Reply #12: That is why this hearsay was suppressed in the 700s

[happyslug]

The Merovingians were the first to advocate this legend that they were descended from Jesus. The reason they did so was how the Roman Empire in the West Fell. Rome did not fall in the sense that the barbarian invaders all moved in, Rome starting in the late 300s, started to use Barbarians in the Roman Army (They had to be Christians to join, but they enlisted in the Roman Army).

Even the Goths sacking Rome in 410 AD was NOT viewed as that big an event (the Goths only sacked public building and then only for three days as agreed by the Roman Senate in the negotiations as the Goths were about the Storm Rome). In the 420s Attila the Hun was on the loose but with his Death Roman fortunes actually looked up for a few years. Every attempt by the Barbarians (Except the Goths and the Vandals) had been defeated by the Roman. So how did the Barbarians get into the Western Roman Empire? The answer is Rome SETTLED THEN WITHIN THE EMPIRE AS TROOPS TO BE USED TO KEEP DOWN THE ROMAN PEASANTS.

Now after the Goths Sacked Rome they were defeated and settled in Southwest Gaul and Spain (Where they ruled as "agents" of the Roman Emperor). The other Barbarians moved in, were defeated by the Romans and then Settled within the Roman Empire as a police force against the Roman Peasants. By 450 the Germans even controlled the Western Roman Emperor and after 450 Roman Authority in the West did not go far (The Roman Senate actually retained more power within the Western Empire than did the Emperor during this time period).

Into this mess the Franks moved in, they had NEVER been defeated by the Roman Empire for they NEVER fought the Romans. On the other hand they did move against the Barbarians settled by the Romans in Gaul. Unlike most other Germans they were Catholic NOT Aryans, but to rule Gaul they needed a Hook to overcome the fact that their subjects stilled viewed themselves as Romans who owned their allegiance to the Roman Emperor (In 476 the German Military ruler of Italy abolished the Emperor-ship in the west and sent the Roman Emperor Robes to Constantinople with a pledge of Allegiance to the Eastern Emperor as the sole Roman Emperor).

Thus the hook the Kings of the Franks used was that they were the Blood Descendent's of Jesus himself and as Christ Descendant they had to RIGHT to rule both Germans and Romans. The Catholic Church in Rome seems NOT to have accepted this (Being under Gothic control not Frankish Control) but the bishops of Gaul seems to have accepted this statement (If they did not expressly advocate it). This incurred in the late 400s and the Merovingian used they "Descent from Jesus and Mary Magaline, to show they had this right to rule.

This hearsay ended when Pepin the short, the Mayor of the Royal Palace of the Merovingians, in the mid-700s, asked the Pope who is the rightful king, he who has the Title or he that has the Power. The pope Responded by saying he who has the Power and the Merovingians were removed from power and the Carolingians became the ruling house of the Franks, From this point onward the old legend of Jesus and Mary Magaline was now suppressed, for the house that advocated it was gone (and had NEVER been accepted by the Pope in Rome nor the Eastern Roman Emperor who was still in Power in the 700s and would still be in existence till 1453). Thus this is an OLD legend, but a Legend used to justify the Rule of the Franks over Romans after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Thus you are right, this descent from Jesus is a propaganda tools but one that is over 1400 years old. Occasionally it has been renewed but tended to die again within a hundred years of its re-newel (One of the the Reason, is when the Holy Roman