Merovingian dynasty
The Merovingians were a dynasty of Frankish kings who ruled a (frequently fluctuating) area in present-day France from the 5th to the 8th century AD.
The house owes its name to Merovech (sometimes Latinised as Meroveus or Merovius), leader of the Salian Franks from about 447 to 457, and emerges into wider history with the victories of Childeric I (reigned about 457-481) against the Visigoths, Saxons and Alemanni. Childeric’s son Clovis I went on to unite most of France north of the Loire (486), to adopt Roman Catholicism (496) and to conquer the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse (battle of Vouillé, 507).
The reigns of earlier Frankish chiefs - Pharamond (about 419 - about 427) and Clodion (about 427 - about 447) - are thought to owe more to myth than fact, and their relationship to the historical Merovingian line is uncertain.
After Clovis's death (511) his realm was repeatedly divided over the next two centuries following Frankish inheritence patterns. The rivalry between the eastern kingdom of Austrasia and its western neighbour Neustria contributed to the rise of the powerful court officials known as the mayors of the palace, founders of what was to become the Carolingian dynasty with the deposition of the last Merovingian king and the accession (751) of Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagne.