ABSTRACT
Secondly, cultural. The Mediterranean economic connection, the thesis maintained, ensured that Merovingian Gaul was a continuation of the late Roman cultural world, with art and architecture continuing in Roman fashion, late Roman senatorial families such as that of Gregory of Tours continuing to dominate Western European society, and the centres of scholarship and cultural influence remaining the old Roman ones in the south, at places such as Clermont, Tours, and Lyons.
