The Merovingian Dynasty was a Frankish dynasty considered the first French royal house.

It was the first major political authority which rose out of the ashes of the dying Roman Empire in Europe.

It was named for Merovech (fl. c. 450), 

Merovech (French: Mérovée, Merowig; Latin: Meroveus; c. 411 – 458) was the ancestor of the Merovingian dynasty. He was reportedly a king of the Salian Franks, but records of his existence are mixed with legend and myth. The most important written source, Gregory of Tours, recorded that Merovech was said to be descended from Chlodio, a roughly contemporary Frankish warlord who pushed from the Silva Carbonaria in modern central Belgium as far south as the Somme, north of Paris in modern-day France. His supposed descendants, the kings Childeric I and Clovis I, are the first well-attested Merovingians.  He may have been one of several barbarian warlords and kings that joined forces with the Roman general Aetius against the Huns under Attila at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in Gaul in 451.

whose son Childeric I (d. 482?) ruled a tribe of Salian Franks from his capital at Tournai.
 

Flavius Childeric I (/ˈkɪldərɪk/; French: Childéric; Latin: Flavius Childericus; reconstructed Frankish: *Hildirīk; died 481 AD) was a Frankish leader in the northern part of imperial Roman Gaul and a member of the Merovingian dynasty, described as a king (Latin rex), both on his Roman-style seal ring, which was buried with him, and in fragmentary later records of his life. He was father of Flavius Chlodovechus, who acquired effective control over all or most Frankish kingdoms, and a significant part of Roman Gaul.

His son, Clovis I, united nearly all of Gaul in the late 5th century except Burgundy and present-day Provence.
 

Clovis (Latin: Chlodovechus; reconstructed Frankish: *Hlodowig; c. 466 – 27 November 511) was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of petty kings to rule by a single king and ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. Clovis is important in the historiography of France as "the first king of what would become France".

On his death the realm was divided among his sons, but by 558 it was united under his last surviving son, Chlotar I.
 

Chlothar I[a], sometime called "the Old" (French: le Vieux), (died c. December 561) also anglicized as Clotaire, was a king of the Franks of the Merovingian dynasty and one of the four sons of Clovis I.

The pattern of dividing and then reuniting the realm continued for generations.

After the reign of Dagobert I (623?639), the authority of the Merovingian kings declined, and real power gradually came to rest in the hands of the mayors of the palace.
 

Dagobert I (Latin: Dagobertus; c. 605/603 – 19 January 639 AD) was King of the Franks. He ruled Austrasia (623–634) and Neustria and Burgundy (629–639). He has been described as the last king of the Merovingian dynasty to wield real royal power. Dagobert was the first Frankish king to be buried in the royal tombs at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

In 751 the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, 

Childeric III (c. 717 – c. 754) was King of the Franks from 743 until he was deposed in 751 by Pepin the Short. He was the last Frankish king from the Merovingian dynasty. Once Childeric was deposed, Pepin became king, initiating the Carolingian dynasty.

was deposed by Pippin III, the first of the Carolingian dynasty.

Pepin the Short (Latin: Pipinus; French: Pépin le Bref; c. 714 – 24 September 768), was King of the Franks from 751 until his death in 768. He was the first Carolingian to become king.

Clovis I was the first important ruler of the Merovingian Dynasty and is considered the founder of the French State.

 

He became Chieftain of the Salian Franks in 481.

to form the first Frankish Kingdom.

 

Clovis I married in 493 to Clotilde (475 - 545),

 

Clotilde (c. 474 – 3 June 545), also known as Clothilde, Clotilda, Clotild, Rotilde etc. (Latin: Chrodechildis, Chlodechildis from Frankish *Hrōþihildi or perhaps *Hlōdihildi, both "famous in battle"), was a Queen of the Franks. She was supposedly descended from the Gothic king Athanaric and became the second wife of the Frankish king Clovis I (r. 481–509) in 493. The Merovingian dynasty to which her husband belonged ruled Frankish kingdoms for over 200 years (450–758).  Venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church as well as by the Eastern Orthodox Church, she played a role in her husband's famous conversion to Christianity and, in her later years, became known for her almsgiving and penitential works of mercy. She is credited with spreading Christianity within western Europe.

later St. Clotilda, daughter of Chilperic, King of the Burgundians.

Chilperic I (c. 539 – September 584) was the king of Neustria (or Soissons) from 561 to his death. He was one of the sons of the Frankish king Clotaire I and Queen Aregund.

and Clovis II.

Germanic tribesmen living close to the North Sea tended to have fairly large timber houses supported by four rows of posts that divided the house into three rooms.

The family lived in the center room, while a smaller room on one side was used for storage and a larger room on the other side was used to house the animals whose body heat helped warm the living quarters.

or that 

Further inland, people tended to inhabit dwellings that were supported by upright posts but without interior supports.

These dwellings varied in size from 20 feet X 12 feet up to perhaps 25 feet square.

Long, narrow buildings about 12 feet X 25 feet housed the cattle while smaller structures 12 feet square were used for storage.

Some of these smaller storage buildings were partially underground.

and beans.

Crop rotation was practiced, and fields were improved by adding limestone and manure.

Depleted soil was abandoned, and new land brought into use using the slash and burn technique.

Simple scratch ploughs pulled by oxen were most common, and they didn't actually turn the soil.

Grain was left attached to the hay and was roasted slightly to preserve it.

Grain was separated from the hay as needed and ground using simple hand grindstones.

Once ground, flour was used to prepare porridge and flat bread.

Grain was also used to make beer.

Cattle were very important and were an indicator of wealth.

and geese were also kept.

Wild animals were hunted and killed for sport and to eliminate nuisance animals.

Wild animals are thought to have made up less than 5% of the total animals used.

Iron was produced using small, crude but effective charcoal furnaces made of earth.

These ovens held about a liter of ore, and only 200 grams of iron could be made at a time from the very best ore.

This iron was worked into very high-quality steel, far superior to the equipment of the Roman troops.

However, the Germanic tribes were iron poor, and weapons such as long swords were rare.

Each individual household was dominated by the father who held authority over all the members.

A number of households, sometimes as many as fifty, were grouped into a family clan-like organization.

A number of clans formed a tribe which was sometimes overseen by a "king" who was really a tribal chieftain.

The "king" was usually chosen from one family that was most closely identified with the ethnic, cultural and historical traditions of the tribe - that is, from a "royal family."

Some tribes had several kings, one to preside over meetings, one for religious ceremonies and one for military command.

Other tribes didn't have a king at all.

In order to survive and prosper, a tribe had become almost completely militarized; that is, the tribe had to become an army.

This is what appears to have happened with the Salian Franks whose Merovingian Kings dominated the region from the fifth century onwards.

From the middle of the seventh century on, their power declined, and the real authority rested to an ever-increasing extent with the Mayors of the Palace.

and throne.

When King Theuderic IV died in 737, he was not replaced.

Charles Martel ruled instead as Mayor of the Palace.
 

Charles Martel (c. 688 – 22 October 741) Martel being a sobriquet in Old French for "The Hammer", was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace to the Merovingian kings of the Franks, was the de facto ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle".

Charles Martel died in 741 and was succeeded by his sons Pépin the Short and Carloman.
 

Carloman (between 706 and 716[a] – 17 August[b] 754) was the eldest son of Charles Martel, mayor of the palace and duke of the Franks, and his wife Chrotrud of Treves. On Charles's death (741), Carloman and his brother Pepin the Short succeeded to their father's legal positions, Carloman in Austrasia, and Pepin in Neustria. He was a member of the family later called the Carolingians and it can be argued that he was instrumental in consolidating their power at the expense of the ruling Merovingian kings of the Franks. He withdrew from public life in 747 to take up the monastic habit, "the first of a new type of saintly king", according to Norman Cantor, "more interested in religious devotion than royal power, who frequently appeared in the following three centuries and who was an indication of the growing impact of Christian piety on Germanic society".

The brothers Pépin and Carloman instituted another king, Childeric III in 743, largely to ease the concern of other Frankish leaders about their growing power.

Carloman withdrew from politics in 747 and retired to the monastery of Monte Cassino.

In 751, Childeric III also wisely decided to retire to a monastery and Pépin the Short had himself proclaimed king in November 751, thus officially ending the Merovingian Dynasty.

Pépin I the Short was the first Carolingian King.

Having displaced the Merovingians, it was in the interests of the Carolingian Kings to depict their predecessors as useless anachronisms.

Hence, the earlier Merovingians were depicted as evil and brutal tyrants while later Merovingians were propagandized as lazy and simple incompetents.

If a Merovingian could be deposed and sent to a monastery, and a new king consecrated in his place, so too could a Carolingian.

Less than a century later, Louis the Pious was temporarily displaced

Louis I,[c] better known as Louis the Pious (Latin: Hludowicus Pius; German: Ludwig der Fromme; French: Louis le Pieux; 778 – 20 June 840) also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only surviving son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position that he held until his death except from 833 to 834, when he was deposed.

and by the tenth century, the Carolingians were replaced altogether by the Capetian Kings. ("House of France")

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Merovingian Dynasty

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Merovingian Dynasty – Library of Rick and RIA (RARE Information Access)