This interdisciplinary volume re-evaluates the interconnectedness of the Merovingian world with its Mediterranean surroundings.

List of figures; List of contributors; Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; Introduction Stefan Esders and Yitzhak Hen; Part I. Expanding Political Horizons: 1. Archaeological perspectives on communication and exchange between the Merovingians and the Eastern Mediterranean Jörg Drauschke; 2. Anxiously looking east: Burgundian foreign policy on the eve of the Reconquest Yaniv Fox; 3. Pax inter utramque gentem: the Merovingians, Byzantium and the history of Frankish identity Helmut Reimitz; Part II. Patterns of Intensification - the 580s: 4. Cultural transmission caught in the act: Gregory of Tours and the relics of St Sergius Phillip Wynn; 5. Hermenegild's rebellion and conversion - Merovingian and Byzantine connections Wolfram Drews; 6. Early Byzantine church silver offered for the eternal rest of Framarich and Karilos: evidence of 'the army of heroic men' raised by Tiberius II Constantine? Benjamin Fourlas; 7. Money for nothing? Franks, Byzantines and Lombards in the sixth and seventh century Andreas Fischer; Part III. The Pope as a Mediterranean Player: 8. The Papacy and the Frankish Bishops in the sixth century Sebastian Scholz; 9. A one-way ticket to Francia: Constantinople, Rome and northern Gaul in the mid-seventh century Charles Mériaux; 10. The digression on Pope Martin I in the Life of Eligius of Noyon. A testimony to late seventh-century knowledge exchange between East and West? Laury Sarti; 11. Perceptions of Rome and the papacy in late Merovingian Francia: the Cononian recension of the Liber pontificalis Rosamond McKitterick; Part IV. Religious and Cultural Exchange: 12. Relocation to the West: the relic of the True Cross in Poitiers Galit Noga-Banai; 13. A generic Mediterranean: hagiography in the early Middle Ages Jamie Kreiner; 14. Defensor of Ligugé's Liber scintillarum and the migration of knowledge Yitzhak Hen; 15. Willibald in the holy places Ora Limor; Part V. Rethinking the Late Merovingians: 16. 'Great security prevailed in both East and West': the Merovingian kingdoms and the 6th Ecumenical Council (680/81) Stefan Esders; 17. In the circle of the bishop of Bourges: Bern 611 and late Merovingian culture David Ganz; 18. Contact with the Eastern Mediterranean in the late Merovingian period Ian Wood; 19. 'Merovingian' illuminated manuscripts and their links with the eastern Mediterranean world Laurence Nees; 20. 'Sons of Ishmael, turn back!' Ann Chrystis; 21. Carolingian kingship, apostolic authority and imperial recognition of Pippin the Short's 'Italienpolitik' and the quest for royal legitimacy Erik Goosmann; Index.