The Merovingian world has become more visible in Anglophone historical studies in the past two decades as attention to the social and economic networks of empires and modes of communication has begun to change older frameworks that viewed these centuries in terms of decline and characterizedthem as the "Dark Ages". The Merovingian epoch witnessed, something which we understand from the perspective of hindsight, a "tilt" to the middle ages. The forty-six essays included in this volume thus highlight the vitality and importance of the Merovingian kingdoms in the fifth through eighthcenturies. Rather than suggest that this was a chaotic and obscure interlude between the "Fall of the Roman Empire" and the "Rise of the Carolingians," and named for a dynasty with a reputation for few accomplishments and even fewer memorable kings, the essays demonstrate that the Merovingian era isan important field in its own right. The Handbook's contributors highlight recent research that moves beyond the political developments that were until recently the bread and butter of most historians, and include many contributions based on material culture that shed new light on subjects that previously were inaccessible. Theydemonstrate that the Merovingian world was at the center of a wide-ranging Merovingian empire of elites, peasants, economies, and cultures, and its story must be told through archaeology, bio-archaeology, architecture, hagiographic literature, manuscripts, liturgy, visionary literature andeschatology, patristics, numismatics, and material culture. In addition to mainland "France", the essays encompass the geographic conduits of power, culture, and trade that connected the Merovingian world with Anglo-Saxon England, Ireland, Frisia, Spain, Italy, North Africa, and the ByzantineEmpire. This network-empire of intersecting (and often conflicting) identities, political interests, religions, economies, patronage, and cultures, were intrinsically connected to contemporary developments not just among the Burgundians and Visigoths, but among the Byzantines, Avars, Anglo-Saxons, Frisians, and the Irish, fields that were once viewed, like the Merovingians themselves, in isolation. These important developments reveal why the Merovingian period has attracted new audiences and why it will never be viewed as a backwater again. | The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World by Bonnie Effros, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters