The Merovingian Dynasty, was the first dynasty of the Frankish Kings, descended from Merovee.
Our tradition teaches that Merovee, who was also a mystic and a Wizard, in addition to being a warlord, has been in possess of a lot of ancient knowledge that today belongs to our Venerable Order.
Merovee, was not just an historical figure, but also mythical and legendary, in fact, an ancient legend depicted him as a son of a King and of a sea monster which joined his wife.
This legend, it is actually a myth created to pass a very essential knowledge, to make possible to unravel the ancient origins of the merovingians, which are going back to the ancient Babylon, as the sea monster described in the legend, is an ancient representation of Nimrod, he who built the Tower of Babel and ruled Babylon.
There are in fact, different representations of Nimrod, of him with a headdress depicting the semblance of a fish; this same headdress was later adopted by the Popes of the Roman Catholic Church, up to the present day.
Merovee began to acquire real power after the alliance with the Romans, and after taking part in the Battle of the Catalunian Fields, in 451 A.C. , against the Huns of Attila.
It was as a result of these events, which Merovee had the possibility to install in northern France the reign of the merovingians.
A Merovee succeeded in 457 A.C. the son Childeric I, whimsical and extravagant ruler, lover of beautiful women and the protagonist of countless love affairs, which often risky, in the manner and context, as when hosted by the King of Thuringia, and seduced the wife, Basina, who followed him in Gaul and married him, abandoning the previous marriage.
Clovis, born about 466 A.C. , and became king at the age of 15; he is considered the true founder of the merovingian dynasty. Ascended to the throne in 481 A.C. coalesced the tribes of the Franks and began a policy of expansion at the expense of the Visigoths, the Burgundians, the Alemanni and Thuringii.
The young French King, already extremely talented in the arts of politic and war, had been pprepared with zeal from his father and did not take long to assert his reign as a dominant force in Europe, when, at age 20, he opposed Syagrius, the last Roman Governor of Gaul.
Along with a number of allies, Clovis fought Syagrius successfully, at the Battle of Soissons in 486 A.C. where he defeated him severely. In an attempt to avoid capture, Syagrius fled to Toulouse, a city located in the southwest of Gaul, where he hoped to find refuge at the young King Visigoth Alaric II's Court . Clovis and his army followed Syagrius and demanded his surrender. Alaric, not wanting a conflict with Clovis, agreed the delivery of the prisoner. Syagrius was delivered to Clovis in Soissons where he would be beheaded.
The first time that Clovis took the field, had no wealth in his coffers, or more supplies for his troops; He was inspired by the example of Caesar, by purchasing the soldiers with the fruits of conquest. After each battle won, the booty was amassed to pay for soldiers and purchase resources.
The expansion of the Franks, who now possessed almost all of Gaul, attracted the attention both of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and the Eastern Emperor Anastasius, who instead tried to form an alliance with Clovis to resize the Ostrogoths settled in Italy and obtain its formal submission. From the point of view of Clovis offering Anastasio one hand could legitimize the conquests, placing it as a sovereign imperial authority restoration, on the other hand, it would have put them in the fight against the Germanic peoples which vere much closer geographically and culturally . Furthermore, the kingdom of the Franks, who were among the least romanized, was the last still pagan in Western Europe.
Considering the explosive picture that had come to get configured, King Clovis then made a strategic choice that proved decisive, that was, to convert to Catholicism, by imposing baptism on their own people, but not according to the arian belief, prevalent among the Germanic peoples, but according to the nicene creed, accepting submission only to the Bishop of Rome.
The choice was historically disruptive, as the Franks were the first "barbarians" who accepted submission to the papacy. The real reasons for this choice can be identified in the will of Clovis to legitimize directly from Rome rather than from Constantinople.
The conversion of Clovis, dated 506 A.D. distinguishes, in this context, its strong personality and a strong political intuition, which certainly resulted in an assessment of the real importance of the Roman Church; this fact between the rulers Franks and the Gallo-Roman population, created a lasting tie, which made the strength of the kingdom of Clovis, in addition to this, it has also to be considered that most of the populations settled on the subject areas of his conquests was Catholic.
The kingdom of Clovis broke up later among the four heirs (Clotaire, Clodomiro, Theodoric and Childebert), according to the customs of the time they considered the territorial conquests in the same way of the personal assets of movable property; the heirs continued the father's policy of expansion at the expense of the Burgundians and Thuringii, and the annexation of Burgundy, which was sold by the Ostrogoth King Vitige. Some difficulty was encountered by Childebert in its policy of intervention in Italy as an ally of the Byzantines against the Lombards of King Autari, whose resistance, albeit with mixed success, induced the French king not to insist in an attempt to take over northern Italy
At the end of the campaigns of conquest, Clovis chose as the capital Lutetia (the actual Paris).
Before his death, 30 years later, Clovis became the first king to rule all the tribes of the Franks, and today is considered the true founder of France.
The Merovingian kings, were also known as "The King healers", evidence of this is the fact that the chronicles of the time, until the sixteenth century, attributed to the French and English sovereigns the privilege of being able to cure diseases through simple apposition of the hands.
Later, Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, also a descendant of the Merovingian line by the great-grandparents, Long Nez Hugues and Agnès Bella (Hugues Long Nez was the great-grandson of Sigebert VI Duke of Razès), in 1099, after the conquer of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon founded the Order of the Knights of Our Lady of Sion. The name was derived from the decrepit Abbey, later renovated and fortified, in the Holy Land and dedicated to Our Lady of Sion.
It was then, that Godfrey of Bouillon, founded the Knightly Order of Our Lady of Sion, later becoming the Priory of Sion; so from the Merovingians, through Godfrey of Bouillon, we inherited a lot of the mystical and esoteric knowledge, as well as a part of the symbology that still is in the Order's heritage, as the Merovingian Bee, the Lion of Judah and the Fleur de Lys.