian dynasty, in particular, with the epithet they gave those kings known as do-nothing kings:  the roi fainéant.  The story of the dynasty goes much as the story of Basina’s animals goes, and by the end little boys and ineffectual heirs have most people all but rooting for the advent of the Carolingians, who had ruled from behind the Merovingian throne for generations, as Mayors of the Palace.  Yet the individual stories of Merovingians, and certainly their women, do not suffer from the same tarnish, the same flagging vigor as the tale of the dynasty as a whole.

Radegund, whose uncle betrayed Clovis’ eldest son Theuderic (this story is alluded to toward the closing chapters of Ax), and who herself was apparently close with Gregory of Tours.  She was a poetess and another saint, and one of those women along the line who was closest to Clovis’ sons.

Aregund, one of six wives of the notorious Clotaire I (son of Clovis), whose tomb’s discovery in 1959 shed much light on Frankish craft, society, and burial – and, not incidentally, whose state of preservation was good enough that her DNA was able to provide proof, in 2006, that her line carried no characteristics of Middle-Eastern extraction.  This has been put forth to put paid to the Merovingian Heresy, though of course there is no real way to destroy the allure of conspiracy theories for those who love them.

Waltrude, one of the many sainted wives of Frankish nobility of the Merovingian period, exemplifies the flux in which marriage and monastic vows still existed as late as the seventh century:  after a fruitful marriage, both she and her husband, Count of Hainault chose to retire into the church.  Like so many Frankish/Merovingian saints, she founded a convent.  The city of Mons arose around this holy site.

Waltrude’s possible sister, Aldegonde, is remembered both for her founding of a hospital, which became Maubeuge abbey.  Her fortitude in the face of terminal breast cancer is remembered 1300 years later.

A favorite Merovingian queen, Balthild, started her life as an Anglo-Saxon child of nobility, sold into servitude, and finally married to a king who loved her.  She is alternately described as ruthless or as humble and modest, but what remains clear and true of this sainted queen is that she held, and used, real power.  She endowed many religious institutions.  Her seal matrix (a fascinating two-sided design for use in official and personal documentation) survives to this day, and it is she who is credited with the abolition of (at least) Christian slavery, as well as guiding the minority rule of her son Clotaire.  Three of her sons eventually became kings in their own right, and she too retired to an abbey, where she is said to have spent the rest of her life in service to those in poverty and suffering illness.

Of Frankish women, the matrimonial tales can rank among the most fascinating glimpses both of their character and the society itself, in which they lived.  There are raging legends of women who stood up against betrothals they did not desire, the scandalous remembrance of Basina, of course, who left one king and wed another, becoming mother of a dynasty herself – and the stories like Balthild’s (not unique in the annals), of women who suffered servitude either by birth or by misfortune, and who then rose to become queens with influence and indelible places in the history of this maddening, fascinating line of rulers.  With the place family held in Frankish life, the mothers’ and wives’ prominence is undeniable and noticeable.  Basina may have been a scandal, but she was not, I think, regarded with actual surprise; women in this society were not reduced to ciphers in their own time nor down through the generations.  A certain Itta, called Merovingian herself by some sources, indeed came to Basina’s own role for the Carolingians, as mother of the new dynasty – once Basina’s marmots had run their deteriorated course.

There is so much drama in these characters – in these players of our world’s history – you can’t help but see that they must have been on the stage.  Any one of them – or their sisters, their mothers, their daughters – might make a hundred novels’ worth of inspiration.  I have my list set, for at least three novels of my own.  Still, it would be fascinating to see someone take these stories and tell them, restore them, weave them anew for the rest of us.  Let me know if you are inspired!

Beyond Baby Making - Kim Rendfield on Frankish Queendom

Though our periods are separated by centuries (The Ax and the Vase is set at the birth of the Merovingian dynasty; The Cross and the Dragon during the Carolingian), the legend of Frankish queens is common to both our research.  She writes that the role of women, particularly queens, went far beyond the imperative to provide heirs.

Queen Saint Clotilde, certainly, didn't earn that "Saint" honor by way of her passivity; she was an active participant in her husband's court; as was his rather less honorably famous mother, Basina.  Clotilde is known to have baptized one son without permission, to have worked with Bishop (also Saint) Remigius of Rheims in Clovis' conversion and eventual baptism.  She even gained some negative fame for her love of spending money on the Church - a tale remains that she defended her endowments, as not having come out of the royal treasury.  I even lifted a certain legend of a Frankish queen, who threatens an enemy with tonsure by sword through the neck, and attributed it to her in a scene involving one of the many conquests by Clovis of his own kinsmen.

In the excerpt in the sidebar at the right, "Queen", Clotilde's character is frankly little in evidence.  We've barely met her, at this point in Ax, and she is still very young, not yet sure of her position.  As she grows and thrives, we watch her shift from timidity to passion, and even occasional ferocity.  In the legend I mention above, it is a demonstration of power which leaves her shaken, but cements her esteem with her king and husband.

A great deal of time in my research was spent in the analysis, inventory, and understanding of grave goods.  Grave goods, far beyond simply examples of wealth, were also votive offerings.  At the very beginning of the novel, the famed bees of Childeric are a stark example of this, and later we see a dead infant buried with many snails, a mysterious and mystical evocation of protection, it seems.  The graves of women were fascinating, and one in particular is highly documented, including everything from the fine textiles the Frankish woman was dressed in, to the extremely rich and man-sized jewels with which she was bedecked.  The richness of this woman's grave is an illustration of the highly developed arts of the period - from clothing to carved gems to cloisonne' to fine personal tools and adornments.  More than anything, it testifies to the height of esteem this noble lady held - and hers is not a unique entombment.  Frankish women - queens and wealthy or noble ladies - had both wealth and power (as Clotilde testifies in her defense, as to not using the treasury, she used her *own* funds toward the gifts she gave to her religion).