Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy (13 page)

“Spindle whorls show that people were spinning fibers to make textiles. Bone combs indicate that members of the community were making these important objects or trading valued goods for them. Like bronze, the fragments of ornate glass vessels show that the community had important outside contacts and had wealth to trade for imported luxury goods. Glass beads at the site were less costly than vessels but still required a technology to produce that was probably not practiced at Brebières. They, too, represent trade goods imported from elsewhere.

“The archaeological evidence at Brebières shows that a typical community of this period lived a rather modest life compared to modern Western standards or the lifestyles of elites in the Roman provinces. But the people had ready access to iron, which they put to use for a wide variety of purposes. They took the trouble to decorate their pottery even though plain vessels would have contained food and drink just as well. And they were able to import into their little community a variety of desired goods from outside – bronze ornaments and decorative glass beads that they wore on their persons, and ornate glass vessels that must have been used to hold beverages on special occasions.”
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This then was how the peasantry lived in the late sixth century. High-status pottery from North Africa may have disappeared, but, in the absence of competition from these imports, native industries now came into their own. In the Argonne area of north-eastern France, pottery similar to the Roman terra sigillata continued to be made in the sixth and early seventh centuries; whilst as Mayen, in the middle Rhineland, the pottery industry established in Roman times survived and flourished through the Merovingian period and into the High Middle Ages.

Again, north of Mayen, between Bonn and Cologne, rich deposits of fine clay provided the raw material for several important pottery-producing centers in the seventh century. Large numbers of kilns and pits containing fragments of misfired pottery attest to the scale of manufacturing the villages of Badorf and Pingsdorf. “Great quantities of these ceramics in settlements throughout the Rhineland, northern continental Europe, southern Britain, and even Scandinavia show how far these fine wares were traded.”
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At the same time, we know that in southern Gaul, “traditional Mediterranean pottery of late classical design continued to be produced into the eighth century.”
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None of these Gaulish potteries produced work to rival that previously imported from North Africa. Nor was it as widely dispersed as the African Red Slip Ware had been during the third and fourth centuries. Gaulish peasants and artisans, deprived of the hard currency earlier provided by the Roman Army, simply could not afford such refinements. Yet the very existence of native potteries which attempted to reproduce the high-quality products of the Imperial Age, prove that things “Roman” were still seen as prestigious, and the spirit of classicism lived on.

Glass-manufacture, begun in the Roman period, continued under the Franks, who even introduced new forms and techniques, and who exported their products throughout northern Europe. Frankish glass did not quite reach the high quality of the best Roman glass, but it certainly was made to very high standards, and it got better and better during the course of the sixth century.
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We know that, in addition to the small luxuries with which the peasants of sixth-century Gaul and central Europe adorned their persons and enlivened their lives, that they were well-fed, and, on average, slightly taller than the modern inhabitants of western Europe.
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They had their own local metallurgical industries, but they also imported bronze products from further afield. Actually, we know that, around this time, there were thriving metallurgical industries throughout western Europe. The bronze found at Brebières and elsewhere would have come either from Cornwall in Britain or from Bohemia; whilst the production of iron, as well as the fashioning, for export, of a wide variety of tools and weapons from the metal, was practiced on a very large scale at various places in central and northern Europe during the late sixth century. This for example was the case at Helgö in central Sweden, as well as various other places:

“The abundant evidence at Helgö for the processing of iron to make tools and weapons, bronze for personal ornaments, glass for beads, antler and bone to make combs and pins, and amber for beads and amulets is replicated at other manufacturing centers throughout temperate Europe between the fifth and eighth centuries. Many of these places are on the coasts of northern Europe. Coastal manufacturing sites include Helgö’s successor, Birka, in central Sweden; Lundeborg, in central Denmark; Ribe, on Denmark’s west coast; Hamwic/Southampton, in southern England; Dinas Powys, in southern Wales; Dorestad, near the mouth of the Rhine; and Haithabu/Hedeby, in southeastern Jutland. Inland sites include Klein Köris, in northeastern Germany, and the Runder Berg, in southwestern Germany. When we compare the objects make at these sites and the industrial debris in the workshops, it is striking how similar the manufacturing industries were at these commercial centers all over Europe.”
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Of these industrial and commercial sites, the Runder Berg in southern Germany was among the most important. Here, in a former border region of the Roman Empire, which then formed an eastern province of the Merovingian state, a thriving metallurgical industry existed in the sixth and seventh centuries. The site is the most thoroughly investigated of about fifty hilltop settlements in this part of Europe dating from the fourth to the sixth centuries: “As at the sites on the coasts of the North Sea, Irish Sea, and Baltic Sea, crafts workers at the Runder Berg employed a range of different materials. They forged iron weapons and tools. Hammers, anvils, tongs, punches, and chisels show the variety of smithing implements they used. Bronze, much of it obtained from melting down old Roman vessels and reused belt attachments, was recast into new ornaments. Models, partly fashioned objects, and molds recovered at the Runder Berg show that ornate fibulae and belt buckles were among the special personal paraphernalia fashioned there. Silver and gold work attest to the specialized manufacture of precious ornaments for elites. Glass was being shaped into vessels and beads. Antler, bone, jet, and lead were among the other materials that these craft workers fashioned into tools and ornaments.”
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The finished products of industrial locations like the Runder Berg have been found in sites throughout Gaul and central Europe. Remarkable and finely-wrought vessels, often for use in ecclesiastical ritual, are among the best-known examples of this flourishing Merovingian artwork. And the astonishing wealth of the Frankish nobility has been dramatically illustrated by a series of burials. The first of these to come to light was that of Childeric (died 482), discovered in the seventeenth century near Tournai in Belgium. The fabulous treasures interred with Childeric, most of which are now lost, were the wonder of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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More recently a large and increasing number of Merovingian burials have been located beneath famous churches and cathedrals, indicating that these monuments were founded by the Franks, usually in the sixth and seventh centuries. One of these was that of a young woman, who died around 530, located underneath the choir of Cologne Cathedral. The grave had been set within a small chapel of rectangular shape, with an apse extending eastward. The western edge of the grave was formed by part of the Roman wall that had been built around the Roman city of Cologne.
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The jewelry and other artifacts buried with the woman display both Roman and barbarian influence. Twelve gold coins, eight of them outfitted with eyelets for suspension, were found with her. On her forehead she wore an ornamental band that included gold threads, gold beads, gold-and-garnet ornaments, and silver wire. Other treasures included: a pair of gold-and-garnet earrings; a solid gold bracelet; a gold ring was on one finger on each hand; two pairs of richly decorated fibulae; five pendants of gold and filigree decoration; three gold-and-garnet pendants in the shape of fleur-de-lis, three cloisonné beads; gold beads, and nineteen glass beads. There was also, at the foot of the grave, a feasting set comprising six glass vessels, including three high-necked bottles, two bowls, and a small beaker. A bronze basin, a drinking horn, and a wooden bucket completed the set. A fragmentary wooden box contained remains of slippers, a ceramic spindle whorl, hazelnut and walnut shells, and a date seed.

The above burial was not exceptional. Indeed, it was rather typical of the epoch. In 1953 workmen found the rich grave of a fifth century warrior near Bro in the Czech Republic. The man was interred with two elaborately decorated swords, as well as a gold bracelet and numerous other ornaments of gold, silver and garnet. His shoes were decorated with gold-and-garnet buckles and rings, very similar to objects found in Childeric’s grave.
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A grave found at Pouan in north-eastern France in 1842 contained, like Childeric’s tomb, ornate long and short swords, a gold bracelet and a gold finger ring with an inscribed name – Heva.
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A similarly rich burial in southern Germany was found in 1843. This contained a gold bracelet similar to those in the graves discussed above, three solid gold buckles with garnet inlay, and a beaker made of green glass.
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Another extremely rich burial, of the same period, was found near Békés, in Hungary, in 1884.
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Fig. 8. Examples of Merovingian swords and other metalwork, sixth-seventh century

A large number of royal Merovingian burials, mainly from the late sixth and early seventh centuries, were located underneath the Church of Saint Denis in Paris.
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We have even found, from the sixth and early seventh centuries, the graves of some of the craftsmen who created the jewels and weapons which accompanied the aristocrats to the otherworld. Thus a grave in a small cemetery at Poysdorf in Austria, from around 535, contained goods which showed the occupant to be a warrior and a metal smith. He was buried with an anvil, three hammers of different sizes, two pairs of tongs, a file, a whetstone, a burin made of bronze, and a black spherical stone. The stone had minute particles of silver on it, indicating that it had been used to polish silver objects. There were also two bronze models of fibulae, the final versions of which were to be of silver.
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A grave in another small cemetery at Kunszentmarton in Hungary, from around 610, also contained the body of a warrior metal-smith. He was buried with weapons and horse harness gear, as well as with tools and models for making metal objects; gold, silver and bronze decoration horse harnesses, belts and sword scabbards.
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It would be superfluous to attempt a comprehensive overview of these interments. Suffice to say that they are numerous, and growing in number by the year. With their vast wealth, they can only represent the apex of a society with a powerful economic base and a substantial technological and trading infrastructure. Viewed this way, Ward-Perkins’ attempt to suggest otherwise rests on weak foundations.

Most of these burials contained some Christian artifacts and religious objects, and thus represent a transitional phase of Frankish cultural history. As Christianity took firmer root, during the seventh century, the tradition of burying goods and finery with the dead was abandoned.

Some of the treasures buried with the Frankish aristocrats were imports from far-off lands. Byzantine jewelry was found alongside glass-work from the Levant and lapis-lazuli from Afghanistan. Trade and international commerce, though it may have been slightly impeded by the invasions of the fifth century, was alive and well again. The towns and cities established by the Romans survived into the sixth century and into the High Middle Ages, often retaining their Roman names and frequently following the street plans laid down by the original Roman architects. Indeed, from the sixth century onwards the urban settlements of Gaul and central Europe, began, for the first time since the third century, to grow: “… the Merovingian bishops,” we hear, “were great builders, and close to their towns they founded sanctuaries, which were often abbeys. These foundations soon became centres of new settlements as they opened hospices for travellers and pilgrims, and attracted men to till their soil. And so in the north, centre and west of Gaul – but, by a striking contrast, not in the south – the towns began to look like nebulae: the urban nucleus became surrounded by new centres of population which … were in their turn surrounded by walls and so turned into fortified towns like Saint-Germain-des-Prés, near Paris, Saint-Médard de Soissons, Saint-Remi de Rheims, and many others.”
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