Frédégonde

Frédégonde (born v. 545 with Montdidier, in Picardy - died in 597), was queen of Neustrie, after its marriage with the king Chilpéric Ier.

Frightening a intrigante

Of franque but humble origin, it is the girl of the count d' Ardennes, it was initially probably following of the queen Audevère, the first wife of king Chilpéric Ist Young woman ambitious, it allures the new king who notices his beauty and makes his/her concubine of it. Frédégonde obtains from him a secret promise of marriage.

Profiting that the king left to fight in Saxony against his brother Sigebert, Frédégonde who hopes to be able to become queen in his place of Audevère, misuses the naivety of the queen while making him hold itself its sixth child Chilsinde on the baptismal funds. The queen is unaware of that while acting of the kind, it makes a heavy fault with the eyes of the Church. Become godmother of its own child and thus the Gossip of her husband, it cannot divide any more its layer with the king under penalty of being marked of Inceste.

But, Chilpéric wishing a as noble alliance as that of his/her brother Sigebert, king d' Austrasie, who had married Brunehilde, girl of Athanagild, king of the Visigoths, wife in 566, Galswinthe, older sister of Brunehilde.

Frédégonde dissimulated its spite, to more surely strike Galswinthe, than one found one day of 568 strangled in his bed. Because of the desire of the Galswinthe queen, who sought to flee to turn over to Spain, threatening the kingdom of Neustrie, not only Chilpéric did not take any sanction against Frédégonde, but he married it.

Crimes and civil war

To alleviate the anger of the queen Brunehilde, his wife, Sigebert Ier, Chilpéric at an assembly chaired by their brother Gontran convened, who decided that the cities that Galswinthe had received as field and from present at the time of its marriage, would become immediately the property of Brunehilde and of its heirs. Chilpéric seemed to subject to the decision his/her brothers to save time, but it was not solved with the loss of its good cities. It was the beginning of a civil war between the two families. Gregoire de Tours reports that consequently, alternated attacks for the resumption of these cities and periods of peace between Sigebert and Chilpéric which tore with an extreme strength. In this fight, Sigebert had the advantage. But whereas it had succeeded in taking from his brother almost all his cities, it was stabbed into 575 by the poisoned knives of two emissary sent by Frédégonde. It was one of the many murders financed by Frédégonde which prevailed as well in the camp of his/her brother-in-law, as in the rows neustriens, among the potential rivals of its son, the future Clotaire II, which she wanted to ensure the throne. In 586, it also made assassinate in its Cathédrale the bishop of Rouen Prétextat. In particular, it was caught some with wire of Chilpéric, that this last had had its first unions (Mérovée, Clovis) like with their mother, Audevère († 580).

Having thus eliminated all the royal family almost, Frédégonde was suspected of the murder of her husband in 584. The frightening queen then exerts regency in the name of her son Clotaire II, then four months old. She will have a very great responsibility in the weakening of the dynasty Mérovingienne. She will have to ask to the protection of the king de Bourgogne her brother-in-law Gontran Ier whom she will try to make assassinate. In 592, with died of Gontran, it took again the fight against the queen of Austrasie Brunehilde, woman of Sigebert Ier and sister of Galswinthe.

It should be noted that Gregoire de Tours describes Frédégonde like a cruel woman and makes it personally responsible for the war which tore Mérovingiens at its time. “I test dislike, acknowledged it, to tell the series of the civil wars which ruined the nations of the Francs…”

Murders financed by Frédégonde

the queen Galswinthe in 568.
Sigebert Ier, king d' Austrasie
the queen Audevère in 580.
Clovis, the son of Chilpéric Ier, after 580.
Prétextat, the archevèque one of Rouen, in 586.

Internal bonds

In the series of six titles on the topic of the mérovingiens Cavanna in a fictionalized but masterly way the epopee of Frédégonde and Brunehilde reports.

External bonds

Frédégonde, the sanguinary queen on historia-nostra.com

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