Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent

Author:Michael Baigent [Baigent, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-307-48598-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1996-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

(BOW THY HEAD HUMBLY, SICAMBRIAN, REVERE WHAT THOU HAST BURNED AND WHAT THOU HAST REVERED.)

It is important to note that Clovis’s baptism was not a coronation – as historians sometimes suggest. The Church did not make Clovis a king. He was already that, and all the Church could do was recognise him as such. By virtue of so doing, the Church officially bound itself not to Clovis alone, but to his successors as well – not to a single individual, but to a bloodline. In this respect the pact resembled the covenant which God, in the Old Testament, makes with King David – a pact which can be modified, as in Solomon’s case, but not revoked, broken or betrayed. And the Merovingians did not lose sight of the parallel.

During the remaining years of his life Clovis fully realised Rome’s ambitious expectations of him. With irresistible efficiency, faith was imposed by the sword; and with the sanction and spiritual mandate of the Church, the Frankish kingdom expanded to both east and south, encompassing most of modern France and much of modern Germany. Among Clovis’s numerous adversaries the most important were the Visigoths, who adhered to Arian Christianity. It was against the empire of the Visigoths – which straddled the Pyrenees and extended as far north as Toulouse – that Clovis directed his most assiduous and concerted campaigns. In 507 he decisively defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé. Shortly thereafter Aquitaine and Toulouse fell into Frankish hands. The Visigoth empire north of the Pyrenees effectively collapsed before the Frankish onslaught. From Toulouse, the Visigoths fell back to Carcassonne. Driven from Carcassonne, they established their capital, and last remaining bastion, in the Razès, at Rhédae – now the village of Rennes-le-Château.

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