Histoire poétique des Mérovingiens by Godefroid Kurth
"Histoire poétique des Mérovingiens" by Godefroid Kurth is a historical study written in the late 19th century. The work examines how oral epic tradition shaped early accounts of the Merovingian Franks and aims to distinguish legend from history by testing chronicles against the patterns of popular poetry. It situates Gregory of Tours, Fredegar, and related texts within a broader Germanic epic culture while bridging philology and historiography. The opening of the study
sketches its genesis in classroom readings of Gregory of Tours, where uneven tones around Clovis suggested a patchwork of sources and oral tales. The preface and introduction argue that epic is the earliest form of history, that popular imagination stylizes events into legend and song, and that only later do critical methods arise to separate fact from poetic elaboration. The author critiques earlier historians for either credulity or blanket rejection, credits philologists with diagnosing epic traits, and surveys major scholarship from Wolff and the Grimm brothers through Fauriel, Ampère, Schlegel, Junghans, Monod, and finally Rajna, whose work strengthens the case for a Merovingian epic cycle. He then sets his aim: to apply these insights systematically so historians can tell what is real and what is legendary. Beginning Book I, the chapter on sources establishes, with Tacitus, that Germanic peoples preserved history in songs, and illustrates this with Gothic materials (Jordanes, Cassiodorus, Ammianus; figures like Hermanaric, Attila, Theodoric). It proceeds to Lombard traditions via Paul the Deacon—vivid tales of Alboin, Authari, and others—to show how epic motifs pervade the earliest annals that later writers inherited. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Kurth, Godefroid, 1847-1916 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 24023867 |
| Title | Histoire poétique des Mérovingiens |
| Original Publication | Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1893. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | DC: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: France, Andorra, Monaco |
| Subject | France -- History -- To 987 |
| Subject | Merovingians |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78135 |
| Release Date | Mar 7, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 229 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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