h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Mustapha
So you did the Merovingian piece. Jolly good! How do you come to be doing that sort of stuff?

I have added an entry on Celts - a broad historical chronology, rather than a narrative.

Is New Plymouth where Massey Uni is?

Cheers
Bran.
P.S. My Hobart entry has just been accepted after about 15 weeks. Seems to take that long.

Thanks for reading it for a start! It's a particularly esoteric subject.

I first came across the Merovingians in a book called "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail". While the book's suppositions are highly tenuous (not to mention dubious), the chapter on the Merovingians was quite interesting. Since then I have looked through various libraries for anything about them, which isn't much. Charlemagne gets more than his fair share of literature.

I have actually read your Celtic entry (I think it was yours) and it kind of inspired me to do mine.

Massey's main campus is at Palmerston North, but the Taranaki Polytech is an extramural campus for some courses. But if you're asking me about my tertiary training, it involved fine arts and journalism (and a little social anthropology), not history.


Mustapha, Champion of the Historically-Ignored

And thanks for reading the Celts entry. I got into the Merovigians a bit a few years ago when I was doing a qualifying program to gain entry to the Phd in history (my background it in organisational psychology). I even wrote an essay on the reason their dynasty ended. There is a decent book I found by E. James called "The Origins of France: from Clovis to the Capetians, 500-1000", 1982, which had some good stuff on the dynasty, as well as a more recent one by Ian Wood called "The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751", which came out in 1994.

I always seem to get Palmerston North and New Plymouth mixed up! My parents have recently moved to Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast - so I need to get the regional geography straight!
See you
Bran.

Hmm, 450 AD, 500 AD... Anything specifically about the origins of the line, say from 406/7-451 AD? In particular, a legendary (but not legendary enough) figure called Pharamond?

I don't have the books to hand at the moment (library borrows), but from memory they only go back to Merovius as the eponymous founder, as well as chattibg for a while on Childeric, Clovis's dad. But, I might be corrected here. I'll check next time I am in that repository of learning that passes for our library.
Bran.

Much obliged. Gibbons' Decline and Fall of Rome" has a description of the Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne mentioning some of these guys, but his work is more prosaic than chronological.

Yes, Gibbon was not one to let historical detail get in the way of narrative!

Again from memory - the James book seems to go into Gregory of Tours(which is a great read by the way) mostly for early stuff. The Wood book talked about the origins of the Franks, and the early Franks, but as it is essentially all based on Gregory, I don't think Wood had a lot to say.

I actually had someone in one of the courses I run on Celtic history claim that he was of Merovingian descent! How the hell he know I have no idea! Still, he was fairly florrid and verbose so who knows.
Cheers,
Bran.

Well, the theory in genealogy goes that if you go back far enough, you can find yourself being related to all sorts of historical celebs even Roman Emperors.

The Merovingians moved around quite a bit (just like any other people), so it's entirely possible for little bastard threads to be found here and there. Kent in England, and the south of France might be good places to look.