Clothing, jewelry, animal remains, ceramics, coins, and weaponry are among the artifacts that have been discovered in graves in Gaul dating from the fifth to eighth century. Those who have unearthed them, from the middle ages to the present, have speculated widely on their meaning. This authoritative book makes a major contribution to the study of death and burial in late antique and early medieval society with its long overdue systematic discussion of this mortuary evidence. Tracing the history of Merovingian archaeology within its cultural and intellectual context for the first time, Effros exposes biases and prejudices that have colored previous interpretations of these burial sites and assesses what contemporary archaeology can tell us about the Frankish kingdoms. Working at the intersection of history and archaeology, and drawing from anthropology and art history, Effros emphasizes in particular the effects of historical events and intellectual movements on French and German antiquarian and archaeological studies of these grave goods. Her discussion traces the evolution of concepts of nationhood, race, and culture and shows how these concepts helped shape an understanding of the past. Effros then turns to contemporary multidisciplinary methodologies and finds that we are still limited by the types of information that can be readily gleaned from physical and written sources of Merovingian graves. For example, since material evidence found in the graves of elite families and particularly elite men is more plentiful and noteworthy, mortuary goods do not speak as directly to the conditions in which women and the poor lived. The clarity and sophistication with which Effros discusses the methods and results of European archaeology is a compelling demonstration of the impact of nationalist ideologies on a single discipline and of the struggle toward the more pluralistic vision that has developed in the post-war years.

Clothing, jewellery, animal remains, coins and weaponry are among the artifacts that have been discovered in graves in Gaul dating from the fifth to the eighth centuries. This text traces the history of Merovingian mortuary archaeology within its cultural and intellectual contexts.

What does the ‘Dark Ages’ mean in contemporary society? Tackling public engagements through archaeological fieldwork, heritage sites and museums, fictional portrayals and art, and increasingly via a broad range of digital media, this is the first-ever dedicated collection exploring the public archaeology of the Early Middle Ages.

The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham combines documentary and archaeological evidence to create a comparative history of the period 400-800. His analysis embraces each of the regions of the late Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt. The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These give only a partial picture of the period, but they frame and explain other developments. Earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions. This book takes all different developments as typical, and aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it.

First published: Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2009.

This volume provides a complex discussion of the variety of social efforts which were undertaken to create meaningful communities in the process of the formation of the early medieval gentes and kingdoms in the post-Roman west.

Examines research from a variety of fields, including archaeology, bio-archaeology, architecture, hagiographic literature, manuscripts, liturgy, visionary literature and eschalology, patristics, numismatics, and material culture, Diverse list of contributors, many whose research has never before been available in English, Provides substantial research regarding women's history in the Merovingian period, Expands research beyond Europe to include other cultures that came in contact with the Merovingians Book jacket.