Lit. Review Battle Plan
October 16th, 2010 by haylst
Topic: Queen Fredegund of the Merovingian Dynasty, and the machinations that both brought her to and kept her and her progeny in power.
Literature Review Organization:
I have settled on the idea of arranging my sources topically, as there seems to be little rhyme or reason to them if I order them by their publication dates. I’m thinking so far that I will start in my introduction with the history of a Victorian era Frenchman who tries quite arduously to narrate the history of the Merovingians colorfully and to capture interest in a period he found, and one may still find, neglected in the field of history. This source is generally not taken very seriously by historians, but is more easily read by the casual reader than most scholarly texts and offers a good jumping off point to demonstrate the rarity of his enthusiasm for the period. After that, I plan to flow from more political studies and overviews of the period, such as Ian Woods’ “The Merovingian Kingdoms”, then to women’s involvement in in Merovingian politics (esp. the violence it has been noted for). After this I will turn more exclusively to studies of women and women’s roles in Francia and Medieval Europe, and also gender in the medieval ages. By tying the works together thematically and (mostly) comparing them thusly, I will construct a review that is easy to follow and will serve me better in approaching these sources for my final study.