The Merovingian polity: A network of courts and courtiers

The royal court was the major center of political power in Merovingian Gaul. Following the late Roman model, it became an administrative center, from whence the kingdom was ruled and to which aristocrats flocked in order to serve the king, or in hope for honors and promotion. As such, the Merovingian court encompassed both the ruler’s military retinue and the kingdom’s highest bureaucrats. It also housed the meetings of the king’s royal council, which also functioned as the highest court where political and judicial conflicts were managed and resolved. As the center of political power and the stage for the administration of justice and the settlement of disputes, the Merovingian court generated a sense of authority and consensus politics that served as a symbolic unifier in an otherwise factional reality.