Burgundian Wars

The sons of Clovis saw Burgundy as a target. Sigismund of Burgundy (c.475 - 524) became king in 516. His father, Gundobad, had slain Chilperic II of Burgundy in 493. Chilperic's daughter was Clotilde, who married Clovis I, King of the Franks, and had four sons.

Those sons inherited parts of the Frankish kingdom, and now Clotilde wanted revenge on Sigismund for his father's murder of her father. She persuaded her sons— kings Chlodomer, Childebert I, Clothar I, and Theuderic I—to invade Burgundy in 523 and depose Sigismund (who was their cousin).

Sigismund tried to flee disguised as a monk, but he was found by Chlodomer and beheaded. The widow and children were killed. Sigismund's body was thrown into a well. The body was retrieved in 535, and a chapel built on the site of the well. A village and monastery of St. Sigismund developed there. The illustration shows a reliquary with relics of Sigismund. 

Sigismund's brother Godomar rallied the army and called on an ally, Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths. Together they drove the Frankish army out of Burgundy.

When the successor of Theodoric the Great, Athalaric, died in 534, a succession crisis gave the Franks another opportunity to invade Burgundy, since they were not being protected by the Ostrogoths. Burgundy was being administered by Amalasuintha (495 – 30 April 535), Athalaric's mother, for the next year.

Amalasuintha was not popular; it was felt that she raised Athalaric in a way that was counter to the Gothic culture She brought in a co-ruler, Theodahad, in order to help assuage the objections to her rule, but it didn't really help. Why, and what her fate was, will be tomorrow's post.

St. Cloud

Clodoald (522 - c.560CE) was (along with Theodebald and Gunthar) one of the three sons of King Chlodomer of Orléans. When Chlodomer was killed during an expedition against the Burgundians, his sons were taken in by their grandmother, Clotilde.

They were all very young, but as heirs to Orléans, they were an obstacle to anyone who wanted to take over Orléans. One of the people who wanted to rule Orléans was their uncle, Chlodomer's brother Clothar I. Clothar, King of Soissons, sent a messenger to Clotilde bearing a sword and scissors, telling her that the boys needed to be shorn and made monks, or killed. She refused, so Clothar took the matter into his own hands, stabbing Theodebald and Gunthar.

Clodoald, however, escaped. Hidden by members of the household and smuggled away, he found safety with Bishop Remigius of Rheims (c.437 – 13 January 533), who had baptized Clodoald's grandfather Clovis I. Clodoald became a pupil of St. Severin of Paris, a hermit who lived on the banks of the Seine.

From Severin Clodoald learned monastic ways. At the age of 20 he went to the Bishop of Paris and members of the royal family, allowing his hair to be cut. Clothar realized he was not going to be a threat to  Clothar's possession of Orléans, and let him live out his life in peace.

After Severin's death, Clodoald left the hermitage and went to Provence, where many came to see him, believing he had a gift of healing. (This idea may have come from his being of royal birth. The idea that a king's hands could heal seems to have started with his grandfather, Clovis. See this post.) After 11 years in Provence, he returned to Severin's hermitage where he was gladly received.

In 551 he was ordained a priest by Bishop Eusebius of Paris, but the praise and attention he received from performing his public duties was too much for his mild nature, and he decided to retreat to the quiet life along the Seine in a place that is now the commune of Saint-Cloud. There he built a church in honor of St. Martin of Tours. Eventually this grew to a monastery, endowed with gifts given him by his uncles. He died on 7 September 560.

Legend says that miracles took place around his tomb. He was quickly canonized. His feast day is 7 September. Towns in Florida, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are named St. Cloud after the French town St. Cloud.

Let's go back and see what Clothar was up to during these years.

Clothar's Conquests

When King Hermanfrid of Thuringia offered part of Thuringia to Theuderic if Theuderic would help him defeat Hermanfrid's brother and co-ruler Baderic, Theuderic agreed. During the conflict that followed, Hermanfrid reneged on the deal, and Theuderic (having been wounded in fighting), asked his brother, Clothar I, to carry on. This was in 531.

As it happened, Hermanfrid was also wounded in the fighting and died, at which point Clothar decided the goal was simply to conquer Thuringia and add it to his Frankish territory. Clothar managed this with the help of his nephew, Theuderic's son, Theudebert I. Part of the spoils of war was Radegund, Hermanfrid's niece. Her "possession" was debated, but Clothar took her, raised her, and eventually married her.

Clothar's brother King Chlodomer of Orléans had been killed in 524 and Chlodomer's sons given to their grandmother to raise. Clothar wanted Orléans for himself, and in 532, along with the fourth brother, Childebert, offered the sons a choice: monastic life, or no life. They did this by sending to the grandmother a messenger who carried scissors and a sword. The ultimatum was either cut their hair and become monks, or die. (Just to be clear, the grandmother in question was Clothar's and Childebert's own mother, Clotilde!)

The three boys, Theodebald, Gunthar, and Clodoald, were not even teenagers yet. Clotilde was aghast and said she would rather see her children dead than shorn. (The Merovingians felt long hair was a sign of kingship. Cutting off a man's hair made him unsuitable for the position.) She refused.

Clothar and Childebert needed to take matters into their own hands, so they went to the boys. Clothar stabbed Theodebald. Gunther fell at Childebert's feet and pleaded for his life. Childebert almost relented, so Clothar stabbed the boy. (see illustration) Clodoald escaped, having been hidden by people of Clotilde's household.

There are lots of moving parts to this story, like what happened to Clodoard? I'll tell you more next time.

Radegund

Radegund (c.520 – 13 August 587) was another wife of Clothar I. She was a princess, daughter of Bertachar, a king of Thuringia who co-ruled with his two brothers, Hermanfrid and Baderic (Baderic was the father of two of Clothar's wives).

The co-rule was far from peaceful. Hermanfrid killed Bertachar and took Radegund into his household. Hermanfrid made an alliance with King Theuderic of the Franks to share Thuringia, and together they defeated Baderic. Hemanfrid then went back on his word to share with Theuderic, who then went to Thuringia in 531 with Theuderic's brother, Clothar. They defeated Hermanfrid and Clothar took Radegund (then a pre-teen) back to Gaul. Clothar had her educated in Picardy until 540, when he married her.

Radegund was a Roman Catholic, whereas Clothar was a Chalcedonian Catholic. Chalcedonians upheld the 451 decree that Christ had two distinct, unconfused natures (human and divine) in one person. Radegund (tradition says) wanted to be a martyr, and marriage may not have suited her—especially to a man who had been an enemy of her people. They had no children. In 545 when Clothar killed the last surviving male member of the Thuringian royal family, Radegund fled to the bishop of Noyon, asking to be ordained as a deaconess.

She founded the monastery of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, living under the Rule for Virgins of Cæsarius of Arles. It was named Sainte-Croix for a relic of the True Cross that she had obtained from Byzantine Emperor Justin II. (There was some controversy about the relic. The bishop of Poitiers refused the ceremony to install it in her monastery, but Sigebert I of Austrasia sent the bishop of Tours instead to make it happen. The hymn Vexilla regis prodeunt ("the royal banner goes forward"), sung on Good Friday, Palm Sunday, and at the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, was one of the hymns composed specifically for this ceremony by Venantius Fortunatus (c.530 – c. 600/609).

Radegund was an extreme ascetic, eating only legumes and green vegetables and drinking only water.

She is believed to be the author of a couple of poems originally ascribed to Venantius, with whom she was close. At her death, she was buried in a church in Poitiers now called the Church of St. Radegund, where her tomb can be visited in the crypt. There are many places in France named for her, as well as five English parish churches.

But next we will return to Clothar and his post-Radegund reign.

Clothar I

The father of the four sons who were mentioned fighting each other's divided Frankish kingdoms yesterday was Clothar I (one of the four sons of Clovis I, the king who first united all the Frankish kingdoms), who also spent his adult life trying to conquer others.

The name Clothar (also Chlothar or Clotaire) means "glory." When Clovis died in 511, Clothar and his three brothers (Childebert, Chlodomer, and Theuderic) inherited parts of the kingdom. The brothers cooperated when it came to attacking surrounding territories, keeping an uneasy alliance so they did not fight each other.

The family was part of the Merovingian dynasty. Gregory of Tours is our source of much of this period of the Frankish kingdoms. He tells us that Clothar had children by more than one woman. He first married his brother Chlodomer's widow, Guntheuc. Chlodomer had been killed in a raid on Burgundy. Chlodomer and Guntheuc had three sons, who were taken in by Clothar and Childebert supposedly to be raised, but what the two really wanted was to eliminate the boys' chances of inheriting their dead father's kingdom. Two of the boys were killed; the third escaped, shaved his head, and became a monk.

Guntheuc did not have any children with Clothar, who (after her death in 532) married his mistress Ingund, daughter of King Baderic of Thuringia. Four of their six children would become kings or queens.

Ingund asked Clothar to find a suitable husband for her sister, Aregund. The most suitable husband Clothat could find was himself, and he entered into a polygamous relationship with the two sisters. Perhaps he hoped that all of Thuringia's lines of succession would fall to him eventually (they didn't). With Aregund he had one son.

An interesting note about Aregund. A sarcophagus has been identified as Aregund's, and the remains examined. The details suggest she had a child at the age of 18 (not unusual; 15 was marriage age for Frankish women). Osteoarchaeology also determined that she had a limp and likely suffered from poliomyelitis. This would have made her seem less suitable for marriage, and may be why Ingund was so worried about Aregund getting a husband.

Ingund died by 546, and Clothar seems to have lost interest in Aregund, but he had another wife, their cousin Radegund. Tomorrow we will learn her story as his queen.

Saint Guntram

Yesterday's post mentioned that the Franks fell into civil war and became less of a threat to Lombardy. The Frankish Kingdom had a long history with lots of shifts in power. We should take a serious look at the history of the Franks, especially prior to Charlemagne, and right now let's talk about Guntram.

Also called Gontrand, Gontran, Gontram, Gunthram, Gunthchramn, and Guntramnus, the man we'll call Guntram (c.532 – 28 March 592) was a son of Clothar I, a king of the Franks in the Merovingian dynasty, the dynasty that gave way to the Carolingians.

Guntram was king of Orléans (taking over the ruling of Burgundy) from 561 to 592, inheriting it when his father died and the kingdom was divided among four sons (Paris, Reims, and Soissons went to Guntram's brothers). Gregory of Tours wrote a history of the Franks; he refers to Guntram as "good king Guntram." Although in his youth he was a bit of a wild child, he repented during his later life. Gregory says he treated the sick, the oppressed, and all his subjects with care.

Guntram was one of the more respected and powerful of the four brothers, partially because he had a general named Mummolus who was considered the greatest strategist of the age. He actually changed his allegiance to others at times, but wound up back with Guntram. When Guntram's brother Sigebert I of Austrasia started a war, Guntram called their brother Chilperic I of Soissons for help. But when Sigebert was killed in 575 and Chilperic invaded Austrasia, Guntram sent Mummolus to stop him and allow Sigebert's son Childebert II (who was only five) to succeed his father.

When Guntram's two sons died two years later of dysentery, Guntram adopted Childebert. As Childebert grew up, however, he was not always loyal to Guntram in exchange for the support he had received. Chilperic also tried expanding his own territory. Guntram and Childebert together allowed St. Columbanus to found an abbey and two monasteries in their territory. (The illustration shows the two men enthroned.)

Guntram was able, through military force and negotiation,  to suppress the attempts to take over each other's lands. He also was able to force cooperation and peace with neighbors, putting down invasion attempts and rebellions.

When he died in 592, Childebert succeeded him. Guntram was interred in a church he had founded, the Church of Saint Marcellus. He was almost immediately venerated as a saint, and miracles were ascribed to him, some of which Gregory of Tours claimed to have witnessed himself.

Without Guntram's military force and moderating influence, strife became more common between parts of western Europe. Let's, however, look back at his father, the man at whose death the Frankish Kingdom split into four parts. Tomorrow we'll look at Clothar I, king of Soissons, of Orléans, of Reims, of Paris, and of the Franks.

Childebert I

Childebert was the third of the four sons of Clovis I, who united all the Frankish tribes in Gaul for the first time, and then had it divided up again at his death (511 CE) among his sons. Childebert's brothers were Theuderic I, Chlodomer, and Clothar I. In the division, Childebert received Paris and everything to the north to the English Channel coast and west to Brittany and its coast.

The brothers joined in 523 to war against Godomar of Burgundy and his brother, Sigismund. (Clovis had defeated Godomar's father in 500, forcing Burgundy to pay tribute.) Godomar escaped the first encounter, but Chlodomer took Sigismund prisoner. Godomar rallied the Burgundians and regained his lost territory, but Chlodomer executed Sigismund. Fighting continued for a decade until 534 when Godomar was killed and Burgundy taken over.

Sadly for Chlodomer, he was killed in the final battle. Childebert and Clothar did not want his kingdom of Orléans to be divided among his three children, so they conspired to eliminate them. The eldest two were killed; the youngest escaped to a monastery. Childebert annexed Orléans and Chartres.

Future military campaigns gained him Geneva and Lyons. The king of the Ostrogoths ceded Provence to the Franks in 535; Childebert's share of the spoils were Arles and Marseilles.

He also invaded the Iberian Peninsula on behalf of his sister, Chrotilda. She had been married to King Amalaric of the Visigoths. (A purely political move: Amalaric's father Alaric II had been killed by Chrotilda's father, Clovis I. This marriage was supposed to cease national hostilities; it did nothing to assuage personal hostility.) She was Catholic; he pressured her to convert to the heretical Arianism. Gregory of Tours writes that he even beat her until she bled, and she sent a bloody towel to her brother.

Childebert attacked Amalaric, who fled but was assassinated. He brought his sister home, but she died along the way; he buried her in Paris next to their father. He also brought back the tunic of St. Vincent of Saragossa, patron of vintners, sailors, and brickmakers.

Childebert expanded his boundaries and built more religious structures than any of his brothers. He died on 13 December 558, leaving two daughters, who according to Salic Law could not inherit. His territory went to his younger brother Clothar I.

Here's a question: if Burgundy was already paying tribute to Gaul, was the war against Godomar necessary? Necessary, no; but motivated by a powerful force: a mother's wishes. I also left out a crucial and related detail regarding the disinheriting of Chlodomer's sons. I'll explain tomorrow.

Conomor the Cursed

There flourished around 540 CE a ruler in Britany called Conomor the Cursed, so notorious for his cruelty that some think he provided the seed of later legends of vicious characters.

He had no biography, but he is mentioned in some of the vitae ("lives") of Breton saints; he is mentioned several times by a contemporary, Gregory of Tours. From these saints' biographies we can glean that there was a king of Dumnonia—not the one in Cornwall, but the colony in northern Brittany established by folk from Cornwall fleeing the Saxon invasions—and prince of Poher named Conomor or Conomerus (Welsh Cynfawr, "big dog").

According to Gregory of Tours' Historia Francorum ("History of the Franks"), a Breton count named Chanao decided to eliminate his competition by killing his brothers. One of them, Macliau, escaped to Conomor, who "hid him in a box underground," explaining to Chanao that Macliau was dead. After Chanao died, Macliau was free to take over. This sounds admirable, and I offer it in the interests of "equal time." Other anecdotes are not so complimentary.

Conomor is said to have received his position by murdering his predecessor Jonas and marrying his widow, becoming regent to her son Judael. Conomor tried killing Judael, but Jonas' widow fled with Judael to the Frankish court of King Childebert I, who aided his vassal Conomor by incarcerating Judael. Fortunately, Samson of Dol, Gildas, and others persuaded Childebert to abandon Conomor and free Judael.

Conomor also married Tréphine, daughter of Count Waroch I of Vannes, but killed her and their son Trémeur. Tréphine is considered a saint, patron saint of sick children and those whose birth is overdue. The story of Tréphine and Trémeur is considered to be the origin of the legend of Bluebeard, the French folktale of a wealthy man who murders his wives.

After Childebert's death (13 December 558), his brother Clothar I becomes king. Clothar leads an expedition into Brittany to deal with Conomor's villainy. Judael accompanies him, and manages to kill Conomor in battle.

There is a possible link with the Tristan legend. King Mark sends his nephew (in some version his son), Tristan, to escort his new bride Iseult to him. Tristan and Iseult have a steamy affair, and Mark intends to execute Tristan, who escapes. A stone inscription in Cornwall refers to "Drustanus son of Cunomorus." A biography of a 6th century Welsh bishop, Paul Aurelian, refers to "King Marc whose other name is Quonomorus." The legend of a father or uncle being cruel to a son/nephew fits the profile of Conomor.

This is a good time to stay in this time period but turn eastward from Brittany to the land of the Franks and  the Merovingian Childebert I, whose father was first king of the Franks and whose mother was a saint. See you next time.

Gregory of Tours

Chilperic I speaking to Bishop Gregory

Georgius Florentius (539-593) was born into a distinguished Gallo-Roman family in Arverni in southern France. His father died when he was young, and Georgius went to live with his uncle, Bishop Gal, who educated him as a cleric. After recovering from a serious illness, he decided to join the church, and he changed his name to Gregory in honor of his mother's great-grandfather, the Bishop of Langres.

In 573, he was appointed Bishop of Tours by Sigebert I, King of Austrasia and Auvergne. He traveled to Rome to have his appointment confirmed, where the 6th century Latin poet Fortunatus wrote a poem to commemorate him. A bishop had many civic as well as ecclesiastical duties, and Gregory justified the faith in him by tending to his flock and challenging the shortcomings of politicians. The Frankish dynasties at the time were not living up to the standards of leadership established by King Clovis (466-511), and their rule often descended into petty disputes and civil war. When Sigebert fought a war with Chilperic I (539-584; he was a son of Clothar I and Aregund), Gregory tried to make them see the damage they were doing to the common folk, proclaiming "This has been more hurtful to the Church than the persecution of Diocletian."*

As brave as he was in trying to ameliorate the crude Frankish culture with an infusion of more sophisticated Roman culture and Christian sensibility, he was also diligent in recording the history of his country. He wrote ten books of history (Historia Francorum, History of the Franks), seven on miracles, one on the lives of the early church fathers; he also wrote on liturgy and scripture.

His work can be called propagandist—or perhaps simply written unsurprisingly with his own personal filters—since Christian tribes and countries always come out looking better than pagans in his history. He also comes out strongly against Arianism and Jews. Despite his moralizing—maybe because of it—his anecdotes are an excellent view into the culture and customs of the time. His history, along with two other works called the "Chronicle of Fredegar" and the "Book of the History of the Franks," provide an almost unbroken history of Gaul for 300 years after the Fall of Rome. He is also fairly objective at times: his writing on miracles questions the truth of some of them.

He is also our best source of history for the Frankish dynasty called the Merovingians while it was still strong and founding what would eventually become the nation of France. He would have been saddened a hundred years later to find a line of kings so different from Clovis and Chilperic that they would be called the "do-nothing kings." But that's a tale for another day ... like tomorrow.

*Diocletian (245-313) was the emperor responsible for the final and worst wave of Christian persecution in the Roman empire.

A Grave Strikes Gold

I have mentioned St.-Denis in Paris as the first church in the Gothic style. That project was a re-building of an earlier church—a church, in fact, that would be notable to historians even if it had not been turned into an architectural wonder by Abbot Suger.

Ring inscribed to Aregund (ARNEGUNDIS)

Originally, the structure was a martyrium—a shrine to the martyr Saint Denis, whose head had been carried to that spot (by his decapitated body) while preaching a sermon. This would have been some time in the 3rd century. Dagobert, a King of the Franks (c.603-639), built an abbey on the spot, preserving the crypts that had been installed over the centuries to house kings of France and important figures. The first mention of a church is of one begun in the reign of Pepin the Short (c.714-768), whose son, Charlemagne, finished it. Then, of course, Abbot Suger in the 12th century re-worked much of it into what stands today. All of the building and re-building went upwards, and what was below the surface was untouched for centuries, until later scholars decided to examine the crypts.

Some of the crypts are not marked well. Knowing a list of interments, however, scholars could use a process of elimination along with various dating techniques and even DNA testing to determine the identity of the subjects. There's also direct evidence. An archaeologist and art historian in 1959, examining the contents of one unlabeled sarcophagus, struck gold. Along with the remarkably well-preserved clothing on a female body, he found a gold ring inscribed to Aregund.

Belt clasp from Aregund's jewelry collection

Aregund was one of the wives of Clothar I (511-561), an early Frankish king in the line that led to Dagobert. Her burial provided insight into clothing of the 6th century, but also into how wealthy the early Frankish kings were:

The deceased wore a violet-coloured silk skirt, held in place by a large leather belt that had a sumptuously decorated buckle plate and buckle counter-plate. Her reddish-brown silk tunic, decorated with gold braid, was fastened with a pair of round brooches with a garnet cloisonné decoration. [source]

To be frank,* there are some who believe the remains belong to another noblewoman who lived decades later. Most of the reasoning is based on the age of the sarcophagus. The arguments neglect the simple possibility that Aregund was re-interred—not an uncommon occurrence. Even if the identity were up for debate, however, the value of the contents as a glimpse into 7th century Frankish culture is incalculable.

*Yes, that's a pun.