The Leisure Centre of Merovingian Regal Authority

Article by Simon Lax. Edited by Helen Lambert. Additional Research by Helen Midgely.

Much as I began my article back in Issue 2.2, I again feel the influence of the modernists on the choice of general topic. Far be it from me to fail to decry this injustice. Whilst I’m sure that the playing of sports and the use of leisure time is much studied in modern history, the relative scarcity of sources for sport in particular make it hellishly difficult to argue anything interesting from the medieval period, and particularly the early medieval period with which I generally concern myself. This period places me well beyond the reach of the Hallaton Bottle-Kicking and the like, which have interesting things to say about community and religious life. Leisure is a more flexible topic, but even then it is telling that Peter Burke’s article ‘The invention of leisure in Early Modern Europe’ (Past and Present 1995) hardly admits of leisure time existing in the Medieval era. However, there are some things which appear to be “leisure-like” in my period, and so this is where I have attempted once more to fit these modernist square pegs into medieval round holes. This article will focus on the sixth century Merovingian royalty and Church and their use and abuse of what could be defined as ‘leisure time’ (not necessarily their own) for their own ends.

The definition of leisure I’ll be using is necessarily broad: it isn’t the gap between work for the free use of the worker, for instance, nor was it a person being able to do as they wished: much of leisure time was taken up with non-leisure activities, like meeting with patrons, religious services, and feasting. Unlike the domesticity of Georgian Britain and the advent of consumerism, or the rise of coffee-houses, leisure in the medieval era existed not as the result of a life properly lived and thus to be used at the person’s well-earned leisure, but usually on the sufferance of religious or secular authority, who typically demand that such leisure time as existed was directed to the furtherance of their own interests. Further, the sources we have rarely give us insight into private lives of anyone other than the higher classes, and even more rarely do they give us clear insight into them doing much beyond what might be described as participating in the Christian sacraments and fighting. Those times where they do, however, are usually rather interesting both for their unusualness, and for their content. What I’ll be looking at in this article (as opposed to actually advancing an argument or anything so vulgar) are some of the most interesting events in the Merovingian kingdoms that are leisure-like and tell us something about how freedom was used in veneration of the monarch and church.

The king who is represented the worst in the sources is King Chilperic I. Rising from difficult circumstances as the most junior monarch amongst his brothers, his particular branch of conniving, back-stabbing and general skulduggery eventually placed himself ready to dominate the kingdom of Francia (roughly correlating to modern day France), and as was the custom of the time, promptly found himself bleeding to death as the victim of assassination. In between those two instances though, he found himself able to indulge in a little top-down leisure-time-of-the-people policy alteration. As a bit of a fancier of all things Roman (something that the writers generally disapproved of), he chose to build hippodromes. How extensive these were, and who went to the chariot racing that would have gone on there is pretty difficult to tell. However, given that the Roman buildings must have been in disrepair by this point, this suggests that Chilperic felt he had the right to tell his people that they should spend their free time on Roman spectator sports that had fallen out of fashion. Given the relative unlikelihood of an unbroken tradition of (very expensive) chariot racing from the fall of Rome to 570 a.d., this particular Merovingian King obviously felt the need to tell his people that they weren’t being Roman enough, when they hadn’t really been Roman for a long while. A similar case is the entrance of Guntram I (Chilperic’s brother, rival and possibly assassin...) to his nominal capital of Orléans when the populace greeted him with songs and praise; specifically, in the style of the arrival of a Roman governor. These rituals and use of the leisure or working time of the people to reinforce old Roman representations of power were as much the foundation of the realities of Merovingian power as their conquest of Gaul. 

Secondly, in adherence to my New Year’s resolution to speak more about gender history, a quick look at how Frankish women spent their free time. If the sources are bad for leisure in general, they are terrible in particular for women. Virtually the only sources we have are those of religious devotion (pilgrimages, miracle stories and the like) or those of Queens. The royal women spent a good deal of time setting up nunneries, acting for clients as patron, and having people assassinated: whether this strictly counts as leisure is debatable, but the assassination in particular seems to have been outside the expected remit of a Queen. Perhaps the most successful Merovingian Queen on these terms was Brunhild, who was the wife of Sigibert, who was sadly assassinated early in their marriage (main suspects: the aforementioned Guntram and Chilperic, who were also his brothers). She spent much of her time protecting Duke Lupus from his enemies, trying to prevent the feuds that killed her clients, and trying to get her grandchild back from the Byzantines who were holding him hostage. At the end of her long life, which had taken her in multiple directions, she was accused of killing ten Merovingian kings. That number was certainly too high; zero would almost certainly be too low. In any case, her life as a queen certainly went outside normal working hours, and ended at the hands of the one Merovingian King she hadn’t managed to kill.

Perhaps the clearest indication of the lack of leisure in the period and the demands placed upon what there was is the regular church charters denouncing work on the Sabbath. As is usual, the reissuance of the same clause in many charters over many years usually means the rule is being ignored. What leisure the people did have was often directed by kings and church to their own end. What little was left was often directed by the poor, seemingly, to their own survival. In cases such as this, in the early medieval period, leisure seems like the wrong term to use. Life might not have been as ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ as used to be thought by historians but there’s little evidence that it admitted of much leisure time.

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Much of our knowledge of the Frankish Merovingian kings comes from the contemporary account of Gregory of Tours (c.538-594), who wrote The History of the Franks. Gregory of Tours was the leading churchman of Gaul, as Bishop of Tours.

The Merovingian dynasty existed from the starting reign of Childeric I in c. 450 AD and lasted until the reign of Childeric III.

In 751, it is supposed, the last Merovingian was deposed. But C. Crawley argues that the last reigns of the Merovingian kings were marked by their declining role and centrality of their power. Lords who would become the Carolingians took control.

The Merovingian dynasty was known to contemporaries as the “long-haired kings” because of their traditional uncut locks.

The main named regions of the Merovingian kings were Paris, Orleans, Metz and Soissons.

The reigns of these Frankish kings were notable for their inheritance customs: kings would partition their lands between their sons rather than the oldest son inheriting the whole.

Chilperic I (c. 539-584) was a king of the Soissons. Gregory of Tours would call him the Herod and Nero of his age, a mark of his infamous kingship – A kingship rife with intrigue and murder, indeed Chilperic killed his own wife so that he could marry his mistress Fredegunde.

For further information see:

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/MEROVINGIANS.htm 

http://www.crystalinks.com/merovingian.html  

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111525/Chilperic-I 

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