Ancient Greek and Roman artists had tried to depict human beings and other subjects as accurately as possible, and representational art became amazingly precise. Then as Rome began to decline in the a. d. 200s, so did Roman portrayals of the human figure. Faces and bodies began to look all the same, and artists' depictions of people looked more and more primitive.
With the rise of the Merovingians after Rome's fall, art took a sharp turn away from representation and toward abstract images. It was as though Merovingian artists realized that they had lost the ability to accurately represent subjects, so they moved in the opposite direction, producing gorgeous designs with only limited representative quality.
The artwork itself may have been abstract, but the objects produced by the Merovingians—belt buckles, decorative pins for fastening clothing—were decidedly practical. Much Merovingian art was intended to be portable, reflecting their still somewhat unsettled lifestyle, but the Merovingians also made a significant contribution to architecture by introducing the idea of a church bell tower. Monks in Merovingian France illuminated manuscripts and developed an elegant type of lettering called majuscule (MAJ-uh-skyool).
Realm equally between all his sons instead of passing it on to the firstborn. While this was a generous idea, in practice it meant that a kingdom's power would be diluted quickly.
Nonetheless, the Merovingians were important in a number of regards. Under Clovis, they conquered much of what is now France—formerly home to the Burgundians and Visigoths, as well as other Frankish tribes—and western Germany. With the support of Rome, they were able to establish themselves as a stronghold of Christianity, a fact that became more important with the rise of Islam in the 600s. This papal-royal alliance set the tone for the Middle Ages. In the realm of the arts, the Merovingians were also trailblazers (see box, "Merovingian Art").
World History
