ABSTRACT
The Carolingian age marked a new epoch in the history of Europe, and it is worth considering for a moment the setting and the actors of the new scene: the scene that was beginning when Pepin the Short died at Saint-Denis on 24 September 768. The word palatium, a royal residence, had originally, and had in Carolingian times, an imperial association: the original palatium was the villa on one of the seven hills of Rome, the Palatine. As to the appearance of the Carolingian palaces: they must have looked like extensive dwellings, something between the Lateran palace and a good sized farm. There were the Germanic peoples whose Carolingian dynasty was descended from the mayors of the palace of Austrasia, the most Germanic and least Romanized Frankish territory. The knowledge of the Carolingian scene, material and political, rests largely upon written sources.
