Merovingian Architecture

Merovingian architecture is the building tradition of the Merovingian dynasty of Franks, who ruled in Gaul from the fifth to the eighth centuries across territory now spanning France, the Benelux countries and parts of Germany. It formed part of the wider Merovingian art of the period, a transitional style in early Western European art that blended Germanic barbarian animal-style decoration with Late Antique motifs and influences reaching as far as Syria and Ireland, and that historians see as a stage on the path from Late Antique art into the Carolingian and Romanesque periods. Surviving Merovingian work is concentrated in stone carving on sarcophagi, altars and church furnishings, alongside goldwork and manuscript illumination, so architecture from the period is understood mainly through these decorated remains and their integration into church buildings rather than through large secular structures.