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.

Hildebert of Lavardin

He didn't want the titles he got, he didn't write the things people said he wrote, he wasn't the saint that some said he was, he didn't get what he asked for from the pope.

Hildebert was born c.1055 to poor parents in Lavardin in central France. Intended for an ecclesiastical life, he was probably tutored at Tours, possible under Berengar of Tours. He became a master at the school of Le Mans, where possibly he crossed paths with Gallus Anonymus. Around 1096 or 1097 he became bishop of Le Mans, but was taken hostage by William II and carried to England for about a year as part of the frequent England-France conflict started by the 1066 Conquest.

Not all his clergy agreed with his management, and he went to Rome to ask Pope Paschal II if he could resign as bishop. Paschal refused. While he was in Rome, back in Le Mans trouble was brewing. A former Benedictine named Henry of Lausanne was in Le Mans preaching against church hierarchy. The people were attracted to his preaching and had admiration for his style: he went bare foot, slept on the ground, and lived on donations. Hildebert was able to force Henry out of Le Mans, but the population was still wary of church authority and willing to disregard it at will.

In 1125, against his will, Hildebert was made archbishop of Tours by Pope Honorius II. Now it was a French king he had to contend with: he and Louis VI clashed over ecclesiastical rights, a conflict Hildebert no doubt wished to avoid from all the way back when he asked to not be a bishop anymore.

He wrote, but he was given credit for many writings that were not his. Old editions of his writings ascribe to him things written by Peter Lombard and others. He was praised after his life for the work Tractatus theologicus, but this is now attributed to Hugh of St. Victor.

He was referred to as a saint by some writers, but there is no record of him being canonized. In fact, his familiarity with Latin classics like Cicero and Ovid give his writings a style more similar to pagan authors than Christian ones. The only two serious works that are still attributed to him are a life of Hugh of Cluny and of St. Radegunda. He was known for poems. The illustration shows a piece of a 12th-century edition of his poetry.

Hildbert remained archbishop of Tours until his death on 18 December 1133.

After he ejected Henry of Lausanne from Le Mans, Henry went elsewhere to preach. A different archbishop seized him and took him before the pope to deal with him. We'll see how that went tomorrow.