Pippinids
Frankish aristocratic family during the Merovingian period; founders of the Carolingian dynasty
The Pippinids and the Arnulfings were two Frankish aristocratic families from Austrasia during the Merovingian period. They dominated the office of mayor of the palace after 687 and eventually supplanted the Merovingians as kings in 751, founding the Carolingian dynasty.
The names "Pippinid" and "Arnulfing" are modern conventions, reflecting the families' descent from two contemporaries, Arnulf of Metz (died c. 640) and Pippin of Landen (died 640). The recurrence of the leading name Pippin in the family led the anonymous author of the Annals of Metz (c. 805) to call the family Pippinios, the earliest known designation for the family. In a strict sense, the Pippinids are the descendants of Pippin of Landen and the Arnulfings those of Arnulf of Metz. These groups only overlap via the marriage of Arnulf's son Ansegisel and Pippin's daughter Begga and their son, Pippin of Herstal and his descendants.
Since the late eighth century, the rise of the family has been depicted as the defining feature of the late Merovingian period, with the kings portrayed as rois fainéants ("do-nothing kings"), puppets of their mayors. This theme has been continued in modern historiography.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pippinids” is frankish aristocratic family during the Merovingian period; founders of the Carolingian dynasty. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Pippinids, Frankish and aristocratic, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q931785. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pippinids” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.