In
566 or 567, two Visigoth sisters married two Frankish brothers. The brides were
Galswintha and Brunhild, daughters of King Athanagild of the Visigoths (r.
551/554-567), while the grooms were Chilperic and Sigebert, both sons of the
Merovingian Dynasty’s King Chlotar I of the Franks (r. 511-561). At the time of
the marriages, Chilperic and Sigebert (with two other brothers, Charibert and
Guntram) had succeeded their father as kings of different sections of the
Frankish Empire. This was the fractured environment—with several independent
Merovingian kings vying for primacy in the Frankish sphere of influence—that
the Visigoth princesses were marrying into. With the unions of Galswintha to
Chilperic, and Brunhild to Sigebert, life could have been like a fairytale or a
folk story if the times and people were kinder. Yet, in the end, events unfolded
more like a saga of horrors and bloodshed, with feuds that lasted for
generations.
Brunhild
and Sigebert, it appears, had a happy marriage and got along quite well.
Galswintha, however, found Chilperic to be a poor husband. Despite the presence
of his new wife, Chilperic continuously returned to concubines and mistresses
that he had favored in the past, particularly a woman named Fredegund, whom he
valued above all else. Chilperic, after only a year of marriage, came to the conclusion
that he had made a mistake in marrying Galswintha. Driven on by these thoughts,
Chilperic ultimately decided to end the marriage. He, however, did not complete
this goal by separation or by sending his wife off to a convent. Instead, he
horrifically had Galswintha strangled to death in 567 or 568, and quickly married
Fredegund, who reportedly had encouraged the murder.
Brunhild,
understandably, was infuriated and enraged when she heard the news that
Chilperic had murdered her sister. Brunhild was supported by her husband,
Sigebert, who admirably championed her cause and eventually mobilized his
forces for a war against his own brother Chilperic. By 575, Sigebert was
visibly winning his war against Chilperic, but just as the conflict was
seemingly nearing its end, Sigebert was assassinated, leaving behind Brunhild
and a five-year-old son named Childebert II. Chilperic and Fredegund were the
prime suspects for the murder.
Childebert
II, though a vulnerable child-king, was looked after by his uncle, King Guntram
(r. 561-593), and by the late Sigebert’s loyal vassals. Brunhild, although she
was sometimes separated from her son, also continued to act and intrigue for his
interests. The realms of Childebert and Guntram were aligned against Chilperic
until around 581, when Chilperic had some success convincing the teenage
Childebert to turn against Guntram. Uncle Guntram, however, was able to bring
young Childebert back to his side by 584 by giving the boy control of
Marseilles. Later that very year, history would repeat and another
assassination would occur. This time, it was King Chilperic who fell to an
assassin’s blade, leaving behind Fredegund and an infant son named Chlotar II.
With
the death of Chilperic, King Guntram was now the undisputed patriarch of the
Merovingian Dynasty, ruling alongside two nephews, one an ambitious teenager
and the other a baby. Immediately upon his brother’s death, Guntram seemingly
acted with two goals at heart—self empowerment (he seized for himself lands
such as Paris, Tours and Poitiers), while also striving to save the Merovingian Dynasty from further royal assassinations within his lifetime. In
furtherance of the latter goal, he placed baby Chlotar II under his protection
and sheltered the widowed Fredegund from Childebert II, as the teenage king
wished to avenge the death of his father (Sigebert) and his aunt (Galswintha),
in whose deaths Fredegund had been implicated.
After
Childebert’s demands for Fredegund to be handed over had ceased, Guntram sent
her off to live at a manor in the vicinity of Rouen. As had happened with young
Childebert II, the vassals of the late Chilperic pledged their loyalty to baby
Chlotar, and like her rival Queen Brunhild, Fredegund took upon herself the
task of wielding espionage and intrigue on her young son’s behalf.
Not
long after reaching her manor near Rouen, presumably still in 584, Fredegund
launched an assassination attempt against Brunhild. As the story goes, she sent
an agent to infiltrate Brunhild’s household. The assassin took on the guise of
a cleric and acted with such piety and humility that he quickly worked his way
closer and closer into Brunhild’s inner circle. Yet, something was off about
him—maybe observers could sense insincerity, or perhaps his cover story just
didn’t fit. Whatever the case, Brunhild’s household became suspicious of the
cleric and eventually interrogated him. During the questioning, in-between
bouts of flogging, the would-be assassin reportedly confessed to everything. Brunhild,
for her part, spared the agent and merely sent him back to his master. The
move, however, may not have been too merciful, for Fredegund had a reputation for
wanton use of torture and execution. According to Bishop (and historian)
Gregory of Tours, “When he [the assassin] told Fredegund what had happened and
confessed that he had failed in his mission, she punished him by having his
hands and feet cut off” (History of the Franks, VII.20).
Written
by C. Keith Hansley
Picture
Attribution: (Fredegund watching the marriage of Chilperic and Galswintha, c.
19th century, painted by Lawrence Alma Tadema, [Public Domain] via Creative
Commons).
Sources:
- The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, translated by Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin Classics, 1971.
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fredegund
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Brunhild-queen-of-Austrasia
- https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001/acref-9780198662778-e-520
