of the Salian Franks, King Merovech

Male 411 - 457  (46 years)


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  • Name of the Salian Franks, Merovech  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
    Title King 
    Birth 411  Duisburg, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3, 4, 6
    Gender Male 
    Appointments / Titles 450  [1, 2, 3
    King of the Salien Franks at Tournai 
    House Merovingian 
    FSID LZ86-1NG  [1, 2, 3
    Death 457  Tournai, Hainaut, Belgium Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3, 4, 6
    Burial 457  Saint-Brice Church, Tournai, Hainaut, Belgium Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3, 6
    Person ID I32195  The Thoma Family
    Last Modified 20 Sep 2023 

    Father le Chevelu, King Clodion le Chevelu,   b. 392, Cologne, Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 26 Nov 448, Cambrai, Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 56 years) 
    Relationship natural 
    Mother de Cologne, Ildegonde,   b. 399, Cologne, Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 450, Cologne, Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 51 years) 
    Relationship natural 
    Family ID F12410  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family de Cologne, Chlodeswinthe Verica,   b. 418, Cologne, Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 449 (Age 31 years) 
    Children 
     1. of the Salian Franks, King Childeric,   b. 436, Kingdom of the Salian Franks Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 26 Nov 481, Tournai, Hainaut, Belgium Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 45 years)  [natural]
    Family ID F12409  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 20 Sep 2023 

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 411 - Duisburg, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsDeath - 457 - Tournai, Hainaut, Belgium Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsBurial - 457 - Saint-Brice Church, Tournai, Hainaut, Belgium Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Notes 
    • Merovech is the semi-legendary founder of the Merovingian dynasty of the Salian Franks (although either Childeric I, his supposed son, or Clovis I, his supposed grandson, also can be considered the founder), which later became the dominant Frankish tribe. He is proposed to be one of several barbarian warlords and kings that joined forces with the Roman general Aetius against the Huns under Attila at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in Gaul.

      The family of Childeric and Clovis, the first Frankish large-scale royal dynasty called themselves Merovingians ("descendants of Meroveus") after him, and this was known to historians in the following centuries, but no more contemporary evidence exists. The most important such written source, Gregory of Tours, recorded that Merovech was said to be descended from Chlodio, a roughly contemporary Frankish warlord who pushed from the Silva Carbonaria in modern central Belgium as far south as the Somme, north of Paris in modern-day France.

      The name "Merovech" is related to Marwig, lit. "famed fight" (compare modern Dutch mare "news, rumour"/vermaard "famous" as well as "(ge)vecht," "fight" with" -vech)."

      There is little information about him in the later histories of the Franks. Gregory of Tours named him only once as the father of Childeric I, but remained vague about his relationship to Chlodio. The "Chronicle of Fredegar" recounts that Merovech was born after Chlodio's wife encountered a sea creature while bathing in the sea; according to Fredegar it remained unclear whether Merovech's father was the creature or Chlodio. Another theory considers this legend to be the creation of a mythological past needed to back up the fast-rising Frankish rule in Western Europe.

      Clodio is said to have been defeated by Flavius Aëtius at Vicus Helena in Artois in 448. Historian Ian S. Wood therefore would place his son somewhere in the second half of the fifth century.

      A contemporary Roman historian, Priscus, writes of having witnessed in Rome a "lad without down on his cheeks as yet and with fair hair so long that it poured down his shoulders, Aetius had made him his adopted son," Priscus writes that the excuse Attila used for waging war on the Franks was the death of their king and the disagreement of his children over the succession, the elder being allied with Attila and the younger with Aetius. As Chlodio died just before Attila's invasion, this seems to suggest that Merovech was in fact Chlodio's son.

      The legend about Merovech's conception was adapted in 1982 by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln in their book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," as the seed of a new idea. They hypothesized that this "descended from a fish" legend actually referred to the concept that the Merovingian line had married into the bloodline of Jesus Christ, since the symbol for early Christians also had been a fish. This theory, with no other basis than the authors' hypothesis, was further popularized in 2003 via Dan Brown's bestselling novel, "The Da Vinci Code." However, there was no evidence for this claim that Merovech is descended from Jesus.

      The identity and historicity of Merovech is one of the driving mysteries in "The Widow’s Son," second book of Robert Anton Wilson’s "The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles," first introducing the fish legend to the reader by having the early Merovingians appear in a vision as a hideous fish creature resembling H. P. Lovecraft’s Deep Ones, before settling on a variation on "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," which goes a step further by identifying Jesus and Mary Magdalene as the bridegroom and bride in "The Alchemical Marriage of Christian Rosycross" and Merovech as the titular Widow's Son from Masonic lore and positing that the entire bloodline is descended from alien-human hybrids.

      -- Wikiwand: Merovech

  • Sources 
    1. [S789] WORLD: Family Search, Family Tree.
      https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/name

    2. [S844] WORLD: Foundation for Medieval Genealogy.
      http://fmg.ac/

    3. [S788] WORLD: Wikipedia.
      https://www.wikipedia.org/

    4. [S787] WORLD: GENi.
      https://www.geni.com/

    5. [S791] WORLD: Ancestry Family Trees.
      https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/42/

    6. [S327] WORLD: Find-a-Grave.
      https://www.findagrave.com/