Gibbon's account of the Merovingian kingdom occupies an interesting position in the Decline and fall. The chapter in question, chapter 38, is placed immediately before the ‘General observations on the fall of the Roman Empire in the west’, even though those observations might as reasonably have followed Gibbon's account of Odoacer, of Visigothic Spain or of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, in chapters 36, 37 and 39 respectively. Nor can it be chance that the author chose to structure his work in this way. In the opening paragraph of chapter 37, the chapter which concludes with a discussion of Vandal and Visigothic Arianism, Gibbon explains that ‘I have purposely delayed the consideration of two religious events, interesting in the study of human nature, and important in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. I. The institution of the monastic life; and, II. The conversion of the Northern barbarians.’ Since the positioning of these two discussions was deliberate, it is reasonable to assume the same for the ordering of the accounts of the creation of the successor states and their early history. It follows, therefore, that Gibbon saw chapter 38 of the Decline and fall, and consequently the history of the Franks, with their pendants, the Visigoths and the Anglo-Saxons, as a culmination in the history of the western Empire. Yet while the Merovingian kingdom held a special interest for Gibbon, that interest was not expressed in narrative form.