The Dukes in the Regnum Francorum, a.d. 550–751

• Published in: Speculum 1976-07, Vol.51 (3), p.381-410
• Main Author: Lewis, Archibald R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Armed forces; Champagne; Churches; Duchies; Kings; Mayors; Monarchs; Palaces; Principalities; Sons
• ISSN: 0038-7134; 2040-8072
• DOI: 10.2307/2851704

During Merovingian times a group of powerful officials called dukes (duces) are to be found in the Regnum Francorum. They exercised considerable power in Merovingian realms and often ruled over extensive districts known as ducati. Although a number of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars such as Waitz, Fustel de Coulanges, and Kurth devoted considerable attention in their writings to these dukes, in recent years most British, French, and American scholarship has tended to ignore them and to concentrate attention upon another set of officials, the counts, who have seemed more rewarding as a subject of scholarly study. Typical of this attitude is Ferdinand Lot. In a last book which summed up his views in scholarly form (La Naissance de la France, new ed., 1970), Lot devoted three pages to Merovingian counts and their duties while allotting only a few scant sentences to dukes, patricians, and rectors, Or we might note the remarks of François-Louis Ganshof in his otherwise excellent recent Frankish Institutions under Charlemagne: “as under his Merovingian and Carolingian predecessors, the territorial official par excellence of his [Charlemagne's] authority was the count.” One need only examine most recent textbooks in medieval history, the popular “vulgarisations” of French, British, and American historians, to find this assessment of the relative importance of these officials repeated again and again.