The Merovingians

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.

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.

One of the abiding symbols of the Merovingians was the bee. Hundreds of pure gold bees were found in King Childeric's tomb. The custom endured through the centuries. When Napoleon was crowned emperor in 1804, he made sure that golden bees were attached to his coronation robes. He was fascinated by the Merovingians and commissioned their genealogies to be compiled in order to find out whether the dynasty had survived after it had been deposed. These formed the basis of the genealogies found in the Priory of Sion documents.

Dagobert II

Dagobert was born in 651 and when Clovis, his father, died in 656, all efforts were made to prevent him from inheriting Austrasia, the north-eastern realm of Clovis.
The leading Mayor of the Palace of the time, Grimoald, kidnapped Dagobert as soon as his father died and managed to persuade the court first that Dagobert was dead, and second that Clovis had wanted Grimoald's son to inherit the throne. So convincing was he that even Dagobert's mother believed him.

However, Grimoald had been unable to bring himself to murder Dagobert and had taken him to the Bishop of Poitiers, who had the child King exiled to Ireland. Here he grew up and was educated at the monastery of Slane near Dublin. He married a Celtic princess, Mathilde, and moved to York in northern England, where he got to know Saint Wilfred, the Bishop of York. At this time, the Merovingian alliance with the Roman Church was not as strong as it had been at the time of Clovis.

Wilfred was very keen to bring the Celtic and Roman churches together, which both sides had agreed upon at the Council of Whitby in 664. However, it seems that Wilfred also recognized the valuable potential of Dagobert - the rightful King of Austrasia - returning to France and reclaiming the land as the militant representative of the Church.

Dagobert's wife died in 670 and Wilfred was swift to ensure that Dagobert's next wife was chosen with care. She was Giselle de Razes, the daughter of the Count of Razes and the niece of the King of the Visigoths. This alliance between the Merovingians and the Visigoths would not only have brought much of France under the same rule, it would have empowered Rome over the Visigoths.

Austrasia formed the north-eastern portion of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks, comprising parts of the territory of present-day eastern France, western Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Metz served as its primary capital, although some Austrasian kings ruled from Rheims also.

They married at the church of St. Magdeleine in Rennes-le-Chateau. Having had four daughters through his two marriages, Dagobert now became the father to a son in 676 - Sigisbert IV.

King of Austrasia

After living three years at Rennes-le-Chateau, Dagobert was proclaimed the King of Austrasia. He quickly set about re-establishing order throughout his new kingdom and in so doing greatly increased his wealth.

He did not, however, live up to Wilfred's expectations. Therefore, inevitably, with his new-found wealth and lands, he developed enemies. He also caused the resentment of the rulers of neighboring Frankish lands, some of whom had connections in Dagobert's court that could be dangerous to him. One of these was his Mayor to the Palace, the treacherous Pepin the Fat.

King Dagobert II, thirteenth king of Austrasia, was threatened by Ebroïn, who was Mayor of the palace to Thierry, king of Neustria. Ebroïn administered Neustria unchecked and he wanted to seize Austrasia as well.
Under the guidance of Wulfoad, his own Mayor of the palace, Dagobert II had given his son Sigebert a share of his throne. But the King of Austrasia's sensible precautions were thwarted by Ebroin.

The assassination

The year 679 was coming to its end and Dagobert was living in his royal house, SATHANACUM - known today as Stenay - where he was to spend the Christmas holiday. On 23rd December, he went out hunting in the forest of "Wepria" (known today as Woëvre) with a number of followers. Around the middle of the day, tired from the hunt, the king sat down near a fountain, which ran near to a large oak, to take some rest. It is still called ARPHAYS, and the section of the forest known as "SCORTlA" One of the servants among the conspirators struck the king while he was praying.

Dagobert, last king of a wide and powerful realm, perished, dying while doing good.
The king's body was taken first to the villa of Charmois, during the evening of 23rd December, then to the basilica of Sathanacum, which at that time was dedicated to Saint Rémi. All the dignitaries of the realm came to mourn the death of the sovereign.

Saint Dagobert II

The Roman Church wasted no time in commending the action. However, perhaps through guilt, they canonized Dagobert in 872, when his remains were moved to the graveyard of a church which was renamed "the Church of Saint Dagobert." They even gave him his own feast day, on December 23rd. This day also happened to be sacred to the Benjamite tribe. The Roman Catholic Church has always been unable or unwilling to explain why he was canonized.

From the day of his burial in the Church of Saint Dagobert, his grave has been a destination of pilgrimage for various significant historical figures including the Duke of Lorraine, the grandfather of Godfroi de Bouillon. The church was destroyed during the French Revolution and most of the relics of Saint Dagobert disappeared. Today only what is believed to be his skull remains, and it is held at a convent at Mons. Curiously some years later, a poem entitled "de Sancta Dagoberto martyre prose" appeared. Its message was that Dagobert had been martyred for some reason and it was found at the Abbey of Orval.

The end of the Merovingian era

Dagobert's assassination effectively marked the end of the Merovingian era. After the death of Dagobert, the Merovingian dynasty fell into decline, although they managed to hang onto much of their status for nearly a hundred more years. However, many of the monarchs were too young to be effective, and were unable to defend themselves against the relentless ambitions of the Mayors of the Palace. Childeric III died childless in 754 and that was the clearest sign that the dynasty's flame had expired.

What became of his son Sigisbert? No-one knows. According to some, he died before his father. Others say it was at the same time or after. Still others have him slipping through the clutches

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.