The facts take care of the story, so please read and enjoy. I am a history and science nut, so you get the advantages of perusing my findings. I hope you enjoy them as I do. It explains a lot about the cultural history of Europe, which I find fascinating, since it is not what I would have expected.
After Rome, much happened that is little discussed, except in this presentation. Please enjoy.
MEROVINGIAN ORIGINS
http://herebedragons.weebly.com/merovingian-origins.html
By Admin, Herebedragons,
Presented to the Baronial Order of the Magna Charta and the Military Order of the Crusades, Corinthian Yacht Club,Essington, PA
21 October 2006, by: COL Charles C. Lucas, Jr. MD
Scythia
This was an area of Eurasia that included the Caucasians including Azerbaijan, the central Asia steppes including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, the valley of the Indus or that area between India and Pakistan, and the southern Ukraine with the lower Danube and Bulgaria.
Scholars regard the Scythians as an Iranian nomadic people speaking several languages but mostly Iranian (or Parsi which later became Farsi).
Scythians have left important ethnological markers such as tamgas (brand marks) and kurgans (permanent cemeteries). A 2500 year old mummy was recently found in the snow capped mountains of Mongolia with blond hair, tattoos, and weaponry. The mummy was preserved by ice and was found at 2600 meters. This find extended the range of the territory further east of the Scythians than had been previously thought.
It should be pointed out that the last ice age ended about 9,000 to 10,000 years ago, or about the 8 th millennium BC. Carbon 14 dating has allowed archaeologists to trace the emergence of the Scythians to the Sayan-Altay mountains from 3000BC to about 500BC.
Scythia
This was an area of Eurasia that included the Caucasians including Azerbaijan, the central Asia steppes including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, the valley of the Indus or that area between India and Pakistan, and the southern Ukraine with the lower Danube and Bulgaria.
Scholars regard the Scythians as an Iranian nomadic people speaking several languages but mostly Iranian (or Parsi which later became Farsi).
Scythians have left important ethnological markers such as tamgas (brand marks) and kurgans (permanent cemeteries). A 2500 year old mummy was recently found in the snow capped mountains of Mongolia with blond hair, tattoos, and weaponry. The mummy was preserved by ice and was found at 2600 meters. This find extended the range of the territory further east of the Scythians than had been previously thought.
It should be pointed out that the last ice age ended about 9,000 to 10,000 years ago, or about the 8 th millennium BC. Carbon 14 dating has allowed archaeologists to trace the emergence of the Scythians to the Sayan-Altay mountains from 3000BC to about 500BC.
These mountains are where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan come together. They are also known as the homeland of the Turks. The mean elevation in the central area is about 4500 meters. About 900 BC the Scythians began a western migration.
They were nomadic warriors who rode horses bareback and who used archers, and the women fought along side the men. Women dressed like men. They were described by Homer and Herodotus. Herodotus, the Greek historian wrote about them in his Histories of the 5th Century. They became slave traders, merchants, and shippers.
They were nomadic warriors who rode horses bareback and who used archers, and the women fought along side the men. Women dressed like men. They were described by Homer and Herodotus. Herodotus, the Greek historian wrote about them in his Histories of the 5th Century. They became slave traders, merchants, and shippers.
They were described as long haired warriors who were ferocious. Edmund Spenser wrote that the primary nation that settled Ireland were the Scythians , and that they also settled Scotland. It has been shown that the Scythians landed in Cornwall. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1, he writes of the barbarous Scythian.
It is thought that tribes of the Scythians settled Greece, and also moved into eastern Europe.
Haplotypes from current Y Chromosome DNA studies show that Central Asia was a mixing pot of several population groups. Haplotype R1a and R1b is found in eastern and western Asia as well as Europe and the United States.
Greece
Ancient Greece was formed in the third millennium BC when people known as Greeks migrated south to the Balkans in waves, the last being the Dorian invasion about 2300 BC. 1600-1100 BC is described as Mycenaean Greece known for the Wars against Troy as narrated by Homer. Ancient Greece ended with the end of the reign of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.
Herodotus, 484-425BC, was a Dorian Greek historian who is regarded as the father of history, and who was the author of The Histories- a 6 volume series.
Cimmerians
Herodotus described the Cimmerians of the north Black Sea coast as a distinctly autonomous tribe expelled by the Scythians. The Cimmerians in 714 BC were in the region of Azerbaijan, and in the 7 and 8th century BC were in southern Russia and Ukraine. Their language was Iranian.
There were many off shoots of the Cimmerians. Numerous Celtic and Germanic peoples descended from the Cimmerians. The etymology of Wales is said to descend from the Cimmerians. The Celts in France were known as Gauls. The Celts spread into present day Italy where remnants in the town of Doccia, in the province of Emilia-Romagna, showcase Celtic houses in very good condition dating from the 4th century BC.
Sicambri The west Germanic tribe of the Sicambri descended from the Cimmerians. The Sicambri were located along the right bank of the Rhine and appear about 55 BC. They fought several wars with Rome, namely one led by Gaius Julius Caesar. In 16 BC they defeated the Roman army under Marcus Lollius. About 11 BC they were forced to move to the left side of the Rhine by Nero Claudius Drusus.
Merovingians
It is thought that tribes of the Scythians settled Greece, and also moved into eastern Europe.
Haplotypes from current Y Chromosome DNA studies show that Central Asia was a mixing pot of several population groups. Haplotype R1a and R1b is found in eastern and western Asia as well as Europe and the United States.
Greece
Ancient Greece was formed in the third millennium BC when people known as Greeks migrated south to the Balkans in waves, the last being the Dorian invasion about 2300 BC. 1600-1100 BC is described as Mycenaean Greece known for the Wars against Troy as narrated by Homer. Ancient Greece ended with the end of the reign of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.
Herodotus, 484-425BC, was a Dorian Greek historian who is regarded as the father of history, and who was the author of The Histories- a 6 volume series.
Cimmerians
Herodotus described the Cimmerians of the north Black Sea coast as a distinctly autonomous tribe expelled by the Scythians. The Cimmerians in 714 BC were in the region of Azerbaijan, and in the 7 and 8th century BC were in southern Russia and Ukraine. Their language was Iranian.
There were many off shoots of the Cimmerians. Numerous Celtic and Germanic peoples descended from the Cimmerians. The etymology of Wales is said to descend from the Cimmerians. The Celts in France were known as Gauls. The Celts spread into present day Italy where remnants in the town of Doccia, in the province of Emilia-Romagna, showcase Celtic houses in very good condition dating from the 4th century BC.
Sicambri The west Germanic tribe of the Sicambri descended from the Cimmerians. The Sicambri were located along the right bank of the Rhine and appear about 55 BC. They fought several wars with Rome, namely one led by Gaius Julius Caesar. In 16 BC they defeated the Roman army under Marcus Lollius. About 11 BC they were forced to move to the left side of the Rhine by Nero Claudius Drusus.
Merovingians
The Merovingians claimed their descent from the Sicambri, who they believed were originally a Scythian or Cimmerian tribe once inhabiting the river Danube that changed their name to the Franks in 11 BC under the leadership of a chieftain called “Frankus”.
The Franks first appear in historical writing in the 3rd century. The Merovinginans traced their Sicambrian origins from Marcomir I-died 412 BC and ultimately to the Kings of Troy. Marcomir I lived around 400 BC and preceded the Merovingian dynasty.
St. Gregory, Bishop of Tours was installed in 573 and was made Master of Tours by Sigibert I, King of Austrasia (561-576). St. Gregory of Tours, who was the leading historian wrote that the Frankish leader Clovis on the occasion of his baptism into the Catholic faith in 496 was referred to as Sicambrian by the officiating Bishop of Rheims.
Troy
Troy was a legendary city established about 3000 BC and was the center of the Trojan Wars, which occurred about 1200 BC. These wars were described in the Iliad by Homer, who was a blind Greek historian. Today Troy is an archaeological site in northwest Turkey.
The Franks first appear in historical writing in the 3rd century. The Merovinginans traced their Sicambrian origins from Marcomir I-died 412 BC and ultimately to the Kings of Troy. Marcomir I lived around 400 BC and preceded the Merovingian dynasty.
St. Gregory, Bishop of Tours was installed in 573 and was made Master of Tours by Sigibert I, King of Austrasia (561-576). St. Gregory of Tours, who was the leading historian wrote that the Frankish leader Clovis on the occasion of his baptism into the Catholic faith in 496 was referred to as Sicambrian by the officiating Bishop of Rheims.
Troy
Troy was a legendary city established about 3000 BC and was the center of the Trojan Wars, which occurred about 1200 BC. These wars were described in the Iliad by Homer, who was a blind Greek historian. Today Troy is an archaeological site in northwest Turkey.
Troy was founded by Dardanus, son of the Trojan Royal Family of Electra and Zeus. One generation before the Trojan War, Heracles captured Troy and killed Leomedon, but spared his son Priam who became King of Troy. During his reign, the Mycenaean Greeks invaded and captured Troy in the Trojan War 1193-1183 BC.
It is from Priam, King of Troy that Roderick Stuart in Royalty for Commoners shows descent from the Cimmerians to the Sicambri to the Merovingians.
Rome
Rome was founded 21 April 753 BC from settlements around a fjord on the River Tiber by Romulus and Remus, sons of the Trojan prince Aenas. Romulus killed Remus and became the first of the seven kings of Rome. The Roman Republic was established around 509 BC.
It is from Priam, King of Troy that Roderick Stuart in Royalty for Commoners shows descent from the Cimmerians to the Sicambri to the Merovingians.
Rome
Rome was founded 21 April 753 BC from settlements around a fjord on the River Tiber by Romulus and Remus, sons of the Trojan prince Aenas. Romulus killed Remus and became the first of the seven kings of Rome. The Roman Republic was established around 509 BC.
By 200 BC Rome had become the dominant Mediterranean power. About 55 BC Gaius Julius Caesar was in power, and by 31 BC Augustus had consolidated his power. The Roman Empire is said to have ended as such in 476 AD when Odoacer, the Barbarian Germanic General deposed Romulus Agustulus. (Ian Woods states that Odoacer deposing Agustulus is speculation).
Barbarian Kings The Roman Empire was replaced with a number of states ruled by barbarian kings. In the 6th century Italy was controlled by the Ostragoths, France by the Franks, and Burgundians, and Spain by the Visigoths. A century later, the Lombards controlled northern Italy, and the Franks were unchallenged in France, and the Anglos and Saxons were in Britannia.
Franks
It was the kingdom of the Franks which was to exercise the most influence for the longest time. For the first three centuries of its existence until 751 it was ruled by a single family, that of the Merovingians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1-l6u-7I9X0
There were two groups of Franks-the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks.
The Salian Franks (sea dwelling) lived North and East of Limes in the Dutch coastal area and in the 5th century migrated throughout Belgium and into northern France. By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Belgium city of Tournai had become the center of activity.
The Ripuarian Franks (river dwelling) lived along the Rhine river, and were perhaps called Ripuarian by the Romans.
By the 9th century any differences between these two groups had disappeared.
They were involved with the Romans as military recruits in the 5th century. Gregory of Tours, the historian, placed the emergence of the Merovingians at the conclusion of the Frankish migration. The Liber Historiae Francorum went further, connecting them with the Trojan migration.
Gregory of Tours wrote that the Franks had created long haired kings in Thuringia (Belgium). Gregory of Tours was troubled that there was no clear passage of royalty to the Franks from a line of Kings, but other scholars were not troubled since historical records were lacking.
As indicated the line of Frankish Kings began with Frankus
who died 11 BC. The line continues from Frankus to Chlodio.
Chlodio
The history of Chlodio comes from Gregory of Tours and
Sidonius Apollinarius.
Chlodio, was a semi legendary King of the Salian Franks. He lived in Dispargum which was a castle. Around 431 he invaded the territory of Artois but was defeated near Hesdin by Aetius, Commander of the Roman Army in Gaul. He regrouped and captured Cambrai (Cameracum) and occupied territory as far as the Somme River. He made Tournai the capital of all Salian Franks. He died 447-449.
MEROVINGIAN KINGS MEROVEE (MEROVECH)
Barbarian Kings The Roman Empire was replaced with a number of states ruled by barbarian kings. In the 6th century Italy was controlled by the Ostragoths, France by the Franks, and Burgundians, and Spain by the Visigoths. A century later, the Lombards controlled northern Italy, and the Franks were unchallenged in France, and the Anglos and Saxons were in Britannia.
Franks
It was the kingdom of the Franks which was to exercise the most influence for the longest time. For the first three centuries of its existence until 751 it was ruled by a single family, that of the Merovingians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1-l6u-7I9X0
There were two groups of Franks-the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks.
The Salian Franks (sea dwelling) lived North and East of Limes in the Dutch coastal area and in the 5th century migrated throughout Belgium and into northern France. By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Belgium city of Tournai had become the center of activity.
The Ripuarian Franks (river dwelling) lived along the Rhine river, and were perhaps called Ripuarian by the Romans.
By the 9th century any differences between these two groups had disappeared.
They were involved with the Romans as military recruits in the 5th century. Gregory of Tours, the historian, placed the emergence of the Merovingians at the conclusion of the Frankish migration. The Liber Historiae Francorum went further, connecting them with the Trojan migration.
Gregory of Tours wrote that the Franks had created long haired kings in Thuringia (Belgium). Gregory of Tours was troubled that there was no clear passage of royalty to the Franks from a line of Kings, but other scholars were not troubled since historical records were lacking.
As indicated the line of Frankish Kings began with Frankus
who died 11 BC. The line continues from Frankus to Chlodio.
Chlodio
The history of Chlodio comes from Gregory of Tours and
Sidonius Apollinarius.
Chlodio, was a semi legendary King of the Salian Franks. He lived in Dispargum which was a castle. Around 431 he invaded the territory of Artois but was defeated near Hesdin by Aetius, Commander of the Roman Army in Gaul. He regrouped and captured Cambrai (Cameracum) and occupied territory as far as the Somme River. He made Tournai the capital of all Salian Franks. He died 447-449.
MEROVINGIAN KINGS MEROVEE (MEROVECH)
According to the Chronicles of Fredegar, Merovee (Merovech) the first of the Merovingian Kings was conceived by Chlodio’s wife when she went swimming and was encountered by a Quinotaur, a sea monster. The royal dynasty was thus given a supernatural origin. The actual parentage of Merovee is subject to conjecture, but he was clearly a Frank. Stuart in Royalty for Commoners states he was either a son or a son in law of Chlodio.
Merovee, the first Merovingian King, fought along side Flavius Aetius the Roman ruler when Attila the Hun was defeated in 451. Merovee was proclaimed King of the Franks in 448 and reigned for 10 years.
Under Merovee and his successors, the kingdom of the Franks flourished. It was not the crude barbaric culture often imagined. It warrants comparision with the high culture of the Byzantines. Secular literacy was encouraged.
They built lavish Roman styled amphitheaters in Paris and Soissons. The Franks were brutal but not like the Goths and the Huns. They accumulated immense wealth. They were active in farming, commerce, and maritime trade. Their gold coins that were minted bore an equal arm cross.
Childeric I The son of Merovee was Childeric I, who fought Odoacer at Angiers. Childeric was expelled from the Franks for sexual profligacy. Childeric returned to power and married the wife of the King of Thurigia. Childeric’s grave was found in 1653 in Tournai and was filled with weapons, gold, jewelry, Byzantine coins, and gold cicadas or bees. This is one of the most important medieval treasures ever found.
Clovis
The Bishop of Rheims wrote a letter to Clovis, son of Childeric I which has been preserved. With Clovis, we have the beginnings of a substantial documented history. Gregory of Tours could at last chronicle a Barbarian King.
Clovis reigned from 481-511 and was the major Merovingian King as was Charlemagne the major Carolingian King.
Gregory of Tours writes that Clovis defeated Syagrius; he then married Clothilda, daughter of a Burgundian King, who attempted to convert him to Christianity but failed. Clothilda was later named a Saint.
Beginning as early as 496 there were secret meetings between Clovis and Saint Remy, confessor of the wife of Clovis. Soon thereafter an agreement of cooperation was signed between Clovis and the Roman Church. Such an agreement was important because it transformed the less than unified Roman Church to one of supreme power in the West. Clovis became the sword of the Church.
During a battle against the Alamans, he vowed to become a Christian if he was victorious. He won and was baptized by the Bishop of Rheims in 496. On his return he received consular office from the eastern emperor (the Western Roman Empire had ceased to exist) and he established Paris as his capital. He was named Novus Constantinus-the new Constantine. At his baptism, Saint Remy said
“Sicambrian revere what thou hast burned and burn what thou hast revered.”
There was now a powerful religion, and a powerful Church being administered by a Merovingian bloodline.
Clovis allied with Godegisel against the Burgundian King Gundobad, but the latter survived. Clovis then attacked the Visigoths because they were heretics.
His last years were spent eliminating rival Frankish leaders. The sister of Clovis, Audofleda married the Ostrogothic King Theodoric and there were further marriages between the Visigoths, Thuringians, Herules and Burgundians, further consolidating the empire of the Franks.
The conversion of Clovis to Catholicism made him more acceptable to the Gallo Romans. In 511 he convened an ecclesiastical council in Orleans to discuss matters of newly acquired Aquitaine. When Clovis died in 511, the Frankish kingdom was the most powerful in Gaul.
After Clovis died, his kingdom was divided into 4 parts-one for each of his 4 sons. For more than a century thereafter, the Merovingian Dynasty presided over a number of disparate and warring kingdoms.
Clothair II Clothair II reigned 584-629 and reunited the Kingdom of the Franks. He signed the Perpetual Constitution which was an early Magna Charta.
As the Merovingian Kings were concerned with ritual, pomp, and circumstance, the actual administration of the empire was left to the Mayors of the Palaces.
Dagobert II In 651 Dagobert II came to power and was a worthy successor to Clovis. He amassed power and authority and great wealth which has been reported to have been located at Rennes le Chateau. He also seemed to lose interest in protecting the Roman Church and expanding it. Dagobert II married a Visigoth princess, and further expanded the empire to Languedoc. In doing so he created enemies-both secular and ecclesiastic. His Mayor of the Palace, Pepin the Fat aligned himself with enemies of Dagobert II.
Dagobert II had a major capital at Stenay which included a huge forest. On 23 December 679, while resting during a hunt in the forest, a servant under the direction of Pepin the Fat killed him. He was buried at Stenay, the royal chapel of Saint Remy. In 872, he was made a Saint. For all practical purposes, this ended the real power of the Merovingian Kings. The Mayors of the Palaces developed more and more power.
Charles Martel The most important Mayor of the Palace and an extremely important historical figure was Charles Martel, or Charles the Hammer who was born 686 and died 741. He expanded his rule over all three Frankish kingdoms: Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy. He was the illegitimate son of Pippin the Middle and his concubine Alpaida. He won the Battle of Tours in 732 which saved Europe from Muslim expansionism. He was a brilliant general and is considered the father of western heavy cavalry. He was the founder of the Carolingian Empire which was named after him.
In 737 King Theuderic died and Martel titled himself Major Domus and Princeps et dux Francorum and did not appoint a new King. The throne was vacant until the death of Martel. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica. Before his death he divided his properties among his sons.
German and French historians have treated Charles Martel with great acclaim and believe that he saved Europe from Islam. He was called the hero of the age and it was said he delivered Christiandom.
Usurpation by the Carolingians First Carolingian King
Ten years after the death of Charles Martel, his son Pippin III or Pippin the Younger, or Pippin the Short, Mayor of the Palace to King Childeric III enlisted the support of the Pope in overthrowing the Merovingians.
Pippin’s ambassadors to Pope Zachary asked: “who should be King, the man who actually holds power or he though he is King has no power at all?”
The Pope then ordered that by apostolic authority Pippin III, or Pippin the Younger, or Pippin the Short, be created King of all the Franks, thus betraying the pact which had been made with Clovis. Pippin deposed Childeric III, and had his head shaved, and confined him to a monastery.
In 754 Pippin III was anointed at Ponthion. He died in 768 and is buried at St. Denis. In 740 he married Bertrada of Laon. Bertrada descended from the Merovingian Kings.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was the son of Pippin and Bertrada.
Summary
Accomplishments of the Merovingians
When Childeric III was deposed, the Merovingians were the longest ruling dynasty in western Europe.
Clovis I, Clovis II, Childeric II, and Dagobert II were very strong rulers.
Childebert III operated successively with the aristocracy.
The people east of the Rhine were also subject to the Merovingians.
Merovingian history provides a focus for understanding the political history of western Europe in the two and half centuries following the deposition of Romulus Augustulus.
The Merovingian kingdom had a significant role to play in the transmission of culture from the late Roman period to the Carolingian period.
The Rhone valley was a storehouse of manuscripts, without which Benedict Biscop could never have equipped the great monastery of Monkwearmouth/Jarrow in England.
The Merovingian Church had a distinguished tradition in ecclesiastical legislation in the 6th and 7th centuries; it witnessed a flowering of monastic tradition. It was an institution heavily involved in politics. Boniface’s death at Dokkum can be seen as the last chapter in the Merovingian Church.
Some authors such as Fredegar and the author of Annales Mettenses Priores perhaps down played the achievements of the Merovingians, yet to accept such readings is to oversimplify Merovingian history.
The Merovingian kingdom boasted no counterpart to Gregory the Great, Isidore, Bede, or Boniface; nevertheless no other state equaled the overall achievement of the Franks in the sixth, seventh, and eight centuries.
References:
Royalty for Commoners by Roderick W. Stuart
Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 by Ian Wood
Articles from Wikipedia Encyclopedia with References
Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh, Lincoln
Catholic Encyclopedia
Merovee, the first Merovingian King, fought along side Flavius Aetius the Roman ruler when Attila the Hun was defeated in 451. Merovee was proclaimed King of the Franks in 448 and reigned for 10 years.
Under Merovee and his successors, the kingdom of the Franks flourished. It was not the crude barbaric culture often imagined. It warrants comparision with the high culture of the Byzantines. Secular literacy was encouraged.
They built lavish Roman styled amphitheaters in Paris and Soissons. The Franks were brutal but not like the Goths and the Huns. They accumulated immense wealth. They were active in farming, commerce, and maritime trade. Their gold coins that were minted bore an equal arm cross.
Childeric I The son of Merovee was Childeric I, who fought Odoacer at Angiers. Childeric was expelled from the Franks for sexual profligacy. Childeric returned to power and married the wife of the King of Thurigia. Childeric’s grave was found in 1653 in Tournai and was filled with weapons, gold, jewelry, Byzantine coins, and gold cicadas or bees. This is one of the most important medieval treasures ever found.
Clovis
The Bishop of Rheims wrote a letter to Clovis, son of Childeric I which has been preserved. With Clovis, we have the beginnings of a substantial documented history. Gregory of Tours could at last chronicle a Barbarian King.
Clovis reigned from 481-511 and was the major Merovingian King as was Charlemagne the major Carolingian King.
Gregory of Tours writes that Clovis defeated Syagrius; he then married Clothilda, daughter of a Burgundian King, who attempted to convert him to Christianity but failed. Clothilda was later named a Saint.
Beginning as early as 496 there were secret meetings between Clovis and Saint Remy, confessor of the wife of Clovis. Soon thereafter an agreement of cooperation was signed between Clovis and the Roman Church. Such an agreement was important because it transformed the less than unified Roman Church to one of supreme power in the West. Clovis became the sword of the Church.
During a battle against the Alamans, he vowed to become a Christian if he was victorious. He won and was baptized by the Bishop of Rheims in 496. On his return he received consular office from the eastern emperor (the Western Roman Empire had ceased to exist) and he established Paris as his capital. He was named Novus Constantinus-the new Constantine. At his baptism, Saint Remy said
“Sicambrian revere what thou hast burned and burn what thou hast revered.”
There was now a powerful religion, and a powerful Church being administered by a Merovingian bloodline.
Clovis allied with Godegisel against the Burgundian King Gundobad, but the latter survived. Clovis then attacked the Visigoths because they were heretics.
His last years were spent eliminating rival Frankish leaders. The sister of Clovis, Audofleda married the Ostrogothic King Theodoric and there were further marriages between the Visigoths, Thuringians, Herules and Burgundians, further consolidating the empire of the Franks.
The conversion of Clovis to Catholicism made him more acceptable to the Gallo Romans. In 511 he convened an ecclesiastical council in Orleans to discuss matters of newly acquired Aquitaine. When Clovis died in 511, the Frankish kingdom was the most powerful in Gaul.
After Clovis died, his kingdom was divided into 4 parts-one for each of his 4 sons. For more than a century thereafter, the Merovingian Dynasty presided over a number of disparate and warring kingdoms.
Clothair II Clothair II reigned 584-629 and reunited the Kingdom of the Franks. He signed the Perpetual Constitution which was an early Magna Charta.
As the Merovingian Kings were concerned with ritual, pomp, and circumstance, the actual administration of the empire was left to the Mayors of the Palaces.
Dagobert II In 651 Dagobert II came to power and was a worthy successor to Clovis. He amassed power and authority and great wealth which has been reported to have been located at Rennes le Chateau. He also seemed to lose interest in protecting the Roman Church and expanding it. Dagobert II married a Visigoth princess, and further expanded the empire to Languedoc. In doing so he created enemies-both secular and ecclesiastic. His Mayor of the Palace, Pepin the Fat aligned himself with enemies of Dagobert II.
Dagobert II had a major capital at Stenay which included a huge forest. On 23 December 679, while resting during a hunt in the forest, a servant under the direction of Pepin the Fat killed him. He was buried at Stenay, the royal chapel of Saint Remy. In 872, he was made a Saint. For all practical purposes, this ended the real power of the Merovingian Kings. The Mayors of the Palaces developed more and more power.
Charles Martel The most important Mayor of the Palace and an extremely important historical figure was Charles Martel, or Charles the Hammer who was born 686 and died 741. He expanded his rule over all three Frankish kingdoms: Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy. He was the illegitimate son of Pippin the Middle and his concubine Alpaida. He won the Battle of Tours in 732 which saved Europe from Muslim expansionism. He was a brilliant general and is considered the father of western heavy cavalry. He was the founder of the Carolingian Empire which was named after him.
In 737 King Theuderic died and Martel titled himself Major Domus and Princeps et dux Francorum and did not appoint a new King. The throne was vacant until the death of Martel. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica. Before his death he divided his properties among his sons.
German and French historians have treated Charles Martel with great acclaim and believe that he saved Europe from Islam. He was called the hero of the age and it was said he delivered Christiandom.
Usurpation by the Carolingians First Carolingian King
Ten years after the death of Charles Martel, his son Pippin III or Pippin the Younger, or Pippin the Short, Mayor of the Palace to King Childeric III enlisted the support of the Pope in overthrowing the Merovingians.
Pippin’s ambassadors to Pope Zachary asked: “who should be King, the man who actually holds power or he though he is King has no power at all?”
The Pope then ordered that by apostolic authority Pippin III, or Pippin the Younger, or Pippin the Short, be created King of all the Franks, thus betraying the pact which had been made with Clovis. Pippin deposed Childeric III, and had his head shaved, and confined him to a monastery.
In 754 Pippin III was anointed at Ponthion. He died in 768 and is buried at St. Denis. In 740 he married Bertrada of Laon. Bertrada descended from the Merovingian Kings.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was the son of Pippin and Bertrada.
Summary
Accomplishments of the Merovingians
When Childeric III was deposed, the Merovingians were the longest ruling dynasty in western Europe.
Clovis I, Clovis II, Childeric II, and Dagobert II were very strong rulers.
Childebert III operated successively with the aristocracy.
The people east of the Rhine were also subject to the Merovingians.
Merovingian history provides a focus for understanding the political history of western Europe in the two and half centuries following the deposition of Romulus Augustulus.
The Merovingian kingdom had a significant role to play in the transmission of culture from the late Roman period to the Carolingian period.
The Rhone valley was a storehouse of manuscripts, without which Benedict Biscop could never have equipped the great monastery of Monkwearmouth/Jarrow in England.
The Merovingian Church had a distinguished tradition in ecclesiastical legislation in the 6th and 7th centuries; it witnessed a flowering of monastic tradition. It was an institution heavily involved in politics. Boniface’s death at Dokkum can be seen as the last chapter in the Merovingian Church.
Some authors such as Fredegar and the author of Annales Mettenses Priores perhaps down played the achievements of the Merovingians, yet to accept such readings is to oversimplify Merovingian history.
The Merovingian kingdom boasted no counterpart to Gregory the Great, Isidore, Bede, or Boniface; nevertheless no other state equaled the overall achievement of the Franks in the sixth, seventh, and eight centuries.
References:
Royalty for Commoners by Roderick W. Stuart
Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 by Ian Wood
Articles from Wikipedia Encyclopedia with References
Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh, Lincoln
Catholic Encyclopedia
Merovingian Descent Eleanor of Aquitaine:
Merovingian Dynasty (Blue); Carolingian Dynasty (Red); House of Poitiers (Green); Plantagenet Dynasty (Purple) > English Peerage > Commoners
Merovingian Dynasty (Blue); Carolingian Dynasty (Red); House of Poitiers (Green); Plantagenet Dynasty (Purple) > English Peerage > Commoners
Merovingian > Plantagenet
The entire Merovingian line is transmitted to Plantagenets only through Eleanor of Aquitaine
The entire Merovingian line is transmitted to Plantagenets only through Eleanor of Aquitaine
Extracts from
DA VINCI CODE DECODED
by Martin Lunn
The Merovingians ruled much of present-day France and Germany between the fifth and seventh centuries.
The beginning of this time coincides with not only the Grail stories, but with the era of King Arthur, who was so central to many of these tales. There was never any question that the Merovingians were the rightful rulers of the Franks.
They were not "created" as kings.
The sons who were entitled became kings automatically on their twelfth birthdays. Their role was not to govern - that was left to the "Mayors of the Palace." They were simply expected to exist as representatives of the role, holding similar power and status to a twenty-first century constitutional monarch. They were also allowed the delights of polygamy and sometimes took great advantage of this privilege.
The origin of the Merovingian family name comes from that of their progenitor, Merovee (also styled "Merovech" or "Meroveus").
The name is reminiscent of both the French word for "mother" and the French and Latin words for "sea."
The legend is that Merovee was born of two fathers - the story that is told is no doubt allegorical and refers to the alliance of two dynasties through his birth.
It was said that his mother was already pregnant by her husband when she went swimming in the sea.
She was seduced by a sea creature who impregnated her for a second time. When Merovee was born therefore, the blood of two sources, that of his Frankish father, the ruler, and that of a "sea animal" ran through his veins.
From that time on, the Merovingians had a reputation for the occult and the supernatural. They were looked upon as priest-kings, much as the Egyptian pharaohs were regarded..........
oOo
Just before Pepin III was crowned, he married a Merovingian princess, presumably to legitimize himself in his own eyes, propelling the Merovingian genes once again in their rightful direction. Charlemagne married similarly.
In fact his misgivings even seemed to affect his coronation. He seemed determined to give the impression that he was bashful about becoming Holy Roman Emperor. The ceremony had been fixed so that it appeared that the Pope was crowning him without Charlemagne's prior knowledge. Charlemagne accepted the crown expressing the mock shock that film stars show when being awarded an Oscar. To add credence to the performance he insisted that he would never have entered the Roman cathedral if he had known that was going to happen.
The betrayal of Clovis by the assassination of Dagobert II has been the greatest source of anguish for the Priory of Sion and the Merovingian descendants. However, there seems to have been an attempt to mitigate the insult.
Thus the Carolingian royal family (the family of Emperor Charlemagne) married Merovingian princesses in order to legitimize themselves. Dagobert's son, Sigisbert, was the ancestor of Guillem de Gellone, ruler of the Jewish kingdom of Septimania in southern France and later of Godfroi de Bouillon, who captured Jerusalem during the Crusades. Thereby the bloodline of Jesus Christ, the Davidic line, was restored back to the throne that had been rightfully its own since the time of the Old Testament.
There can be little reasonable doubt that Jesus was actually married. As we see will in Chapter Eight on the marriage of Jesus Christ, the heir to the Davidic line was required by law to marry. Not only that - they were required to sire at least two sons (an "heir and a spare," as they say about the British royal family.) Such present-day lifestyle choices as live-in partners or single-sex relationships simply did not exist in first century Judea. Marriage for those of the Davidic line was ritualized to the extent of making redundant any necessity for romanticism.
The necessity of continuing the survival of the line in such a rural and, at the same time, persecuted community was paramount to all. Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, after fleeing from the Holy Land, had several children who were brought up in a Jewish community in southern France. Jesus had been known as a "fisher" from the time that he was admitted into the priesthood in the Order of Melchizedek, as described in Hebrews 5.
oOo
The descendants of Jesus Christ had reached positions of influence and importance by 1100 in Europe and also, through Godfroi de Bouillon, in Palestine.
Even though they may have been well aware of their ancestry, they may not have been able to prove it without the documentary or other proof that remained at the Temple of Solomon. This would explain the excavations that the Knights Templar made around the area of the Temple at that time.
On the basis of the evidence that Leigh, Baigent, and Lincoln found,(authors of 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail') , it appears that not only were the Knights Templar sent to Jerusalem to find something, but that they did, in fact, succeed, and returned with it to England. It is unclear what happened to it then, but it is known that the fourth Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, Bertrand de Blanchefort, concealed something near Rennes-le-Chateau and German miners were brought to construct a hiding place.
There is speculation over what this "something" may have been, ranging from Jesus' marriage certificate and/or birth certificates of his children to his mummified body. Any of these may have been passed to the heretical Cathar sect in the area of Languedoc near Rennes-le-Chateau, who were massacred mercilessly by 30,000 of the Pope's soldiers in 1209. Treasure was hidden at the Cathar stronghold of Montsegur, which was under siege for ten months until March 1244.
Once the Merovingians re-established themselves in Jerusalem, they could better afford to make the facts known. This explains why the Grail romances, which were associated so closely with the Knights Templar, started appearing at this time".
Eventually no doubt the full truth of the Merovingian kings would have come out and they would have ruled extensively over Europe, replacing the Pope and making Jerusalem the capital of the Christian world. If Jesus had been accepted as a mortal prophet, a priest-King and the descendant of the Davidic line by Christians, he may also have been accepted by the Muslims and Jews. That would obviously have changed Middle East history drastically. However, this was not the course of history and the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem did not succeed. With the loss of the Holy Land in 1291 to the Muslims, the Merovingians were sidelined and the Knights Templar rendered redundant. Since that time, the Roman Catholic Church has continued to strengthen at the expense of the truth
THE ANCIENT LEGACY OF THE RING AND THE GRAIL
Lecture by Laurence Gardner
From the earliest of Sumerian and Scythian times, over 5,000 years ago, the abiding symbol of wholeness, unity and eternity was the Ring. In those days, the kings-of-kings were also styled Ring Lords by virtue of their Rings of office which symbolised divinely inspired justice. They were golden circlets which, as time progressed, were often worn as head-bands - ultimately to become crowns.
As depicted in numerous reliefs, the Ring was a primary device of the Anunnaki gods, who were recorded as having descended into ancient Sumer and were responsible for the establishment of municipal government and kingly practice. In view of this, it is of particular relevance that, when the author J.R.R. Tolkien was asked, in the 1960s, about the Middle-earth environment of his book trilogy The Lord of the Rings, he said that he perceived its setting to relate to about 4000 BC.
Tolkien was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language and, in this regard, the root of his popular tale was extracted directly from Saxon folklore. Indeed, the early Saxon god Wotan (Odin) was said to have ruled the Nine Worlds of the Rings - having the ninth (the One Ring) to govern eight others.
As the generations passed from those ancient times, the ideal of dynastic kingship spread through the Mediterranean lands into the Balkans, the Black Sea regions and Europe. But, in the course of this, the crucial essence of the old wisdom was diluted and this gave rise to dynasties that were not of the original kingly race. Instead, many were unrelated warrior chiefs who gained their thrones by might of the sword.
The oldest complete version of the Ring Cycle comes from the Norse mythology of the Volsunga Saga. Compiled from more than forty separate legends, this Icelandic tale relates to the god Odin, to the kingdom of the Nine Worlds and to a dark forest called Mirkwood - a name later repeated by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. It tells of how Prince Sigmund of the Volsung dynasty is the only warrior able to pull the great sword of Odin from a tree in which the god had driven it to its hilt - as replicated in the Arthurian story of the sword and the stone. Additionally, we learn of the water-dwarf Andarvi, whose magical One Ring of red-gold could weave great wealth and power for its master - precisely as depicted in all related Ring legends.
Contemporary with the Volsunga Saga was a similar tale which appeared in and around Burgundy in the 1200s: a German epic called The Nibelungenlied. In this account, which follows a similar path, the hero is called Siegfried and the tale is given a knightly gloss of the Gothic era, while unfortunately losing some of the pagan enchantment of the Northern legend.
In ancient Sumer, the Anunnaki were said to have governed by way of a Grand Assembly of nine Councillors who sat at Nippur. The nine consisted of eight members (seven males and a female), who held the Rings of divine justice, along with their president, Anu, who held the One Ring to bind them all. This conforms precisely with the nine kingdoms of the Volsunga Saga, which cites Odin as the ultimate presidential Ring Lord.
In recent times there have been some astonishing archaeological discoveries which now prove that Sumerian was not the first written language as is commonly portrayed. Also that the Sumerian culture (generally held to be the earliest cradle of civilization) had an older origin in the Balkans, specifically in Transylvania and the Carpathian regions.
The earliest type of Mesopotamian writing, which preceded the strictly wedge-shaped Sumerian cuneiform, is known to be a little over 5,500 years old. It was found at Uruk in Sumer and at Jemdat Nasr, between Baghdad and Babylon, where the Oxford Assyriologist, Stephen Langdon, made numerous important discoveries in 1925. But, around thirty years ago a more significant find was subsequently made beneath the ancient village of Tartaria in Romania. Here were found clay tablets inscribed with a form of script which Carbon-14 dating and strata positioning have revealed to be more than 1,000 years older than the earliest Sumerian writings.
That was not the only surprise, however, for the Tartarian symbols were practically identical to those which emerged later in Mesopotamia. - and it was discovered that the very name of Ur (the capital of Sumer) came from the Scythian word Ur, meaning Lord. Not only that, but the name of Enki is clearly defined on one tablet in an identical form to that subsequently used in Sumer. Hence, it became very apparent that the Anunnaki culture was far more widespread than had previously been thought.
Another significant discovery was made high in the Altai Mountains between Siberia and Mongolia. There, preserved by the severe cold since the distant BC years, was found a Scythian burial mound, where the bodies of ancient chieftains, together with their horses, clothing and possessions had all been remarkably preserved from decay.
These were the people who, in the Black Sea steppe lands, first domesticated the horse in about 4000 BC. Consequently, the extent of their travels through the centuries and their influence on the various indigenous cultures is most impressive. It ranges geographically from Hungary and Romania, north into the Russian steppes and Siberia, eastwards across the Ukraine and Anatolia (modern Turkey), south into Syria and Mesopotamia, and still further east into Mongolia, Tibet and the Chinese border country.
Digging first commenced at the Altai site in 1927, but it was not until 1947 that the richest mound containing six separate tombs was discovered and the various bodies found. They were preserved not only by the extreme cold of the region, but also by skilled embalming. There was hair on their heads, but their brains had been removed, along with other internal organs (just as in Egyptian mummification).
Some way south of the Altai site, in the northern foothills of the Himalayas, are the centres of Hami, Loulan and Churchen. It was close to these places, nestling in the Tarim Basin below Mongolia, to the north of Tibet, that a number of similar discoveries were made as recently as 1994. Unlike the intensely cold climate of the Altai Mountains, this lower region of the Central Asian desert is quite different, as a result of which the bodies were preserved in the perfectly dry air, coupled with moisture-absorbing salt beds and, again, expert mummification.
Dated at around 4,000 years old, these interred men, women and children have undermined all the established history teaching of the area, which previously stated that no one of their type arrived there until about 120 BC. But there they were from 2,000 years earlier at the time of Abraham, when Egyptian pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great were more than 500 years into the future. These mummies, although contemporary with the mummies of ancient Egypt, are actually far better preserved.
Like their Romanian counterparts, the Himalayan mummies are of impressive stock, with light skin, auburn hair and pale eyes. The leather and woollen clad men stood at least 6-feet, 6-inches and upwards, while even the women were over 6-feet tall. Undoubtedly, these forebears of the Gaelic High Kings were among the most formidable warriors of their time, and their use of finely woven tartan cloth serves as identifiable proof of the plaid designs which they eventually brought into Ireland and Scotland.
From the 1st century, the Ring Lord culture fell into decline when various Roman emperors decreed that the Messianic heirs (the descendants of Jesus and his family) should be hunted down and put to the sword. This fact was recorded by eminent chroniclers such as Hegesippus, Africanus and Eusebius. Then, once the Roman Church was operative from the 4th century, the sacred dynasty was forever damned by the bishops.
It was this formal damnation which led to such events as the Albigensian Crusade in 1209 and the subsequent Catholic Inquisitions - for these brutal assaults by the papal machine were specifically directed against the upholders and champions of the original concept of Grail kingship, as against the style of pseudo-monarchy which had been implemented by the Bishops of Rome.
In practical terms, Church kingship has prevailed from the 8th century and has continued, through the ages, to the present day. But the fact is that, under strict terms of sovereign practice, all such monarchies and their affiliated governments have been invalid.
Church kingship is precisely that with which we have become so familiar. It applies to all monarchs who achieve their regnal positions by way of Church coronation by the Pope or other Christian leader (in Britain, by the Archbishop of Canterbury). Previously, in terms of true kingship, there was no necessity for coronation because kingly and queenly inheritance were always regarded as being 'in the blood'.
The change was made possible by way of a text called the Donation of Constantine - a document which led to just about every social injustice that has since been experienced in the Christian world. When the Donation made its first appearance in 751, it was alleged to have been written by Emperor Constantine some 400 years earlier, although strangely never produced in the interim. It was even dated and carried his supposed signature. What the document proclaimed was that the Emperor's appointed Pope was Christ's personally elected representative on Earth. He had the power to 'create' kings as his subordinates since his palace ranked above all the palaces in the world.
The provisions of the Donation were enacted by the Vatican, whereupon the Merovingian Kings of the Grail bloodline in Gaul were deposed and a whole new puppet-dynasty was supplemented by way of a family of hitherto mayors. They were dubbed Carolingians and their only king of any significance was the legendary Charlemagne. By way of this strategy, the whole nature of monarchy changed from being an office of community guardianship to one of absolute rule and, by virtue of this monumental change, the long-standing code of princely service was forsaken as European kings became servants of the Church instead of being servants of the people.
The fact is, however, that over 500 years ago in the Renaissance era, proof emerged that the Donation was an outright forgery. Its New Testament references relate to the Latin Vulgate Bible - an edition translated and compiled by St. Jerome, who was not born until AD 340, some 26 years after Constantine supposedly signed the document! Apart from that, the language of the Donation, with its numerous anachronisms in form and content, is that of the 8th century and bears no relation to the writing style of Constantine's day. But the truly ridiculous aspect is that the Donation's overwhelming dictate, which cemented the Pope as the supreme spiritual and temporal head of Christendom, has prevailed regardless.
Victimized prior to the formal Church Inquisition in the Middle Ages were the Cathars of the Languedoc region in the South of France. The Cathars were fully conversant with the Ring Lord culture and, in accordance with tradition, referred to the Messianic bloodline as the Elven Race, venerating them as the Shining Ones.
In the language of old Provence, a female elf was an 'albi', and Albi was the name given to the main Cathar centre in Languedoc. This was in deference to the matrilinear heritage of the Grail dynasty, for the Cathars were supporters of the Albi-gens - the elven bloodline which had descended through the Grail queens such as Lilith, Miriam, Bathsheba and Mary Magdalene. It was for this reason that, when Simon de Montfort and the armies of Pope Innocent III decimated the region from 1209, it was called the Albigensian Crusade.
The concept of calling the original princely race the Shining Ones, while also defining them as 'elves', dates well back into ancient Bible times and can be traced into Mesopotamia and Palestine. The ancient word El, which was used to identify a god or lofty-one (as in El Elyon and El Shaddai) actually meant Shining in old Mesopotamian Sumer. To the north in Babylonia, the derivative Ellu meant Shining One, while in Saxony and Britain it became Elf.
The concept of fairies was born directly from the Ring Lord culture and, deriving from the Greek word 'phare', the term related to a Great House, from which also stemmed the designation 'pharaoh'. In the Gaelic world, certain royal families were said to carry the fairy blood - that is to say, the fate or destiny of the Grail bloodline and of humankind at large. Meanwhile, the elf-maidens of the Albi-gens were the designated guardians of the earth, starlight and forest. It is for these reasons that fairies and elves have so often been portrayed as shoemakers and lamplighters, for the fairy cobblers made the shoes which measured the steps of life, while the Shining Ones of the elven race were there to light the way.
In national terms (although fairies present a widespread image), they are particularly associated with Ireland, where they are epitomized by the ancient people of the Tuatha Dé Danann. This formidable king tribe was, nevertheless, mythologized by the Christian monks, who rewrote the majority of Irish history to suit their own Church's vested interest in Ireland.
From a base of the monastic texts, which arose onwards from medieval times, it is generally stated that the Tuatha Dé Danann were the supernatural tribe of the agricultural goddess Danaë of Argos, but their true name (rendered in its older form) was Tuadhe d'Anu - the people (or tribe) of Anu, the great sky god of the Anunnaki.
Onwards from the year 751, the Church sought all possible measures to diminish the status of any royal strain emanating from the original Ring Lords so that the fraudulent Donation of Constantine could be brought into play. Henceforth, only the subjugative Church could determine who was a king, while the elves and fairies of the Albi-gens were manoeuvred from the forefront of history into a realm of apparent fantasy and legend.
Settling in Ireland from about 800 BC, the noble Tuadhe d'Anu hailed from the Central European lands of Scythia, which stretched from the Carpathian mountains and Transylvanian Alps, across to the Russian River Don. They were strictly known as the Royal Scyths and they were said to be the masters of a transcendent intellect called the Sidhé, which was known to the druids as the Web of the Wise.
As the Church rose to power, so the underground stream, which supported the Ring Lord culture, found strategic methods of preserving the traditions of the royal bloodline. In the course of this, the fairy tale concept was born - stories which were not unlike many of the parables inherent in the New Testament Gospels. They were likewise contrived 'for those with ears to hear', while others among the uninitiated would perceive them as no more than fanciful entertainment.
A focal message built into these fairy tales was an understanding of the importance of perpetuating the family line, regardless of the power of the bishops and the Church's puppet kings. The whole scenario was presented, time after time, as if it were a struggling nightmare, wherein the female (the elf-maiden who carried the essence of the strain) was out of reach of the prince, so that his torturous quest to find her was akin to the quest for the Holy Grail itself.
Consequently, many of the tales which emanated from this base were stories of lost brides and usurped kingship, based upon the Church's subjugation of the Grail bloodline. The fairy tale ideal was essentially geared to relate the truth of these persecutions. They were allegorical accounts of the predicament of the Messianic family, whose fairies and elves (having been manoeuvred from the mortal plane of orthodoxy and status quo) were confined to a contrived otherworldly existence.
They emerged as tales of valiant princes who were turned into frogs; of swan knights who roamed the wasteland, and of Grail princesses locked in towers, or put to sleep for hundreds of years. In the course of their persecution, the elf-maidens were pricked with bodkins, fed with poisoned apples, subjected to spells or condemned to servitude, while their champions swam great lakes, battled through thickets and scaled mighty towers to secure and protect the matrilinear heritage of the Albi-gens.
These romantic legends include such well-known stories as the Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel. In all cases, the underlying theme is the same, with the princess kept (through drugging, imprisonment or some form of restraint) out of reach of the prince, who has to find her and release her in order to preserve the dynasty and perpetuate the line.
It was during the period of France's Carolingian dynasty that the seeds of most of these popular stories were planted, and it is because of the inherent truths which lie behind the stories that we find them so naturally appealing. Some academics argue that fairy tales survive because they are often based upon a rags-to-riches doctrine, but this is not the case. They survive because deep within our psyche is an inherent, inbred awareness that the Grail (symbolised by the Lost Bride) has to be found if the wasteland is to return to fertility.
A primary feature of the traditional folklore related to the Ring and Grail quests is that it embodies a nominal terminology that was historically applicable to the Messianic dynasts. As cited, the terms fairy and elf each related to certain castes within the succession of the Shining Ones. But there were others - notably the pixies - who were of the utmost importance within the overall structure of the princely bloodline. Having the same Sidhé heritage as the historical elves and fairies, their familiar name derived from the description Pict-sidhé. In time, following their migration into Anjou, Ireland and the far North of Britain, they became better known, the Picts. They called their northern domain 'Caledonia' - the land of the Caille Daouine forest people.
The social structures of the Scythian Ring Lord were firmly centred upon designated seats of assembly which became known as Fairy Rings. These royal seats (from Scythia to Ireland) were known as Raths, which denoted round or circular constructions. On that account, the Round Table of Arthurian romance was designed to symbolize this concept. What is generally not recognized, however, is that (just like the Volsunga Saga and the Nibelungenlied) the Arthurian mythos is itself a very powerful Ring Cycle. The true legacy of the Round table lies not in the Table itself, but in the knights who sat at the table - for these noble emissaries represented the most important aspect of ancient lore by presenting themselves as a living, iron-clad Ring. In accordance with traditional Ring lore, the land fell into waste and chaos when the power of the Ring was usurped by virtue of Queen Guinevere being unfaithful to Arthur with Lancelot.
From around 1800 BC, the Kassites of Babylonia were predominant in the Rath culture. They gained their name from the word 'kassi', which meant 'place of wood' - the place in question being a sacred mound dwelling, variantly called a 'caddi'. By virtue of this, the Kassites were designated Wood Lords.
Following their time in Babylonia, they moved across Syria and Phoenicia into Europe and, eventually, to Britain where they established many great kingdoms within which the remnant of their name survived - the Welsh King Cadwallan, for example, and the earlier British King Casswallan, who reigned at about the time of Herod the Great. In each of these names the 'wallan' aspect is important since it was also the distinction of a Wood Lord - again with Mesopotamian roots. The original Wallans were called Yulannu, and it was from their ancient tradition that the winter solstice Yuletide festival derived before moving into Scandinavia.
Apart from the fairies, pixies and elves of history, there are others of the Shining Ones who are also said to inhabit the magical Land of Elphame; they are the sprites, goblins, gnomes and leprechauns.
The definition 'sprite' means no more nor less than a spirit person - one of the transcendental realm of the Sidhé. The original sprites were the ancient Scythian ghost warriors, who painted their bodies grey-blue to look like corpses when they entered the battlefield.
The 'goblin' description stems from the Germanic word kobelin, which denoted a mine-worker or one who worked underground. In the context of the Ring culture, goblins and gnomes were attendants of the Raths, wherein they were custodians of the wealth and wisdom of the ages, being essentially treasurers and archivists. It was their role as guardians of the treasures which led to their nominal distinction being used in association with banking, as in the Gnomes of Zurich. The word root is in the Greek equivalent of 'g-n-o', from which we derive gnosis (knowledge).
As for the 'leprechauns', they were the armoured horse troops of the Pict-sidhé. Their body armour was made from small overlapped plates of bronze, which tarnished to a greenish colour so they looked like lizards or dragons. In this regard, they were called 'lepra-corpan' (scaly body), a word corrupted in Ireland to leprechaun.
The Catholic Inquisition, although ostensibly set against heretics, managed to include all manner of groups and factions within this overall classification. Witchcraft was a common accusation, and into this particular net fell the gypsies. Any person with no fixed place of residence was regarded with suspicion because an itinerant lifestyle was perceived as a means by which to evade Church authority.
The main premise of Christianity was the promise of salvation as achieved through subservience to the bishops, aligned with the perpetuation of a serene afterlife in a heavenly environment. But how could the alternative notion of Hell be portrayed on Earth in a manner which would scare the life out of tentative believers or reluctant worshippers? Somehow Hell had to be given an earthly form, and what better than the notion of dead people who could not complete their dying because they were so hideously unclean - people who were, in fact, 'undead'. Such people, said the churchmen, had to roam the mortal world like lost souls with no dimension of life or death to call their own.
The concept was good enough in part, but it was really no more scary than the idea of ghosts with a physical form. Something else was needed; these beings had to become predators in order to make people fearful enough to lean wholly upon the Church for deliverance. So, what would all people, rich and poor alike, fear to lose the most if they were seeking salvation for their souls?
The answer to this question was found in the Bible - to be precise, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, which states: "It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul". It was therefore decided that the undead creatures would be said to prey upon people's blood, thereby divesting them of the route to atonement.
A problem to overcome in this regard was the fact that this Leviticus statement was part of a very ancient Hebrew law and had little or nothing to do with Christianity. But a way was soon found to cope with the anomaly when the Church ruled that every good Christian who partook of the Communion wine was figuratively drinking the blood of Christ. This divine blood then became a part of his or her own body and any creature which then extracted blood from such a person was reckoned to be stealing the blood of Christ!
These bloodthirsty revenants could only be repelled, it was decreed, by such devices as holy water and the crucifix. And so the Church introduced a truly fearsome creature into its subjugative mythology. They were classified as vampires - a word which derived from the old Scythian title for a kingly overlord of the Rath - a Lord of the Rings.
In summary it can be said that the ancient progenitors of our culture and spiritual heritage have never been positively featured in our academic teachings. Instead, their reality was quashed from the earliest days of Roman suppression as the literal diminution of their figures caused a parallel demolition of their history - to be portrayed as the fairies, elves, pixies and vampires of legend.
Notwithstanding this, the sovereign culture, from which derived all the so-called mythology that sits so comfortably within our collective memory comes from one place alone. It comes from a place and time which, to use J.R.R. Tolkien's definition, might just as well be called Middle-earth as by any other name.
It comes from the long distant Realm of the Ring Lords ....
DA VINCI CODE DECODED
by Martin Lunn
The Merovingians ruled much of present-day France and Germany between the fifth and seventh centuries.
The beginning of this time coincides with not only the Grail stories, but with the era of King Arthur, who was so central to many of these tales. There was never any question that the Merovingians were the rightful rulers of the Franks.
They were not "created" as kings.
The sons who were entitled became kings automatically on their twelfth birthdays. Their role was not to govern - that was left to the "Mayors of the Palace." They were simply expected to exist as representatives of the role, holding similar power and status to a twenty-first century constitutional monarch. They were also allowed the delights of polygamy and sometimes took great advantage of this privilege.
The origin of the Merovingian family name comes from that of their progenitor, Merovee (also styled "Merovech" or "Meroveus").
The name is reminiscent of both the French word for "mother" and the French and Latin words for "sea."
The legend is that Merovee was born of two fathers - the story that is told is no doubt allegorical and refers to the alliance of two dynasties through his birth.
It was said that his mother was already pregnant by her husband when she went swimming in the sea.
She was seduced by a sea creature who impregnated her for a second time. When Merovee was born therefore, the blood of two sources, that of his Frankish father, the ruler, and that of a "sea animal" ran through his veins.
From that time on, the Merovingians had a reputation for the occult and the supernatural. They were looked upon as priest-kings, much as the Egyptian pharaohs were regarded..........
oOo
Just before Pepin III was crowned, he married a Merovingian princess, presumably to legitimize himself in his own eyes, propelling the Merovingian genes once again in their rightful direction. Charlemagne married similarly.
In fact his misgivings even seemed to affect his coronation. He seemed determined to give the impression that he was bashful about becoming Holy Roman Emperor. The ceremony had been fixed so that it appeared that the Pope was crowning him without Charlemagne's prior knowledge. Charlemagne accepted the crown expressing the mock shock that film stars show when being awarded an Oscar. To add credence to the performance he insisted that he would never have entered the Roman cathedral if he had known that was going to happen.
The betrayal of Clovis by the assassination of Dagobert II has been the greatest source of anguish for the Priory of Sion and the Merovingian descendants. However, there seems to have been an attempt to mitigate the insult.
Thus the Carolingian royal family (the family of Emperor Charlemagne) married Merovingian princesses in order to legitimize themselves. Dagobert's son, Sigisbert, was the ancestor of Guillem de Gellone, ruler of the Jewish kingdom of Septimania in southern France and later of Godfroi de Bouillon, who captured Jerusalem during the Crusades. Thereby the bloodline of Jesus Christ, the Davidic line, was restored back to the throne that had been rightfully its own since the time of the Old Testament.
There can be little reasonable doubt that Jesus was actually married. As we see will in Chapter Eight on the marriage of Jesus Christ, the heir to the Davidic line was required by law to marry. Not only that - they were required to sire at least two sons (an "heir and a spare," as they say about the British royal family.) Such present-day lifestyle choices as live-in partners or single-sex relationships simply did not exist in first century Judea. Marriage for those of the Davidic line was ritualized to the extent of making redundant any necessity for romanticism.
The necessity of continuing the survival of the line in such a rural and, at the same time, persecuted community was paramount to all. Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, after fleeing from the Holy Land, had several children who were brought up in a Jewish community in southern France. Jesus had been known as a "fisher" from the time that he was admitted into the priesthood in the Order of Melchizedek, as described in Hebrews 5.
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The descendants of Jesus Christ had reached positions of influence and importance by 1100 in Europe and also, through Godfroi de Bouillon, in Palestine.
Even though they may have been well aware of their ancestry, they may not have been able to prove it without the documentary or other proof that remained at the Temple of Solomon. This would explain the excavations that the Knights Templar made around the area of the Temple at that time.
On the basis of the evidence that Leigh, Baigent, and Lincoln found,(authors of 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail') , it appears that not only were the Knights Templar sent to Jerusalem to find something, but that they did, in fact, succeed, and returned with it to England. It is unclear what happened to it then, but it is known that the fourth Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, Bertrand de Blanchefort, concealed something near Rennes-le-Chateau and German miners were brought to construct a hiding place.
There is speculation over what this "something" may have been, ranging from Jesus' marriage certificate and/or birth certificates of his children to his mummified body. Any of these may have been passed to the heretical Cathar sect in the area of Languedoc near Rennes-le-Chateau, who were massacred mercilessly by 30,000 of the Pope's soldiers in 1209. Treasure was hidden at the Cathar stronghold of Montsegur, which was under siege for ten months until March 1244.
Once the Merovingians re-established themselves in Jerusalem, they could better afford to make the facts known. This explains why the Grail romances, which were associated so closely with the Knights Templar, started appearing at this time".
Eventually no doubt the full truth of the Merovingian kings would have come out and they would have ruled extensively over Europe, replacing the Pope and making Jerusalem the capital of the Christian world. If Jesus had been accepted as a mortal prophet, a priest-King and the descendant of the Davidic line by Christians, he may also have been accepted by the Muslims and Jews. That would obviously have changed Middle East history drastically. However, this was not the course of history and the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem did not succeed. With the loss of the Holy Land in 1291 to the Muslims, the Merovingians were sidelined and the Knights Templar rendered redundant. Since that time, the Roman Catholic Church has continued to strengthen at the expense of the truth
THE ANCIENT LEGACY OF THE RING AND THE GRAIL
Lecture by Laurence Gardner
From the earliest of Sumerian and Scythian times, over 5,000 years ago, the abiding symbol of wholeness, unity and eternity was the Ring. In those days, the kings-of-kings were also styled Ring Lords by virtue of their Rings of office which symbolised divinely inspired justice. They were golden circlets which, as time progressed, were often worn as head-bands - ultimately to become crowns.
As depicted in numerous reliefs, the Ring was a primary device of the Anunnaki gods, who were recorded as having descended into ancient Sumer and were responsible for the establishment of municipal government and kingly practice. In view of this, it is of particular relevance that, when the author J.R.R. Tolkien was asked, in the 1960s, about the Middle-earth environment of his book trilogy The Lord of the Rings, he said that he perceived its setting to relate to about 4000 BC.
Tolkien was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language and, in this regard, the root of his popular tale was extracted directly from Saxon folklore. Indeed, the early Saxon god Wotan (Odin) was said to have ruled the Nine Worlds of the Rings - having the ninth (the One Ring) to govern eight others.
As the generations passed from those ancient times, the ideal of dynastic kingship spread through the Mediterranean lands into the Balkans, the Black Sea regions and Europe. But, in the course of this, the crucial essence of the old wisdom was diluted and this gave rise to dynasties that were not of the original kingly race. Instead, many were unrelated warrior chiefs who gained their thrones by might of the sword.
The oldest complete version of the Ring Cycle comes from the Norse mythology of the Volsunga Saga. Compiled from more than forty separate legends, this Icelandic tale relates to the god Odin, to the kingdom of the Nine Worlds and to a dark forest called Mirkwood - a name later repeated by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. It tells of how Prince Sigmund of the Volsung dynasty is the only warrior able to pull the great sword of Odin from a tree in which the god had driven it to its hilt - as replicated in the Arthurian story of the sword and the stone. Additionally, we learn of the water-dwarf Andarvi, whose magical One Ring of red-gold could weave great wealth and power for its master - precisely as depicted in all related Ring legends.
Contemporary with the Volsunga Saga was a similar tale which appeared in and around Burgundy in the 1200s: a German epic called The Nibelungenlied. In this account, which follows a similar path, the hero is called Siegfried and the tale is given a knightly gloss of the Gothic era, while unfortunately losing some of the pagan enchantment of the Northern legend.
In ancient Sumer, the Anunnaki were said to have governed by way of a Grand Assembly of nine Councillors who sat at Nippur. The nine consisted of eight members (seven males and a female), who held the Rings of divine justice, along with their president, Anu, who held the One Ring to bind them all. This conforms precisely with the nine kingdoms of the Volsunga Saga, which cites Odin as the ultimate presidential Ring Lord.
In recent times there have been some astonishing archaeological discoveries which now prove that Sumerian was not the first written language as is commonly portrayed. Also that the Sumerian culture (generally held to be the earliest cradle of civilization) had an older origin in the Balkans, specifically in Transylvania and the Carpathian regions.
The earliest type of Mesopotamian writing, which preceded the strictly wedge-shaped Sumerian cuneiform, is known to be a little over 5,500 years old. It was found at Uruk in Sumer and at Jemdat Nasr, between Baghdad and Babylon, where the Oxford Assyriologist, Stephen Langdon, made numerous important discoveries in 1925. But, around thirty years ago a more significant find was subsequently made beneath the ancient village of Tartaria in Romania. Here were found clay tablets inscribed with a form of script which Carbon-14 dating and strata positioning have revealed to be more than 1,000 years older than the earliest Sumerian writings.
That was not the only surprise, however, for the Tartarian symbols were practically identical to those which emerged later in Mesopotamia. - and it was discovered that the very name of Ur (the capital of Sumer) came from the Scythian word Ur, meaning Lord. Not only that, but the name of Enki is clearly defined on one tablet in an identical form to that subsequently used in Sumer. Hence, it became very apparent that the Anunnaki culture was far more widespread than had previously been thought.
Another significant discovery was made high in the Altai Mountains between Siberia and Mongolia. There, preserved by the severe cold since the distant BC years, was found a Scythian burial mound, where the bodies of ancient chieftains, together with their horses, clothing and possessions had all been remarkably preserved from decay.
These were the people who, in the Black Sea steppe lands, first domesticated the horse in about 4000 BC. Consequently, the extent of their travels through the centuries and their influence on the various indigenous cultures is most impressive. It ranges geographically from Hungary and Romania, north into the Russian steppes and Siberia, eastwards across the Ukraine and Anatolia (modern Turkey), south into Syria and Mesopotamia, and still further east into Mongolia, Tibet and the Chinese border country.
Digging first commenced at the Altai site in 1927, but it was not until 1947 that the richest mound containing six separate tombs was discovered and the various bodies found. They were preserved not only by the extreme cold of the region, but also by skilled embalming. There was hair on their heads, but their brains had been removed, along with other internal organs (just as in Egyptian mummification).
Some way south of the Altai site, in the northern foothills of the Himalayas, are the centres of Hami, Loulan and Churchen. It was close to these places, nestling in the Tarim Basin below Mongolia, to the north of Tibet, that a number of similar discoveries were made as recently as 1994. Unlike the intensely cold climate of the Altai Mountains, this lower region of the Central Asian desert is quite different, as a result of which the bodies were preserved in the perfectly dry air, coupled with moisture-absorbing salt beds and, again, expert mummification.
Dated at around 4,000 years old, these interred men, women and children have undermined all the established history teaching of the area, which previously stated that no one of their type arrived there until about 120 BC. But there they were from 2,000 years earlier at the time of Abraham, when Egyptian pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great were more than 500 years into the future. These mummies, although contemporary with the mummies of ancient Egypt, are actually far better preserved.
Like their Romanian counterparts, the Himalayan mummies are of impressive stock, with light skin, auburn hair and pale eyes. The leather and woollen clad men stood at least 6-feet, 6-inches and upwards, while even the women were over 6-feet tall. Undoubtedly, these forebears of the Gaelic High Kings were among the most formidable warriors of their time, and their use of finely woven tartan cloth serves as identifiable proof of the plaid designs which they eventually brought into Ireland and Scotland.
From the 1st century, the Ring Lord culture fell into decline when various Roman emperors decreed that the Messianic heirs (the descendants of Jesus and his family) should be hunted down and put to the sword. This fact was recorded by eminent chroniclers such as Hegesippus, Africanus and Eusebius. Then, once the Roman Church was operative from the 4th century, the sacred dynasty was forever damned by the bishops.
It was this formal damnation which led to such events as the Albigensian Crusade in 1209 and the subsequent Catholic Inquisitions - for these brutal assaults by the papal machine were specifically directed against the upholders and champions of the original concept of Grail kingship, as against the style of pseudo-monarchy which had been implemented by the Bishops of Rome.
In practical terms, Church kingship has prevailed from the 8th century and has continued, through the ages, to the present day. But the fact is that, under strict terms of sovereign practice, all such monarchies and their affiliated governments have been invalid.
Church kingship is precisely that with which we have become so familiar. It applies to all monarchs who achieve their regnal positions by way of Church coronation by the Pope or other Christian leader (in Britain, by the Archbishop of Canterbury). Previously, in terms of true kingship, there was no necessity for coronation because kingly and queenly inheritance were always regarded as being 'in the blood'.
The change was made possible by way of a text called the Donation of Constantine - a document which led to just about every social injustice that has since been experienced in the Christian world. When the Donation made its first appearance in 751, it was alleged to have been written by Emperor Constantine some 400 years earlier, although strangely never produced in the interim. It was even dated and carried his supposed signature. What the document proclaimed was that the Emperor's appointed Pope was Christ's personally elected representative on Earth. He had the power to 'create' kings as his subordinates since his palace ranked above all the palaces in the world.
The provisions of the Donation were enacted by the Vatican, whereupon the Merovingian Kings of the Grail bloodline in Gaul were deposed and a whole new puppet-dynasty was supplemented by way of a family of hitherto mayors. They were dubbed Carolingians and their only king of any significance was the legendary Charlemagne. By way of this strategy, the whole nature of monarchy changed from being an office of community guardianship to one of absolute rule and, by virtue of this monumental change, the long-standing code of princely service was forsaken as European kings became servants of the Church instead of being servants of the people.
The fact is, however, that over 500 years ago in the Renaissance era, proof emerged that the Donation was an outright forgery. Its New Testament references relate to the Latin Vulgate Bible - an edition translated and compiled by St. Jerome, who was not born until AD 340, some 26 years after Constantine supposedly signed the document! Apart from that, the language of the Donation, with its numerous anachronisms in form and content, is that of the 8th century and bears no relation to the writing style of Constantine's day. But the truly ridiculous aspect is that the Donation's overwhelming dictate, which cemented the Pope as the supreme spiritual and temporal head of Christendom, has prevailed regardless.
Victimized prior to the formal Church Inquisition in the Middle Ages were the Cathars of the Languedoc region in the South of France. The Cathars were fully conversant with the Ring Lord culture and, in accordance with tradition, referred to the Messianic bloodline as the Elven Race, venerating them as the Shining Ones.
In the language of old Provence, a female elf was an 'albi', and Albi was the name given to the main Cathar centre in Languedoc. This was in deference to the matrilinear heritage of the Grail dynasty, for the Cathars were supporters of the Albi-gens - the elven bloodline which had descended through the Grail queens such as Lilith, Miriam, Bathsheba and Mary Magdalene. It was for this reason that, when Simon de Montfort and the armies of Pope Innocent III decimated the region from 1209, it was called the Albigensian Crusade.
The concept of calling the original princely race the Shining Ones, while also defining them as 'elves', dates well back into ancient Bible times and can be traced into Mesopotamia and Palestine. The ancient word El, which was used to identify a god or lofty-one (as in El Elyon and El Shaddai) actually meant Shining in old Mesopotamian Sumer. To the north in Babylonia, the derivative Ellu meant Shining One, while in Saxony and Britain it became Elf.
The concept of fairies was born directly from the Ring Lord culture and, deriving from the Greek word 'phare', the term related to a Great House, from which also stemmed the designation 'pharaoh'. In the Gaelic world, certain royal families were said to carry the fairy blood - that is to say, the fate or destiny of the Grail bloodline and of humankind at large. Meanwhile, the elf-maidens of the Albi-gens were the designated guardians of the earth, starlight and forest. It is for these reasons that fairies and elves have so often been portrayed as shoemakers and lamplighters, for the fairy cobblers made the shoes which measured the steps of life, while the Shining Ones of the elven race were there to light the way.
In national terms (although fairies present a widespread image), they are particularly associated with Ireland, where they are epitomized by the ancient people of the Tuatha Dé Danann. This formidable king tribe was, nevertheless, mythologized by the Christian monks, who rewrote the majority of Irish history to suit their own Church's vested interest in Ireland.
From a base of the monastic texts, which arose onwards from medieval times, it is generally stated that the Tuatha Dé Danann were the supernatural tribe of the agricultural goddess Danaë of Argos, but their true name (rendered in its older form) was Tuadhe d'Anu - the people (or tribe) of Anu, the great sky god of the Anunnaki.
Onwards from the year 751, the Church sought all possible measures to diminish the status of any royal strain emanating from the original Ring Lords so that the fraudulent Donation of Constantine could be brought into play. Henceforth, only the subjugative Church could determine who was a king, while the elves and fairies of the Albi-gens were manoeuvred from the forefront of history into a realm of apparent fantasy and legend.
Settling in Ireland from about 800 BC, the noble Tuadhe d'Anu hailed from the Central European lands of Scythia, which stretched from the Carpathian mountains and Transylvanian Alps, across to the Russian River Don. They were strictly known as the Royal Scyths and they were said to be the masters of a transcendent intellect called the Sidhé, which was known to the druids as the Web of the Wise.
As the Church rose to power, so the underground stream, which supported the Ring Lord culture, found strategic methods of preserving the traditions of the royal bloodline. In the course of this, the fairy tale concept was born - stories which were not unlike many of the parables inherent in the New Testament Gospels. They were likewise contrived 'for those with ears to hear', while others among the uninitiated would perceive them as no more than fanciful entertainment.
A focal message built into these fairy tales was an understanding of the importance of perpetuating the family line, regardless of the power of the bishops and the Church's puppet kings. The whole scenario was presented, time after time, as if it were a struggling nightmare, wherein the female (the elf-maiden who carried the essence of the strain) was out of reach of the prince, so that his torturous quest to find her was akin to the quest for the Holy Grail itself.
Consequently, many of the tales which emanated from this base were stories of lost brides and usurped kingship, based upon the Church's subjugation of the Grail bloodline. The fairy tale ideal was essentially geared to relate the truth of these persecutions. They were allegorical accounts of the predicament of the Messianic family, whose fairies and elves (having been manoeuvred from the mortal plane of orthodoxy and status quo) were confined to a contrived otherworldly existence.
They emerged as tales of valiant princes who were turned into frogs; of swan knights who roamed the wasteland, and of Grail princesses locked in towers, or put to sleep for hundreds of years. In the course of their persecution, the elf-maidens were pricked with bodkins, fed with poisoned apples, subjected to spells or condemned to servitude, while their champions swam great lakes, battled through thickets and scaled mighty towers to secure and protect the matrilinear heritage of the Albi-gens.
These romantic legends include such well-known stories as the Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel. In all cases, the underlying theme is the same, with the princess kept (through drugging, imprisonment or some form of restraint) out of reach of the prince, who has to find her and release her in order to preserve the dynasty and perpetuate the line.
It was during the period of France's Carolingian dynasty that the seeds of most of these popular stories were planted, and it is because of the inherent truths which lie behind the stories that we find them so naturally appealing. Some academics argue that fairy tales survive because they are often based upon a rags-to-riches doctrine, but this is not the case. They survive because deep within our psyche is an inherent, inbred awareness that the Grail (symbolised by the Lost Bride) has to be found if the wasteland is to return to fertility.
A primary feature of the traditional folklore related to the Ring and Grail quests is that it embodies a nominal terminology that was historically applicable to the Messianic dynasts. As cited, the terms fairy and elf each related to certain castes within the succession of the Shining Ones. But there were others - notably the pixies - who were of the utmost importance within the overall structure of the princely bloodline. Having the same Sidhé heritage as the historical elves and fairies, their familiar name derived from the description Pict-sidhé. In time, following their migration into Anjou, Ireland and the far North of Britain, they became better known, the Picts. They called their northern domain 'Caledonia' - the land of the Caille Daouine forest people.
The social structures of the Scythian Ring Lord were firmly centred upon designated seats of assembly which became known as Fairy Rings. These royal seats (from Scythia to Ireland) were known as Raths, which denoted round or circular constructions. On that account, the Round Table of Arthurian romance was designed to symbolize this concept. What is generally not recognized, however, is that (just like the Volsunga Saga and the Nibelungenlied) the Arthurian mythos is itself a very powerful Ring Cycle. The true legacy of the Round table lies not in the Table itself, but in the knights who sat at the table - for these noble emissaries represented the most important aspect of ancient lore by presenting themselves as a living, iron-clad Ring. In accordance with traditional Ring lore, the land fell into waste and chaos when the power of the Ring was usurped by virtue of Queen Guinevere being unfaithful to Arthur with Lancelot.
From around 1800 BC, the Kassites of Babylonia were predominant in the Rath culture. They gained their name from the word 'kassi', which meant 'place of wood' - the place in question being a sacred mound dwelling, variantly called a 'caddi'. By virtue of this, the Kassites were designated Wood Lords.
Following their time in Babylonia, they moved across Syria and Phoenicia into Europe and, eventually, to Britain where they established many great kingdoms within which the remnant of their name survived - the Welsh King Cadwallan, for example, and the earlier British King Casswallan, who reigned at about the time of Herod the Great. In each of these names the 'wallan' aspect is important since it was also the distinction of a Wood Lord - again with Mesopotamian roots. The original Wallans were called Yulannu, and it was from their ancient tradition that the winter solstice Yuletide festival derived before moving into Scandinavia.
Apart from the fairies, pixies and elves of history, there are others of the Shining Ones who are also said to inhabit the magical Land of Elphame; they are the sprites, goblins, gnomes and leprechauns.
The definition 'sprite' means no more nor less than a spirit person - one of the transcendental realm of the Sidhé. The original sprites were the ancient Scythian ghost warriors, who painted their bodies grey-blue to look like corpses when they entered the battlefield.
The 'goblin' description stems from the Germanic word kobelin, which denoted a mine-worker or one who worked underground. In the context of the Ring culture, goblins and gnomes were attendants of the Raths, wherein they were custodians of the wealth and wisdom of the ages, being essentially treasurers and archivists. It was their role as guardians of the treasures which led to their nominal distinction being used in association with banking, as in the Gnomes of Zurich. The word root is in the Greek equivalent of 'g-n-o', from which we derive gnosis (knowledge).
As for the 'leprechauns', they were the armoured horse troops of the Pict-sidhé. Their body armour was made from small overlapped plates of bronze, which tarnished to a greenish colour so they looked like lizards or dragons. In this regard, they were called 'lepra-corpan' (scaly body), a word corrupted in Ireland to leprechaun.
The Catholic Inquisition, although ostensibly set against heretics, managed to include all manner of groups and factions within this overall classification. Witchcraft was a common accusation, and into this particular net fell the gypsies. Any person with no fixed place of residence was regarded with suspicion because an itinerant lifestyle was perceived as a means by which to evade Church authority.
The main premise of Christianity was the promise of salvation as achieved through subservience to the bishops, aligned with the perpetuation of a serene afterlife in a heavenly environment. But how could the alternative notion of Hell be portrayed on Earth in a manner which would scare the life out of tentative believers or reluctant worshippers? Somehow Hell had to be given an earthly form, and what better than the notion of dead people who could not complete their dying because they were so hideously unclean - people who were, in fact, 'undead'. Such people, said the churchmen, had to roam the mortal world like lost souls with no dimension of life or death to call their own.
The concept was good enough in part, but it was really no more scary than the idea of ghosts with a physical form. Something else was needed; these beings had to become predators in order to make people fearful enough to lean wholly upon the Church for deliverance. So, what would all people, rich and poor alike, fear to lose the most if they were seeking salvation for their souls?
The answer to this question was found in the Bible - to be precise, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, which states: "It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul". It was therefore decided that the undead creatures would be said to prey upon people's blood, thereby divesting them of the route to atonement.
A problem to overcome in this regard was the fact that this Leviticus statement was part of a very ancient Hebrew law and had little or nothing to do with Christianity. But a way was soon found to cope with the anomaly when the Church ruled that every good Christian who partook of the Communion wine was figuratively drinking the blood of Christ. This divine blood then became a part of his or her own body and any creature which then extracted blood from such a person was reckoned to be stealing the blood of Christ!
These bloodthirsty revenants could only be repelled, it was decreed, by such devices as holy water and the crucifix. And so the Church introduced a truly fearsome creature into its subjugative mythology. They were classified as vampires - a word which derived from the old Scythian title for a kingly overlord of the Rath - a Lord of the Rings.
In summary it can be said that the ancient progenitors of our culture and spiritual heritage have never been positively featured in our academic teachings. Instead, their reality was quashed from the earliest days of Roman suppression as the literal diminution of their figures caused a parallel demolition of their history - to be portrayed as the fairies, elves, pixies and vampires of legend.
Notwithstanding this, the sovereign culture, from which derived all the so-called mythology that sits so comfortably within our collective memory comes from one place alone. It comes from a place and time which, to use J.R.R. Tolkien's definition, might just as well be called Middle-earth as by any other name.
It comes from the long distant Realm of the Ring Lords ....
All humanity is interrelated many times over (contrary to what an endless procession of racists and tribalists throughout history have claimed). For any two humans in history or today, it is not a question of do they have a common ancestor, it is only a question of when was the most recent one. If we had full genealogical records for all history, then any 2 living people on earth could identify their closest relationship to each other. Or indeed any 2 living organisms on earth, since DNA probably did not evolve twice. One could also pick any famous person, alive or dead, and show your closest relationship to them. For they are all related. See pre-historical estimates for Common ancestors of all humans.
Since we don't have such records, we have to make do with what is documented. As we travel far enough back in time, what is documented continuously is of course only the royalty and nobility - the ruling elite, if you like. Lines from major religious figures are also sometimes preserved, but usually only because the ruling elite ends up descended from them.
Showing descents from successive English monarchs is probably the most convenient way of tying the West together. You will be aware, of course, that later monarchs are descended many times over from earlier ones. So it allows us show short descents from the most recent monarch (rather than every descent needing a long tail going up to some very remote common ancestor). Some continental descents, though, may have to go all the way up to Charlemagne, from whom all English monarchs since William the Conqueror descend.
Since we don't have such records, we have to make do with what is documented. As we travel far enough back in time, what is documented continuously is of course only the royalty and nobility - the ruling elite, if you like. Lines from major religious figures are also sometimes preserved, but usually only because the ruling elite ends up descended from them.
Showing descents from successive English monarchs is probably the most convenient way of tying the West together. You will be aware, of course, that later monarchs are descended many times over from earlier ones. So it allows us show short descents from the most recent monarch (rather than every descent needing a long tail going up to some very remote common ancestor). Some continental descents, though, may have to go all the way up to Charlemagne, from whom all English monarchs since William the Conqueror descend.
The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
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