Charlemagne Backstories - Overview of the Merovingians (Mythic)

History states that the Merovingians were priest-kings more than political ones, who ultimately became the puppets and victims of their Mayors of the Palace. That view is understandable, if wrong; it is, after all, the cover story deliberately created by those selfsame Kings. The truth is that the Merovingian Kings were sages of the Fey who voluntarily abandoned their realm to the mortal Carolingian line.

Whence came the Fey? None can say. From under-the-hill and over-the-sea, in the lands that lay Beyond. Why did they come? For reasons of their own that no one ever knew. They did great ill as well as great good, and seemed to take pride in either one, or even more in particular deeds that no one else seemed to notice at all. They destroyed realms and built up kingdoms. They ended beliefs, gave birth to religions, and embodied myths that were half-forgotten.

When did they come? That can be said with a bit more certainty. About the time of the birth of Christ, or perhaps a bit before. Who can say, after all, if Christ himself, or Caesar, was not a changeling gift from the Higher Folk? They certainly fit the mold that would later be common to all of the High and the Fair. It was a pattern that many have remarked with hindsight.

Into a time of chaos would come a man born to an obscure or impoverished family. He would mature young and demonstrate uncanny gifts; extraordinary charisma, easy empathy, the deepest wisdom, and a way of looking at things that shattered what came before. Typically (but not always) he would claim descent from the local god(s) or legendary hero(s) the locals believed in.[1]

The sages did have some magic; mostly in the nature of those human gifts they embodied so well, but also the ‘second sight,’ some ability at healing and, of course, the ability to pass from Here to Beyond and back again. Magic didn’t come cheap, however; the price was years off your life. Long lives and long reigns were therefore exceptionally rare.

How many of the great religious figures that filled the 1^st Millennium were sages of the Fey? One can only speculate. For purposes of our story we can state that Merovius was a lord of the Fey, as were the Kings that followed. Less well-known sages appeared in other areas, including the dwarvish smith-lords of Saxony who made all the magic blades.[2] Mahomet (570-632) does not really enter into the equation because the Saracen religion of romance is not anything like the modern Islam. Far from it; the Saracens of Romance were idolaters and drunks, neither of which fits very well with the monotheistic, tea-totaling doctrine of Mahomet. For story purposes the Saracen religion should be considered a mongrel amalgamation of scattered, semi-successful reformers (including “Mahon”) and the remnants of older gods. It seeks to undo the unifying teachings of the Fey, which is why the Saracens are so thoroughly on the wrong side of the conflict.

The sages may have spawned new realms and religions, but they could rarely control the forces those creations unleashed. Violent evangelism in the name of peace and love; it may seem contradictory, but it permeated the world. The problem was complicated by the fact that each sage tailored his teachings to the attitudes, premises and beliefs of the local cultures in which he lived. When the new movements were shifted out of their original context they started to take on entirely different spins. What began as teachings to broaden and improve the idea of “Us” morphed into new ways to define and exclude “Them.”

As Rome decayed and fell the Merovingian kings successfully merged their teachings into Christianity, succeeding in a multi-generation effort to create a larger “Us” and avoid further fractionalization. It was a huge work, explaining their consistently short reigns.[3] It therefore became convenient to have long-lived ‘prime ministers’ who could help to maintain political stability. Thus the Mayors of the Palace, men chosen from purely mortal blood by Kings who had the second sight to make sure they were picking the very best. In contrast to the Kings, the Mayors averaged a lifespan of 80 years (Pepin II was Mayor for 74 years!) and maintained their energies to the very end. A judicious amount of magical healing ensured this.

Circumstances changed again with the rise of the Saracen enemy just as the age of the Fey was coming toward its close. The Merovingians decided to oppose it, but realized that it would be a long-term struggle beyond their ability to win; particularly since their powers would continue to wane as time went on. So they established a centuries-long plan of gradual abdication. It had several elements.

First, more and more secular power was reposed with the Mayors of the Palace, and great attention was paid to the planning of their line. The Merovingian Kings carefully groomed the line of (purely human) Mayors toward the eventual production of a Charlemagne.

Second, the society was gradually molded to enhance the importance of direct and absolute loyalty to the central King in accordance with what would later be called the feudal ideal. The Kings could foresee dissent when they finally abdicated, and wanted to weight the scales in favor of their elected successors. A side benefit was the establishment of a military-style command structure in which the Mayors could legitimately wield power on behalf of the Kings despite their lack of any Fey blood.

And third, the Kings left some long-term plans and ideas in place that would only come to fruition after they were gone. The special training regime instituted by Charlemagne is an example.

The Kings intended to abdicate in favor of Charles Martel, but he died untimely and it turned out that his son Pepin the Short needed to have a shadow-king for legitimacy. Hence the short reign of Childeric III.[4]

The time of the Fey was largely past when Pepin took control, but not entirely. The magic of the Fey was still available to those who learned how to use it. This explains the phenomenal powers of our heroes. They really were inhumanly good. It also explains why they lived such short lives. Accessing the powers that made them invincible shortened the threads of their life.[5]

The issue of Fey powers also explains the dissent that arose. The Merovingians took particular care to keep the Mayors from intermarrying with any of the noble families that carried Fey blood in their veins. In fact, the typical rule was that the “higher” the blood the higher the social rank. The Mayors were the sole exception, and therefore doubly obvious. They served the Kings (the only people who were pure of blood), but they were never their kin.

Charlemagne became the new king with the express blessing of the departed Childeric. The last Merovingian had lavished time[6] on the boy, and extracted the most rigid and binding oaths of loyalty from the nobility. This gave the Carolingian dynasty a healthy leg up, but it couldn’t eliminate the very human and inevitable jealousies the situation was bound to create. The nobles had unavoidable qualms. They were, after all, “better” than this new upstart dynasty; better educated, better in birth, more ‘kingly’ in their abilities (i.e., more magical), etc.

What the nobles didn’t, and couldn’t, understand, however, was what the Merovingians were able foresee by virtue of their far-greater powers. With the passing of the Age, their successors had to be built from people who did not rely on magic in any way. That was a failing strength, useful only for the short run of the next generation or two, and relying on it would mean doom when the ultimate conflict against the Saracen hordes arrived. Those strong enough in the power really only had two choices; they could stay and become mortal, or pass over the line to Avalon and the other lands in the world of the Fey.

The political problem came primarily from the families with the greatest blood ties to the old Kings, including in particular the houses of Dordonne (whose other Ducal estate, the Palais Arden, was at least partly in the land Beyond), Aigremont, Nantuell and Roussillon.[7] Charlemagne could never quite shed his fear that the old aristocracy secretly resented his reign and hoped to supplant him. It’s a fear that pervades The Four Sons of Aimon and underlies a lot of the tragedy that story describes. Central governments, by their nature, inevitably try to claim a monopoly on the right to use force. When it came to the high nobility, Charlemagne jealously protected that prerogative. He tried to be responsible (taking advice from Naymon to heart), but in those cases when he was arbitrary, unjust or just plain wrong he nevertheless insisted that people had to accept his edict. The analogy was to a parent’s rule over his children; there is no appeal to an outside source.[8]

The power of the Fey explains why all the magic seems to be on the side of Renaud and his brothers (including the magic of Maugis), and the unsolvable political problem explains Charlemagne’s stubborn resolve to finally root out the idea that Fey blood was inherently ‘higher’ than that which was purely mortal.

Finally, note that throughout the Age of Romance the Fey were fading but not yet gone. Morgan Le Fey was a queen, e.g., and Oberon may actually have been Childeric III himself. They appeared only rarely, however, and in the larger view only when emotional ties demanded it. Or final tweaks to the long-term plan .

[1] No opinion is offered on whether that was true, false, or allegorical.

[2] Another Fey characteristic was their exceptional height. The existing Saxon mythos had some distinctive twists, however, which is why it made sense to take the opposite approach and appear as Dwarves instead.

[4] Note that this explains the unusual fact that the “usurper” allowed the “deposed” king to retire peacefully to a monastery. One would normally expect a deposed dynasty to be retired to the grave instead.

[5] Did Childeric do something to provide the young Charles with the famous charisma he later displayed? It certainly rivaled the aura that surrounded all the truly Fey kings who’d gone before, and probably did more than anything else to help him maintain his rule.

[6] And magic? It’s almost certain that Childeric was instrumental in putting Duke Naymon of Bavaria at the core of the new King’s support, and consistent that he would ensure both Naymon’s loyalty and Charlemagne’s trust in that loyalty. There are actually romances about why the King was so willing to believe in Naymon when others would have been dropped out of hand.

[7] The royal house of Denmark was another. Ogier had mixed loyalties. Duke Naymon also had a birth as high as any. He was the first cousin of the four ducal brothers of Dordonne, Aigremont, Nantuell and Roussillon, but also a few years older.

[8] The modern reply is the idea that even kings are beneath the law. That’s a concept that wouldn’t even begin until Magna Carta, however, and received an immeasurable boost from the Enlightenment and the birth of America. It simply did not exist in the world of Romance or of Romantic authors. And to be fair one must admit that the policies embraced by the Bush administration in the “War on Terror” may mark the end of “nations ruled by laws rather than men.”