Clovis at Clotilde at leurs fils
En 457, Childéric 1er succède à son père Mérovée. Il règne sans partage, ce qui lui vaut l'animosité de ses parents, des grands et de ses sujets. Il fuit son petit royaume de Tournais pour trouver refuge chez le roi de Thuringe. Il s'éprend de Basine, l'épouse du roi de Thuringe qui fini par l'épouser. En 463, Childéric est rappelé au pouvoir. Basine lui donnera un fils: Clovis et trois filles: Lanthilde, Alboflède et Aldoflède. Il mourra en 481 et son fils Clovis lui succèdera.
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Fils de Childéric, Clovis 1er hérite de son père d'un petit royaume qui s'étend de la mer du Nord jusqu'à Cambrai. Il entre en lutte contre Syagrius qui dirige le pays situé entre la Somme et la Loire. Battu à Soissons en 486, Syagrius se réfugie à Toulouse. Quand à Clovis, il s'empare de la région entre la Seine et la Loire. En 493, il se marie avec la très catholique Clotilde, une princesse Burgonde. Ce mariage va lui permettre d'obtenir le soutien des évêques dans une période où Burgondes et Wisigoths soutiennent la thèse de l'hérésie arienne (l'arianisme nie la Trinité du Père, du Fils et du Saint-Esprit). En 496, Clovis livre bataille à Tolbiac contre les Alamans et il s'empare d'une partie de leur territoire. Aprés la bataille de Tolbiac contre les Alamans, Clovis et trois mille de ses soldats se font baptiser le jour de Noël 496 par Saint-Rémi à Reims. Il devient ainsi le seul roi barbare reconnu par la chrétienté.
Clovis cherche ensuite à étendre son royaume vers l'Est. Il combat avec succès les Thuringiens et les Francs Ripuaires. La toute puissance de Clovis inquiète alors les rois ariens qui se liguent contre Clovis. En 500 prés de Dijon, Clovis bat Gondebaud, roi des Burgondes qui s'échappe. En 507 à Vouillé prés de Poitiers, Clovis vainc les Wisigoths, et c'est aussi à Vouillé qu'Alaric II, souverain Wisigoth, trouvera la mort.
Clovis mourra un peu plus tard à Paris, en 511, alors que son royaume n'a pas encore atteint la Méditerranée. Il sera enterré à Paris dans la basilique des Saints-Apôtres qu'il a fait construire. A sa mort, le royaume Franc est divisé entre ses fils : Clotaire 1er Le Vieux hérite de la Neustrie, Thierry 1er de l'Austrasie, Childebert 1er de Paris et Clodomir de l'orléanais.
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The Merovingian Dynasty was a Frankish dynasty considered the first French royal house. It was the first major political authority which rose out of the ashes of the dying Roman Empire in Europe. It was named for Merovech (fl. c. 450), whose son Childeric I (d. 482?) ruled a tribe of Salian Franks from his capital at Tournai. His son, Clovis I, united nearly all of Gaul in the late 5th century except Burgundy and present-day Provence. On his death the realm was divided among his sons, but by 558 it was united under his last surviving son, Chlotar I. The pattern of dividing and then reuniting the realm continued for generations. After the reign of Dagobert I (623?639), the authority of the Merovingian kings declined, and real power gradually came to rest in the hands of the mayors of the palace. In 751 the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, was deposed by Pippin III, the first of the Carolingian dynasty.
Clodio the Long-Haired or the Hairy, was the semi-legendary first Salian Frankish king of the Merovingian dynasty (426 - 447). Legend has it that his father was duke Pharamond and his mother was Argotta, from Thuringia. His grandfather may have been Marcomer, a duke of the Franks. He lived in Dispargum, a name that is believed to be that of a castle, rather than a village. Around 431, he invaded the territory of Artois, but was defeated near Hesdin by Aetius, the commander of the Roman army in Gaul. However, Clodio regrouped and soon was able to seize the town Cameracum. Eventually, he occupied all the country as far as the Somme River and making Tournai the capital of the Salian Franks.
Clodio's aggressive action to seize more territory led to centuries of expansion by his successors that ultimately created what we know today as the country of France. Clodio died sometime between 447 and 449 and power passed on to Meroveus. It is not known if Meroveus was his son or another chieftain of the tribe who ascended into the leadership role.
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Meroveus (Mérovée in French, Merovech, sometimes Latinised as Meroveus or Merovius) was a chief of the Salian Franks from 448-456. He is considered a semi-legendary individual, as not much information exists about him. His descendants called themselves Merovingians, as the founder of what is referred to as the Merovingian Dynasty. Some researchers have noted that Merovech, the Frankish chieftain, may have been the namesake of a certain god or demigod honored by the Franks prior to their conversion to Christianity, a being described as part human, part bull and part sea-creature.
Childeric I, king of the Salian Franks, succeeded his father Meroveus as king, traditionally in 457 or 458. With his Frankish warband he was established with his capital at Tournai, on lands which he had received as a foederatus of the Romans, and for some time he kept the peace with his allies. About 463 at Orléans, in conjunction with the Roman General Aegidius, who was based at Soissons, he defeated the Visigoths, who hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the Loire River; after the death of Aegidius he first assisted Comes Paul of Angers in a mixed band of Gallo-Romans and Franks, defeating the Goths and taking booty. Odoacer reached Angers but Childeric arrived the next day and a battle ensued. Count Paul was killed and Childeric took the city. Childeric having delivered Angers, he followed a Saxon warband to the islands at the Atlantic mouth of the Loire, and massacred them there. In a change of alliances, he also joined forces with Odoacer, to stop a band of the Alamanni who wished to invade Italy.
These are all the facts known about him, and they are not secure. The stories of his expulsion by the Franks, whose women he was taking; of his stay of eight years in Thuringia with King Basin and his wife Basine; of his return when a faithful servant advised him that he could safely do so by sending to him half of a piece of gold which he had broken with him; and of the arrival at Tournai of Queen Basine, whom he married, are entirely legendary and come from Gregory of Tours' Historia Francorum.
He died in 481 and was buried at his capital, Tournai, leaving a son Clovis, afterwards king of the Franks. Childeric's tomb was discovered in 1653, by a mason doing repairs at the church of Saint-Brice in Tournai when numerous precious objects were found, a richly ornamented sword, a torse-like bracelet, jewels of gold and cloisonné enamel with garnets, gold coins, a gold bull's head and a ring with the inscription CHILDERICI REGIS, which identified the tomb. Some 300 golden bees were also in the find. Archduke Leopold William, Spanish governor of the Netherlands, had the find published in Latin, and the treasure went first to the Habsburgs in Vienna, then as a gift to Louis XIV, who was not impressed with them and stored them in the royal library, which became the Bibliothèque National at the Revolution. Napoleon was more impressed with Childeric's bees: looking for a heraldic symbol to trump the Bourbon fleur-de-lys, he settled on Childeric's bees as symbols of the French Empire.
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On the night of November 5, 1831, the treasure of Childeric was among 80 kilos of treasure stolen from the Library and melted down for the gold. A few pieces were retrieved where they had been hidden in the Seine, including two of the bees, but record of the treasure now exists only in the fine engravings made at the time of its discovery, and in some reproductions made for the Habsburgs.
Clovis I (or Chlodowech or Chlodwig, modern French "Louis", modern German "Ludwig"), succeeded his father Childeric I in 481 as King of the Salian Franks. These were a Germanic people occupying the area west of the lower Rhine, with their own center around Tournai and Cambrai, along the modern frontier between France and Belgium, in an area known as Toxandria.
In 486, with the help of Ragnachar, Clovis defeated Syagrius, the last Roman official in northern Gaul, who ruled the area around Soissons in present-day Picardie. This victory extended Frankish rule to most of the area north of the Loire. After this, Clovis secured an alliance with the Ostrogoths, through the marriage of his sister Audofleda to their king, Theodoric the Great. He followed this victory with another in 491 over a small group of Thuringians east of his territories. Later, with the help of the other Frankish sub-kings, he defeated the Alamanni in the Battle of Tolbiac. He had previously married the Burgundian princess Clotilde (493), and, following his victory at Tolbiac, he converted in 496 to her Catholic faith. This was a significant change from the other Germanic kings, like the Visigoths and Vandals, who embraced the rival Arian beliefs.
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Though he fought a battle in Dijon in the year 500, Clovis did not successfully subdue the Burgundian kingdom. It appears that he somehow gained the support of the Armoricans in the following years, for they assisted him in his defeat of the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse at Vouillé (507). This victory confined the Visigoths to Spain and added most of Aquitaine to Clovis' kingdom. He then established Paris as his capital, and established an abbey dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul on the south bank of the Seine. All that remains of this great abbey is the Tour Clovis, a Romanesque tower which now lies within the grounds of the prestigious Lycèe Henri IV, just east of The Panthéon.
Clovis I died in 511 and is interred Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, France, whereas his father had been buried with the older Merovingian kings at Tournai. Upon his death, his realm was divided among his four sons, (Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert, and Clotaire). This created the new political units of the Kingdoms of Reims, Orléans, Paris and Soissons and inaugurated a period of disunity which was to last with brief interruptions until the end (751) of his Merovingian dynasty.
Clotaire I (or Chlothar or Chloderic), was one of the four sons of Clovis. On the death of his father in 511 he received as his share of the kingdom the town of Soissons, which he made his capital, the cities of Laon, Noyon, Cambrai and Maastricht, and the lower course of the Meuse River. But he was very ambitious, and sought to extend his domain.
He was the chief instigator of the murder of his brother Chlodomer's children in 524, and his share of the spoils consisted of the cities of Tours and Poitiers. He took part in the various expeditions against Burgundy, and after the destruction of that kingdom in 534 obtained Grenoble, Die and some of the neighbouring cities.
When Provence was ceded to the Franks by the Ostrogoths, he received the cities of Orange, Carpentras and Gap. In 531 he marched against the Thuringii with his brother Theuderich (Thierry) I, and in 542 with his brother Childebert I against the Visigoths of Spain. On the death of his great-nephew Theodebald in 555, Clotaire annexed his territories; and on Childebert's death in 558 he became king of all Gaul.
He also ruled over the greater part of Germany, made expeditions into Saxony, and for some time exacted from the Saxons an annual tribute of 500 cows. The end of his reign was troubled by internal dissensions, his son Chram rising against him on several occasions. Following Chram into Brittany, where the rebel had taken refuge, Clotaire shut him up with his wife and children in a cottage, to which he set fire. Overwhelmed with remorse, he went to Tours to implore forgiveness at the tomb of St Martin, and died shortly afterwards.
Immediately after the death of his father in 561, Chilpéric endeavoured to take possession of the whole kingdom, seized the treasure amassed in the royal town of Berny and entered Paris. His brothers, however, compelled him to divide the kingdom with them, and Soissons, together with Amiens, Arras, Cambrai, Thérouanne, Tournai and Boulogne fell to Chilperic's share, but on the death of Charibert in 567 his estates were augmented.
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When his brother Sigebert I married Brunhilda, Chilperic also wished to make a brilliant marriage. He had already repudiated his first wife, Audovera, and had taken as his concubine a serving-woman called Fredegund. He accordingly dismissed Fredegond, and married Brunhilda's sister, Galswintha. But he soon tired of his new partner, and one morning Galswintha was found strangled in her bed. A few days afterwards Chilperic married Fredegund.
This murder was the cause of long and bloody wars, interspersed with truces, between Chilperic and Sigebert. In 575 Sigebert was assassinated by Fredegond at the very moment when he had Chilperic at his mercy. Chilperic retrieved his position, took from Austrasia Tours and Poitiers and some places in Aquitaine, and fostered discord in the kingdom of the east during the minority of Childebert II. One day, however, while returning from the chase to the town of Chelles, Chilperic was stabbed to death.
He pretended to some literary culture, and was the author of some halting verse. He even added letters to the Latin alphabet, and wished to have the manuscripts rewritten with the new characters. The wresting of Tours from Austrasia and the seizure of ecclesiastical property provoked the bitter hatred of Gregory of Tours, by whom Chilperic was stigmatized as the Nero and the Herod of his time.
Clotaire II (584-629), called the Great (le Grand) or the Young (le Jeune), King of Neustria, and from 613-629 King of all the Franks, was not yet born when his father, King Chilperic I died in 584. His mother, Queen Fredegonde, was regent until her death in 597, at which time the thirteen year old Clotaire II began to rule for himself. As King, he continued his mother's feud with Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia with equal viciousness and bloodshed.
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In 599, he made war with his cousins, Theuderic II of Burgundy and Theudebert II of Austrasia, who defeated him at Dormelles (near Montereau). At this point, however, the two brothers took up arms against each other. In 605, he invaded Theuderic's kingdom, but did not subdue it. He remained often at war with Theuderic and the latter died in Metz in late 613 while preparing a campaign against him. At that time, Warnachar, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, and Rado, mayor of the palace of Burgundy, abandoned the cause of Brunhilda and her great-grandson, Sigebert II, and the entire realm was delivered into Clotaire's hands. Brunhilda and Sigebert met Clotaire's army on the Aisne, but the Patrician Aletheus, Duke Rocco, and Duke Sigvald deserted the host and the grand old woman and her king had to flee. As far as the Orbe they got, but Clotaire's minions caught up with them by the lake Neuchâtel. Both of them and Sigebert's younger brother Corbo were executed by Clotaire's orders.
In that year, Clotaire II became the first king of all the Franks since his grandfather Clotaire I died in 561 by ordering the murder of the infant Sigebert II (son of Theuderic), whom the aging Brunhilda had attempted to set on the thrones of Austrasia and Burgundy, causing a rebellion among the nobility. This led to the delivery of Brunhilda into Clotaire's hands, his thirst for vengeance leading to his formidable old aunt enduring the agony of the rack for three whole days, before suffering a horrific death, chained between four horses that were goaded in separate directions, eventually tearing her apart.
In 615, Clotaire II promulgated the Edict of Paris, a sort of Frankish Magna Carta that reserved many rights to the Frankish nobles while it excluded Jews from all civil employment for the Crown. The ban effectively placed all literacy in the Merovingian monarchy squarely under ecclesiastical control and also greatly pleased the nobles, from whose ranks the bishops were ordinarily exclusively drawn. Clotaire was induced by Warnachar and Rado to make the mayoralty of the palace a lifetime appointment at Bonneuil-sur-Marne, near Paris, in 617. By these actions, Clotaire lost his own legislative abilities and the great number of laws enacted in his reign are probably the result of the nobles' petitions, which the king had no authority not to heed.
Dagobert I was the king of Austrasia (623–634), king of all the Franks (629–634), and king of Neustria and Burgundy (629–639). He was the last Merovingian dynast to wield any real royal power.
Dagobert was the eldest son of Clotaire II and Berthetrude, or possibly Haldetrude. Clotaire II had reigned alone over all the Franks since 613, and Dagobert became the king of Austrasia when her independent nobles demanded a king of their own. In 623, Clotaire installed his son Dagobert in Austrasia.
On the death of his father in 629, Dagobert inherited the Neustrian and Burgundian kingdoms. His half-brother Charibert, son of Sichilde, claimed Neustria but Dagobert opposed him. Brodulf, the brother of Sichilde, petitioned Dagobert on behalf of his young nephew, but Dagobert assassinated him and gave his younger sibling Aquitaine.
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Charibert died in 632 and his son Chilperic was assassinated on Dagobert's orders. By 632, Dagobert had Burgundy and Aquitaine firmly under his rule, becoming the most powerful Merovingian king in many years and the most respected ruler in the West.
Also in 632, the nobles of Austrasia revolted under the mayor of the palace, Pepin of Landen. In 634, Dagobert appeased the rebellious nobles by putting his three-year-old son, Sigebert III, on the throne, thereby ceding royal power in the easternmost of his realms, just as his father had done for him eleven years earlier.
As king, Dagobert made Paris his capital. During his reign, he built the Altes Schloss in Meersburg (in modern Germany), which today is the oldest inhabited castle in that country. Devoutly religious, Dagobert was also responsible for the construction of the Saint Denis Basilica at the site of a Benedictine monastery in Paris.
In 631, Dagobert led three armies against Samo, the Slavic king, but his Austrasian forces were defeated at Wogastisburg. Dagobert died in 639 and was the first of French kings to be buried in the royal tombs at Saint Denis. His second son, Clovis II, from his marriage to Nanthild, inherited the rest of his kingdom at a young age.
The pattern of division and assassination which characterise even the strong king Dagobert's reign continued for the next century until Pepin the Short finally deposed the last Merovingian king in 751, establishing the Carolingian dynasty. The Merovingian boy-kings remained ineffective rulers who inherited the throne as young children and lived only long enough to produce a male heir or two, while real power lay in the hands of the noble families who exercised feudal control over most of the land.
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Saint Balthild, also known as Bathilde d'Ascagnie, was the wife of Clovis II, son of Dagobert, who became King of Burgundy and Neustria in 639. Her name comes from Old English and means "bold battle". An Anglo-Saxon, perhaps a relative of King Ricbert of East Anglia, the last pagan king there, she was sold into slavery as a young girl (some accounts suggest by Vikings, others, by the Anglo-Saxon king), the young Balthild served as a lady in waiting in the household of Erchinoald, Clovis' mayor of the palace. Balthild was beautiful, intelligent, modest, and attentive to the needs of others. Erchinoald (whose wife had died) was attracted to Balthild and wanted to marry her. But she did not want to marry him: she hid herself away and waited until Erchinoald remarried. Next, King Clovis noticed her and asked her hand in marriage sometime in 649. Balthild was 19 years old when she became queen. Different versions of this story suggest Clovis was somewhere between the ages of 12 and 16 years old at the time.
Even as queen, she remained humble and modest. She is famous for her charitable service and generous donations. From her donations, the abbies of Corbie and Chelles were founded. She bore her husband three children, all who became kings: Clotaire, Childeric, and Theuderic.
When Balthild's husband died between 655 and 658, Clotaire, the eldest son and heir to the throne, became king at age five. Balthild served as the queen regent until he came of age in 664, when she was forced into a convent. As queen, she was a capable stateswoman. She abolished the practice of trading Christian slaves and even sought the freedom of children sold into slavery. As the story goes, after Balthild's three children were of age and "established in their respective territories" (Clotaire in Neustria, Childeric in Austrasia, and perhaps Theuderic in Burgundy), Balthild entered the abbey and gave up her royal rank. She dedicated the rest of her life serving the poor and the infirmed.
Balthild died on January 30, 680. She is buried at the Abbey of Chelles outside of Paris. Balthild was canonised by Pope Nicholas I about 200 years after her death.
Theuderic III (or Theuderich, Theoderic, or Theodoric; in French, Thierry) (654 – 691) was the king of Neustria (including Burgundy) on two occasions (673 and 675 – 691) and king of Austrasia from 679 to his death in 691. Thus, he was the king of all the Franks from 679. The son of Clovis II and Balthild, he has been described as a puppet — a roi fainéant — of Mayor of the Palace Ebroin, who may have even appointed him without the support of the nobles. He succeeded his brother Clotaire III in Neustria in 673, but Childeric II of Austrasia displaced him soon thereafter until he died in 675 and Theuderic retook his throne. When Dagobert II died in 679, he received Austrasia as well and became king of the whole Frankish realm.
He and the Neustrian mayor of the palace, Waratton, made peace with Pepin of Heristal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, in 681. However, on Waratton's death in 686, the new mayor, Berthar, made war with Austrasia and Pepin vanquished the Burgundo-Neustrian army under Berthar and Theuderic (a Neustrian) at the Battle of Tertry in 687, thus paving the way for Austrasian dominance of the Frankish state.
Childebert III, called the Just (le Juste) (670 or probably 683 – 23 April 711), son of Theuderic III and Clotilda (or Doda) and sole king of the Franks (695-711), he was seemingly but a puppet of the mayor of the palace, Pepin of Heristal, though his placita show him making judicial decisions of his own will, even against the Arnulfing clan. His nickname has no comprehensible justification except possibly as a result of these judgements, for the Liber Historiae Francorum calls him a "famous man" and "a just man of good memory".
In 697, he married Edonne and, by her, had a son named Dagobert, who succeeded him, as Dagobert III. It is possible, though not likely, that Clotaire IV was also his son. He spent almost his entire life in a royal villa on the Oise. Upon his death on April 23, 711, southern Gaul began to grow independent: Burgundy under Bishop Savaric of Auxerre, Aquitaine under Duke Odo the Great, and Provence under Antenor. He was buried in the church of St Stephen at Choisy-au-Bac, near Compiègne.
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