What is "roi faineant"

n. 1 (context historical English) Any of the later French kings of the Merovingian dynasty, considered to have played a merely ceremonial role. 2 A leader with only nominal power.

Roi fainéant, literally "do-nothing king" and so presumptively "lazy king", is a French term primarily used to refer to the later kings of the Merovingian dynasty after they seemed to have lost their initial energy, from the death of Dagobert I in 639 (or alternatively from the accession of Theuderic III in 673) until the deposition of Childeric III in favour of Pepin the Short in 751.

The appellation goes back to Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, who described the late Merovingian kings as kings "in nothing but in name",

During the century of the rois fainéants, the Merovingian kings were increasingly dominated by their mayors of the palace, in the 6th century the office of the manager of the royal household, but in the 7th increasingly the real " power behind the throne" who limited the role of the king to an essentially ceremonial office.

The last Carolingian ruler, Louis V of France, was also in his turn nicknamed le Fainéant ("the Do-Nothing"), because his effective rule was limited to the region around Laon.