CMEMS Workshop: Bailey K. Young
Speaker(s): Bailey K. Young (Eastern Illinois University)
Can Funerary Archaeology Track the Expansion of the Merovingian Franks? A 21st Century Update
The surprise discovery of “Childeric’s treasure” in Tournai in 1654 can fairly be called the Prologue to Merovingian Archaeology, which did not fully emerge in both theory and practice until the mid-19th century. By the time he published the last volume of his monumental La civilization mérovingienne (1960) the interpretative model of Edouard Salin, assimilating funerary practise with cultural identity, was widely accepted. In the later 20th century this model came under increasing attack as such new theoretical paradigms as the American New Archaeology and the Viennese ethnogenesis models gained favor. In 1992 the British historian Guy Halsall questioned whether graves in Late Roman Gaul furnished with weapons and personal ornament ought even to be identified as “Germanic”. Since his pioneering article on “tombes de chefs” Patrick Périn has argued that the reign of Clovis coincides with the emergence of an elite, self-consciously “Frankish” funerary culture which can rightly be regarded as an archaeological marker of Merovingian expansion in the early 6th century. I will discuss important recent discoveries at Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne) and Louvres (Val d’Oise) which support this model.
Bailey K. Young is Distinguished Professor of History at Eastern Illinois University.
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