Editing Merovingian dynasty (section)

== Religion ==
{{See also|List of Merovingian monasteries|List of Frankish synods}}
[[File:Frankish gold Tremissis issued by minter Madelinus Dorestad the Netherlands mid 600s.jpg|thumb|Frankish gold Tremissis with Christian cross, issued by minter Madelinus, [[Dorestad]], [[Netherlands]], mid-7th century]]
[[File:Fibules mérovingiennes 02.JPG|thumb|Merovingian [[Fibula (brooch)|fibulae]]. [[Cabinet des Médailles]]]]
[[File:Trésor de Gourdon 04.JPG|thumb|A gold [[chalice]] from the [[Treasure of Gourdon]]]]
[[File:Cover of Merovingian sarcophagus Musee de Saint Germain en Laye.jpg|thumb|Cover of Merovingian [[sarcophagus]] with Christian [[IX monogram]], [[Musée de Saint-Germain-en-Laye]]]]
[[File:312 Poitiers baptisterio.JPG|thumb|[[Baptistère Saint-Jean|Baptistry of St. Jean]], Poitiers]]
[[Christianity]] was introduced to the [[Franks]] by their contact with Gallo-Romanic culture and later further spread by [[monk]]s. The most famous of these [[missionaries]] is St. [[Columbanus]] (d 615), an Irish monk. Merovingian kings and queens used the newly forming ecclesiastical power structure to their advantage. [[Monasteries]] and episcopal seats were shrewdly awarded to elites who supported the dynasty. Extensive parcels of land were donated to monasteries to exempt those lands from royal taxation and to preserve them within the family. The family maintained dominance over the monastery by appointing family members as [[abbot]]s. Extra sons and daughters who could not be married off were sent to monasteries so that they would not threaten the inheritance of older Merovingian children. This pragmatic use of monasteries ensured close ties between elites and monastic properties.

Numerous Merovingians who served as [[bishop]]s and abbots, or who generously funded [[abbey]]s and monasteries, were rewarded with sainthood. The outstanding handful of Frankish saints who were not of the Merovingian kinship nor the family alliances that provided Merovingian counts and dukes, deserve a closer inspection for that fact alone: like [[Gregory of Tours]], they were almost without exception from the [[Gallo-Roman]] aristocracy in regions south and west of Merovingian control. The most characteristic form of Merovingian literature is represented by the ''[[Hagiography|Lives]]'' of the saints. Merovingian [[hagiography]] did not set out to reconstruct a biography in the Roman or the modern sense, but to attract and hold popular devotion by the formulas of elaborate literary exercises, through which the Frankish Church channeled popular piety within orthodox channels, defined the nature of sanctity and retained some control over the posthumous cults that developed spontaneously at burial sites, where the life-force of the saint lingered, to do good for the [[Religious vows|votary]].<ref>{{cite book |author-link=J. M. Wallace-Hadrill |first=J.M. |last=Wallace-Hadrill |chapter= V. The Merovingian Saints |pages=75–94 |title=The Frankish Church |year=1983 |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |series=Oxford history of the Christian Church |isbn=9780198269069}}</ref>

The ''vitae et miracula'', for impressive [[miracle]]s were an essential element of Merovingian hagiography, were read aloud on saints' feast days. Many Merovingian saints, and the majority of female saints, were local ones, venerated only within strictly circumscribed regions; their cults were revived in the High Middle Ages, when the population of women in religious orders increased enormously. Judith Oliver noted five Merovingian female saints in the [[diocese of Liège]] who appeared in a long list of saints in the late 13th-century [[Lardanchet Psalter|Lardanchet psalter–hours]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Judith |last=Oliver |title="Gothic" Women and Merovingian Desert Mothers |journal=Gesta |volume=32 |issue=2 |year=1993 |pages=124–134 |doi=10.2307/767170 |jstor=767170 |s2cid=163623643}}</ref> The ''vitae'' of six late Merovingian saints that illustrate the political history of the era have been translated and edited by [[Paul Fouracre]] and [[Richard Gerberding|Richard A. Gerberding]], and presented with {{Lang|la|[[Liber Historiae Francorum]]}}, to provide some historical context.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Paul |last1=Fouracre |author-link1=Paul Fouracre |first2=Richard A. |last2=Gerberding |author-link2=Richard Gerberding |title=Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640–720 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uifpAAAAIAAJ&pg=PP1 |year=1996 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=978-0-7190-4791-6}}</ref>