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Birth:          ABT  535 Toledo
Death:           613 
Cause of Death: executed

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunhilda_of_Austrasia
Brunhilda[1] (c. 543–613) was a princess of the Spanish Visigoths who married the 
Merovingian King Sigebert I of Austrasia, part of Francia. In her long and complicated 
career she ruled the eastern Frankish kingdoms of Austrasia and Burgundy for three 
periods as regent for her son, grandson and great-grandson. The period was marked 
by tension between the royal house and the powerful nobles vying for power.

Brunhilda was apparently an efficient ruler, but this and her forceful personality 
brought her into conflict with her nobles, the church, and the other Merovingians. Her 
bitter feud with Fredegund, who murdered Brunhilda's sister Galswintha to replace her 
as Queen of the Kingdom of Soissons (c. 568), lasted until Fredegund's death in 597. 
Fredegund had Brunhilda's husband murdered, and Brunhilda imprisoned for a period. 
It was continued by Fredegund's son, Clothar II, who in 613 defeated Brunhilda in 
battle and had her executed by being pulled apart by four horses.
Life[edit]

Brunhilda was possibly born about 543 in the Visigothic capital of Toledo, the younger 
of the two daughters of Athanagild and Goiswintha. She was only eleven years old 
when her father was made king in 554. She was educated in Toledo as an Arian 
Christian.

First marriage[edit]

In 567, she was married to King Sigebert I of Austrasia, a grandson of Clovis I, who 
had sent an embassy to Toledo loaded with gifts. She joined him at Metz. Upon their 
marriage, she converted to Catholicism.[2]

Sigebert's father, Chlothar I, had reunited the four kingdoms of the Franks, but when 
he died, Sigebert and his three brothers divided them again. According to historian 
and bishop Gregory of Tours, Sigebert's marriage to a Visigothic princess was a 
criticism of his brothers' choices in wives. Instead of marrying a low-born woman, 
Sigebert chose a princess of education and morals.

In response to Sigebert's noble marriage, his brother King Chilperic of Neustria 
(Soissons) sent for Brunhilda's sister, Galswintha. Gregory of Tours suggests that he 
proposed because he envied his brother's marriage to Brunhilda;[3] however, 
Galswintha ordered him to purge his court of courtesans and mistresses and he soon 
grew tired of her. He and his favorite mistress, Fredegund, conspired to murder her. 
Galswintha was strangled to death in her bed as she slept by an unknown assailant 
and Chilperic married Fredegund.

Brunhilda so detested Fredegund for the death of her sister—and this hatred was so 
fiercely reciprocated—that the two queens persuaded their husbands to go to war.[4] 
Sigebert persuaded their other brother, the elder Guntram of Burgundy, to mediate the 
dispute between the queens. He decided that Galswintha's dower of Bordeaux, 
Limoges, Cahors, Béarn, and Bigorre should be turned over to Brunhilda in restitution. 
However, Chilperic did not easily give up the cities and Brunhilda did not forget the 
murder. Bishop Germain of Paris negotiated a brief peace between them.

Between 567 and 570, Brunhilda bore Sigebert three children: Ingund, Chlodosind, 
and Childebert.

The peace was then broken by Chilperic, who invaded Sigebert's dominions. Sigebert 
defeated Chilperic, who fled to Tournai. The people of Paris hailed Sigebert as a 
conqueror when he arrived with Brunhilda and their children. Bishop Germain wrote to 
Brunhilda, asking her to persuade her husband to restore the peace and to spare his 
brother. Chroniclers of his life say that she ignored this; certainly Sigebert set out to 
besiege Tournai. Fredegund responded to this threat to her husband by hiring two 
assassins, who killed Sigebert at Vitry-en-Artois with poisoned daggers (scramsaxi, 
according to Gregory). Brunhilda was captured and imprisoned at Rouen.[5]

Second marriage[edit]

Merovech, the son of Chilperic and his first wife Audovera, went to Rouen on pretext 
of visiting his mother. While there, he decided to marry the widowed Brunhilda and 
thus strengthen his chances of becoming a king. His stepmother, Fredegund, was 
determined that only her sons should succeed as kings and eliminated her husband's 
sons by other women. Merovech and Brunhilda were married by the Bishop of Rouen, 
Praetextatus. However, since Brunhilda was Merovech's aunt the marriage was 
contrary to canon law.[6]

Chilperic soon besieged them in the church of St Martin on the walls. Eventually he 
made peace with them, but he took Merovech away with him to Soissons. In an effort 
to nullify the marriage, Chilperic had Merovech tonsured and sent to the monastery of 
Le Mans to become a priest. Merovech fled to the sanctuary of St Martin at Tours, 
which was Gregory's church (who was thus an eyewitness to these events),[7] and 
later to Champagne. He finally returned to Tours in 578 and when his bid for power 
failed, he asked his servant to kill him.[8]

First regency[edit]

Brunhilda now tried to seize the regency of Austrasia in the name of her son Childebert 
II, but she was resisted fiercely by her nobles and had to retire briefly to the court of 
Guntram of Burgundy before obtaining her goal. At that time, she ruled Austrasia as 
queen. Not being a fighter, she was primarily an administrative reformer, with a 
Visigothic education. She repaired the old Roman roads, built many churches and 
abbeys, constructed the necessary fortresses, reorganised the royal finances, and 
restructured the royal army. However, she antagonised the nobles by her continued 
imposition of royal authority wherever it was lax. To reinforce her positions and the 
crown's prestige and power, she convinced Guntram, newly heirless, to adopt 
Childebert as his own son and heir. This he did in 577.[9] In 579, she married her 
daughter Ingunda, then only thirteen, to the Visigothic prince Hermenegild, allying her 
house to that of the king of her native land. However, Hermenegild converted to 
Catholicism and he and his wife both died in the ensuing religious wars which tore 
apart the Visigothic kingdom in Spain.

Brunhilda ruled Austrasia until Childebert came of age in 583, at the traditional 
Merovingian majority of thirteen.

Relations with King Guntram[edit]

The conflict with Fredegund flared up once more upon the death of Chilperic. Now in 
the regency in Neustria, Fredegund was in a position to renew the war with her old 
enemy. Simultaneously, Brunhilda had to deal with her own internal enemies.

Many of the dukes strongly opposed her influence over her son Childebert, the king. 
Three of them—Rauching, Ursio, and Berthefrid—conspired to assassinate Childebert; 
however, their plot was found out. Rauching was killed and Ursio and Berthefrid fled 
to a fortress. Upon this, Guntram immediately begged for Childebert, Brunhilda, and 
Childebert's two sons to take refuge at his court. This they did and soon Ursio and 
Berthefrid were killed. In 587, Guntram, Childebert, and Brunhilda settled the Pact of 
Andelot[10] securing for Childebert the Burgundian succession and a continuing 
alliance of the two realms of Austrasia and Burgundy for the rest of Guntram's life.

In that same year, King Reccared I of the Visigoths sent embassies to both Childebert 
and Guntram, the former accepting them and consolidating an alliance and the latter 
refusing to see them. Thus, when Brunhilda and Childebert negotiated a marriage for 
the king's sister Chlodosind with the king of Spain, it was rejected by Guntram and 
abandoned. In 592, Guntram died and Childebert, as per the treaty, succeeded to his 
kingdom, immediately making war on Clotaire II of Neustria, Chilperic's son of 
Fredegund. Childebert died in 596 at the age of twenty-six.[5]

Second regency[edit]

Upon Childebert's death, Brunhilda attempted to govern Austrasia and Burgundy in the 
name of her grandsons Theudebert II and Theuderic II. Theudebert became king of 
Austrasia, and Theuderic, king of Burgundy.[5] Though she attributed the death of 
Childebert to Fredegund, the latter died in 597 and the direct conflict between her and 
Brunhilda ended. Peace would elude the Franks, however, for many years more as the 
conflict raged between the two queens' descendants.

In 599, Brunhilda's elder grandson, Theudebert, at whose court she was staying, 
exiled her. She was found wandering near Arcis in Champagne by a peasant, who 
brought her to Theuderic. The peasant was rewarded with the bishopric of Auxerre, as 
the legend goes. Theuderic welcomed her and readily fell under her influence, which 
was now inclined to vengeance against Theudebert. Soon the brothers were at war.

It is at this point that Brunhilda, now in her later fifties and having survived all the 
previous tribulations, began to display that ruthlessness which led to her especially 
violent demise. Brunhilda first took Protadius as lover and, desiring to promote him to 
high office, conspired to have Berthoald, the mayor of the palace, killed. In 604, she 
convinced Theuderic to send Berthoald to inspect the royal villae along the Seine. 
Clotaire, in accordance with Brunhilda's bidding, sent his own mayor Landric 
(ironically, a former paramour of Fredegund) to meet Berthoald, who had only a small 
contingent of men with him. Realising that he had been the victim of courtly plotting, 
Berthoald, in the ensuing confrontation, overchased the enemy until he was 
surrounded and killed. Protadius was promptly put in his place.

Brunhilda and Protadius soon persuaded Theuderic to return to war with Theudebert, 
but the mayor was murdered by his warriors, who did not wish to fight to assuage the 
ego of the queen. The man who ordered Protadius' execution, Duke Uncelen, was 
soon arrested by Brunhilda and tortured and executed. He was not the first ducal 
victim of the queen's vengeance.

It was also during these later regencies that Desiderius, Bishop of Vienne (later Saint 
Didier) publicly accused her of incest and cruelty. Desiderius finally enraged her with 
a pointed sermon on chastity preached in 612 before her and Theuderic, with whom 
she then hired three assassins to murder the bishop at the village now-called Saint-
Didier-sur-Chalaronne.

In that year, at the battle of Tolbiac, Theuderic defeated and captured Theudebert, 
whom the queen[who?] was now claiming was in fact the son of a gardener, and 
brought him and his royal paraphernalia to Brunhilda, who subsequently had him put 
up in a monastery. She probably also then had him murdered (along with his son 
Merovech) to allow Theuderic to succeed to both thrones unhindered. This he did, 
shortly thereafter dying of dysentery in his Austrasian capital of Metz, in late 613.
 
Third regency[edit]

The successor of Theuderic II was his bastard son Sigebert, a child. The mayor of the 
palace of Austrasia, Warnachar, fearing that at his young age he would fall under the 
influence of his great-grandmother, brought him before a national assembly, where he 
was proclaimed king by the nobles, who then did homage to him ruling over both his 
father's kingdoms. Nonetheless, he could not be kept out of the influence of 
Brunhilda. Thus, for the last time in a long life (now in her seventies), she was regent 
of the Franks, this time for her own great-grandson.

But Warnachar and Rado, mayor of the palace of Burgundy, along with Pepin of 
Landen and Arnulf of Metz, resentful of her regency, abandoned the cause of 
Brunhilda over the young king and joined with her old antagonist Clotaire II, promising 
not to rise in defence of the queen-regent and recognising Clotaire as rightful regent 
and guardian of Sigebert. Brunhilda, with Sigebert, met Clotaire's army on the Aisne, 
but the dukes yet again betrayed her: the Patrician Aletheus, Duke Rocco, and Duke 
Sigvald deserted her and she and her king had to flee. They fled as far as the city of 
Orbe (in today French Switzerland), hoping to enlist the aid of certain German tribes, 
but Clotaire's minions caught up with them by Lake Neuchâtel. The young king and his 
brother Corbo were both killed: thus ended the long and bloody feud between 
Austrasia and Neustria, and, reuniting the two kingdoms, Clotaire held the entire realm 
of the Franks.

Clotaire then accused Brunhilda of the death of ten kings of the Franks. The identity 
of the ten kings comes from the Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar. It is usually 
said to include Sigebert I, Chilperic I, Theudebert II, Theuderic II, Sigebert II, 
Merovech (Chilperic's son), Merovech (Theuderic's son), Corbo (Theuderic's son), and 
Childebert (Theuderic's son) and the sons of Theudebert; along with many churchmen, 
including Desiderius. According to the Liber Historiae Francorum:

Then the army of the Franks and Burgundians joined into one, all shouted together 
that death would be most fitting for the very wicked Brunhilda. Then King Clotaire 
ordered that she be lifted onto a camel and led through the entire army. Then she was 
tied to the feet of wild horses and torn apart limb from limb. Finally she died. Her final 
grave was the fire. Her bones were burnt.

One legend has her being dragged by a wild mare down the Roman road La Chaussée 
Brunehaut at Abbeville.

Religion[edit]

Brunhilda was raised as an Arian Christian, but upon her marriage to Sigebert, 
converted to Chalcedonian Christianity. In general, she protected the church and 
treated Pope Gregory the Great with great respect. He wrote a series of positive 
letters to her; in 597 he wrote to her about interdicting pagan rites such as tree 
worship.[clarification needed] Gregory of Tours was another favoured cleric; he was a 
trusted courtier to her and her son from 587 until his death. She also took a keen 
personal interest in the bishoprics and monasteries within her dominion. This brought 
her into conflict with Columbanus, abbot of Luxeuil, whom she eventually exiled to 
Italy, where he founded Bobbio. Brunhilda also played a role in perpetuating the 
diocese of Maurienne as a suffragan bishopric of the archdiocese of Vienne. In 576, 
Brunhilda's protector, Sigebert's brother Guntram, had founded the new bishopric at 
Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, separating the Maurienne Valley and the neighboring Susa 
Valley from the Diocese of Turin. The Bishop of Turin protested this to Brunhilda for 
more than twenty years, but even when Pope Gregory the Great supported his 
complaint in 599, Brunhilda dismissed it.

Brunhilda was buried in the Abbaye de St. Martin at Autun that she founded in 602 on 
the spot where the bishop of Tours had cut down a beech-tree that served as an 
object of pagan worship. The abbey was destroyed in 1793 and two parts of the cover 
of Brunhilda's sarcophagus are now in the Musée Lapidaire in Autun.[11]

Brunhilda commissioned the building of several churches and the abbey of St. Vincent 
at Laon (founded in 580). She is also credited with founding the castle of Bruniquel 
and having a Roman road resurfaced near Alligny-en-Morvan (where the name of a 
nearby hill Terreau Bruneau is believed to be derived from hers). The part of Mauves-
sur-Loire known as la Fontaine Bruneau is named after Brunhilda who may have 
cooled herself with the fountain's water when she suffered heat exhaustion.

In legend[edit]

Many scholars have seen Brunhilda as inspiration for both Brunnhild and Kriemhild, 
two rival characters from the Nibelungenlied. Kriemhild married Siegfried, who in many 
respects resembles Sigebert, Brunhilda's husband. There is resemblance between a 
multitude of characters and events in the Nibelungenlied and those of the latter half of 
the sixth century in Merovingian Gaul. As Thomas Hodgkin remarks:

“ Treasures buried in long departed days by kings of old, mysterious caves, reptile 
guides or reptile guardians - are we not transported by this strange legend into the 
very atmosphere of the Niebelungen Lied? And if the good king Gunthram passed for 
the fortunate finder of the Dragon-hoard, his brothers and their queens, by their wars, 
their reconciliations and their terrible avengings, must surely have suggested the main 
argument of that most tragical epic, the very name of one of whose heroines, 
Brunichildis, is identical with the name of the queen of Austrasia.[12]  

Parents
____ Athanagild (ABT  517 - Dec  567)
____ Goiswintha ()

Siblings
OF AUSTRASIA Brunhild (ABT  535 -  613)

Marriage To ____ Siegbert I ( 526 -  575)
    m.  

Notes

Parents
____ Clothaire I (Clotaire I) (Chlotar) (ABT  497 -  561)
____ Chrusine (Ingonde) (ABT  499 - )

Children by ____ Siegbert I  526 -  575
OF THE FRANKS Chodoswintha (ABT  550 - )
____ Childebert II (ABT  570 -  595)

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