In spite of a huge boom in settlement excavations in the northern part of the Merovingian Kingdom (Northern France, Benelux and German Rhineland) in the last decennia it is impossible to identify beyond reasonable doubt the residences of kings and aristocrats. Charlemagne’s palaces at Aachen, Nijmegen, Ingelheim are the first evident aristocratic residences. Lack of stone cannot be a reason, exquisite churches were built with that material. Building in wood can neither be the problem as royal sites in England show as well as high status sites in Scandinavia. Of course, Merovingian kings, dukes and counts lived somewhere, but why is it so difficult to identify their residences? A rich material culture is not necessarily proof of aristocratic residence because wealth seems to have been more regularly distributed in society than has been assumed before. Gold not necessarily equals aristocracy. In this lecture I will tackle the problem and discuss several possible candidates of elite residence in order to remove them again as possible candidates thereafter.