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Clovis I to Godfroi
Merovee II's son was Childeric I and his grandson was Clovis I. By 496 the Roman Catholic Church was in a precarious situation, its very existence severely threatened during the course of the fifth century*. The church had to compete with the Celtic Church, with heresies such as Arianism (which denied Jesus' divinity and insisted on his humanity), and Gnostic creeds who insisted that all souls were to experience their own enlightenment without the need of priests and other middle-men. Wow! What a concept! In 496 an accord was ratified between Clovis I and the Roman Church, establishing the Romans (the crucifiers of Christ) as the supreme spiritual Christian authority in the West. This consolidated Rome's status as an equal to the Greek Orthodox faith which was based in Constantinople, and provided Rome with a sword (basically, Clovis') with which to “eradicate the hydra heads of heresy.” [This is a continuing trend.] Clovis, for his part was granted the title of "Novus Constantinus" -- "New Constantine." In addition, he would preside over a unified empire -- a "Holy Roman Empire". An indissoluble bond was established between the Church and state, each pledging allegiance to the other, each binding itself to the other in perpetuity. The Church did not make Clovis king, of course. He was already a king. On the other hand, the Church officially bound itself, not to Clovis alone, but to his successors as well -- not to a single individual, but to a bloodline. In this respect the pact resembled the covenant that God, in the Old Testament, made with King David -- a pact that could be modified, as in Solomon's case, but not revoked, broken, or betrayed. Clovis then fully realized Rome's ambitious expectations of him. By imposing with the sword and using the sanction and spiritual mandate of the Church, he expanded his Frankish kingdom to both the east and south, encompassing most of modern France and much of modern Germany. Clovis died in 511 and the empire he had created was divided, according to Merovingian custom, among his four sons. The authority once centralized in Clovis became progressively more diffuse. Dagobert II, in lineal descent of this most royal bloodline, was born in 651, heir to the kingdom of Austrassie. On his father's death in 656, extravagant attempts were made to preclude his inheritance of the throne. He was first kidnapped, but then spirited out of the country, where he grew to manhood at an Irish monastery. He married a Celtic princess who died in 670, and then took a second wife in 671, a daughter of the count of Razes, a Visigoth duchy in southern France. The latter's marriage was celebrated at the small but very notable village of Rennes-le-Chateau. Rennes-le-Chateau is ostensibly, just a strange little burg in Southern France. It is the site, however, of a tomb made famous by Poussin, in his painting entitled "Les Bergers d'Arcadie". The painting of the tomb includes the inscription in weathered stone: "Et in Arcadia Ego". Literally translated, it would read and in Arcadia I... This would seem to tie the tomb in Southern France with the Arcadians, the ancestors and link between the Merovingians and the Benjamites. But in the translation, the verb is missing. Which is curiously strange. Better yet, an alternative interpretation is that the words “Et in Arcadia Ego” are an anagram, and with a transposition and rearrangement of the letters, becomes “I Tego Arcana Dei”. This is a Latin statement and can be translated as, Begone! I conceal the Secrets of God!” [I told you it was strange.] Meanwhile, back at our historical chronology of the Benjamites/Arcadians/Merovingians, Dagobert regained his Austrassie throne, and much to the chagrin of the Church, began to curb the expansion of the Church. Dagobert thus incurred much ecclesiastical displeasure. [I.e. they were thoroughly ticked!] The Church was also concerned that Dagobert might have, by virtue of his marriage to the Visigoth princess, developed a tendency toward Arianism (which believed in Jesus' humanity vice divinity). On December 23, 679, Dagobert was assassinated, and his family exterminated. Almost! The Church promptly endorsed the actions of the king's assassins, and even attempted to rationalize and justify the regicide. Incredibly, in 872 -- nearly two centuries later -- Dagobert was canonized, his body exhumed and moved to another church, and the new church christened the church of Saint Dagobert. His relics were believed to possess extraordinary powers, although ecclesiastical authorities were embarrassingly ignorant on the matter. Dagobert even became the object of a fully fledged cult and had his own feast day on the anniversary of his death. In 1093, a full scale siege was laid, just to rescue his relics. The Merovingian Dynasty effectively ended with Dagobert. By 741, the Pope used his apostolic authority to create a usurper as king of the Franks -- a brazen betrayal of the pact ratified with Clovis two and a half centuries prior. Endorsed by Rome, the usurper deposed the last vestige of royalty, confined this royal person to a monastery, and had him shorn of his sacred hair. In 742, the Church also forged a document called the "Donation of Constantine" -- which authorized the Church to devise a ceremony whereby the hold of usurpers, or anyone else for that matter, could be made sacred. This ceremony came to be known as coronation and anointment -- in effect, the creation of a king. This anointment became more than a symbolic gesture; it literally conferred divine grace upon a ruler. Keep in mind that prior to this time, the Merovingian kings derived their kingship from their bloodline, and were never obliged to resort to a coronation in order for divine grace to be laid upon them. The Roman Catholic Church supported usurper, Pepin III, was the first beneficiary of the Church-created coronation and anointment, and thereafter inaugurated the Carolingian dynasty. By 800, its most famous ruler, Charlemagne was proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor by the Roman Catholic Church -- a title that, by virtue of the pact with Clovis three centuries before, should have been reserved exclusively for the Merovingian bloodline -- for in 496 the Church had pledged itself in perpetuity to the Merovingian bloodline. In sanctioning the assassination of Dagobert, in devising the ceremonies of coronation and anointment, in endorsing Pepin's claim to the throne, it had clandestinely betrayed its pact. In crowning Charlemagne, it had made its betrayal not only public, but a fait accompli. There’s not a lot of honor in the early Catholic Church. After Dagobert's assassination, the Church did everything it could to destroy all evidence of his very existence. A systematic attempt was apparently made to erase Dagobert from history, to deny that he ever existed. The evidence of his life was not made publicly accessible until 1646. Previous king lists did not include him, even though the lists jumped from Dagobert I to Dagobert III. But it is now known that Dagobert's three-year-old son, Sigisbert IV, was rescued by his sister and smuggled southward to the domain of his mother -- the Visigoth princess, Giselle de Razes. Following Sigisbert IV's death in 759, his son was officially pronounced a king. By 790, Sigisbert IV's lineage had passed to Guillem de Gellone, one of the most famous men of his time, and a king who maintained a close rapport with Charlemagne. Guillem de Gellone's father, Theodoric, had been recognized by both Pepin and the caliph of Baghdad as "the seed of the royal house of David." Guillem, himself, was fluent in both Hebrew and Arabic, included the Lion of Judeah on his shield, and took pains to observe the Sabbath and the Judaic Feast of the Tabernacles. When Charlemagne's son, Louis, was invested as emperor, it was Guillem who placed the crown on his head. Louis is reported to have said, "Lord William... it is your lineage that has raised up mine." Guillem also established an academy at Gellone, importing scholars and creating a renowned library, such that Gellone soon became an esteemed center of Judaic studies. Before Guillem's death, moreover, Gellone had become one of the first known seats in Europe for the cult of the Magdalen -- which, significantly enough, flourished there concurrently with the Judaic academy. Rather clearly, Guillem de Gellone was Jewish and descended from the royal house of David. He also seems to have carried a healthy respect for the Magdalen, and indirectly the worship of the Goddess, Astarte. By 886, this "flowering shoot of the Merovingian vine" had blossomed into a large and complicated family tree. Bernard Plantavelu and the dukes of Aquitaine constituted one branch. Between 877 and 879, Sigisbert VI, the lineal descendent of another branch, known as "Prince Ursus" (remember the bear?), mounted an insurrection against Louis II of France. The attempt failed, but the line continued, culminating at one point in Godfroi (1061-1100), Count of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, and King of Jerusalem!
Dark Ages and Merovingians History 009 Forward to: |
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