Wikipedia (Article 1 of
3): Fredegund (or Fredegunda) (Latin: Fredegundis;
French: Frédégonde) (died 597) was the Queen consort of
Chilperic I, the Merovingian Frankish king of Soissons.
All her wealth
and power came to her through her association with Chilperic. Originally a
servant of Chilperic's first wife Audovera, Fredegund won Chilperic's affection
and persuaded him to put Audovera in a convent and divorce her. But Chilperic
then put Fredegund aside and married Galswintha. Galswintha died the same year,
probably strangled by Fredegund (c. 568), who succeeded Galswintha as
queen. Galswintha's sister, Brunhilda, however, began a feud which lasted more
than 40 years.
Fredegund is said
to have ordered the assassination of Sigebert I of Austrasia in 575
and also to have made attempts on the lives of Sigebert's son
Childebert II, her brother-in-law Guntram, king of Burgundy, and
Brunhilda.
After the
mysterious assassination of Chilperic in 584 AD, Fredegund seized
his riches and took refuge in the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral. Both she and
her surviving son, Clothar II, were protected by Guntram until he died
in 592.
Gregory of Tours
depicts her as ruthlessly murderous and sadistically cruel; in his account,
Fredegund perhaps has few rivals in monstrousness. Although she did not live to
see it, her son's execution of Brunhilda bore the mark of Fredegund's hatred:
Clothar II had the old queen, now in her sixties, stretched in agony upon the rack
for three entire days, then watched her meet her death chained between four
horses that were goaded to the four points of the compass, tearing her body
asunder.
Fredegund died
8 December 597 in Paris. The tomb of Frédégonde is a mosaic figure of
marble and copper, situated in the Saint Denis Basilica, having come from the
abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): Laffaux
Mill, recaptured by the French not long before the end of hostilities [in World
War I], figured prominently in the fortunes of the worst woman that ever lived.
Fredigond [sic], a serving maid, Attracted the notice of Chilpericc I., King of
the Franks. Before Chilperic married
her, she got one queen repudiated and strangled another. Then she murdered her three stepsons. Because her
first two sons died in infancy, she accused a number of women of witch craft and had them
tortured. When her third son was born she had Chilperic murdered, and became Regent. In extending her
kingdom her armies won a great victory at Laffaux in 595.
[“The Worst Woman.” The Register
(Adelaide, SA, Australia), Dec. 24, 1908, p. 8]
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A Dictionary entry from 1880 (Article 3 of 3):
FREDEGUNDIS, FREDEGUND, originally a slave of Chilperic l. (Gesta Reg. Fr. 31), became his wife by
supplanting Audovera. Whilst Chilperic was absent on an expedition against the
Saxons, Audovera brought forth a daughter. At Fredegund’s instigation the
daughter was baptized before the return of Chilperic, and Andovera was induced
by Fredegund to hold the child at the font, thereby becoming godmother to her
own daughter. Chilperic on his return discarded Audovera, compelling her to
take the veil, and took Fredegund to his bed. (On the authenticity of this
story v. Löbell, Gregor von Tours, p.
23, note.)
The position of Fredegund was little more than that of a
concubine, one wife of many (cp. Lobell, pp. 21 sqq.); and in 567 Chilperic, in
order to have a wife of equal station and rank to that of his brother Sigebert,
married Brunchilde’s elder sister, Galswintha, daughter of the Visigothic king
Athanagild. Chilperic promised his father-in-law to discard his other wives.
But before the year was out Frcdegund recovered her influence. Qunrrels arose
between Fredegund and Galswintha; the unhappy Galswinths thought to be allowed
to return home if she left her treasure behind. Chilperic dissimulated, and
Fredegund had her rival foully murdered, and a few days afterwards was openly
married to Chilperic (Fredegundim recepit in matrimonio, Greg. Turon. iv. 28).
The duty of revenging Galswintha’s death devolved upon
Sigebert, her sister’s husband, and it would appear that he and his brother
proceeded to take steps to depose Chilperic, but. that an arrangement was
arrived at by the intervention of Guntram, by which the wrath of Brunchilde and
Sigebert was bought off by the presentation to lirunchilde of Galswintha’s “
morning—gift “ offive Aquitanian cities. (Greg. ix. 20; see G. Richter, Annalen d. Deutschen Reichs, note, 5. a.
567.)
Bloodthirsty though her contemporaries were (such as
Goiswinda of Spain, Greg. v. 29, Austrechildis, Guntram’s wife, to. v. 36),
Fredegund far exceeded them all. Her biography is
simply a history of the murders she committed. She
studied the art of assassination, and was no mean adept at it. See her address
to the two clerks whom she employed in one of her attempts to murder
Childebert. (Greg. viii. 29.) Having once begun the policy of getting rid of
her enemies by assassination, she did not scruple to continue it to the end.
She brought about the deaths of her stepsons Meroveus (v. 14, 19 s.f.) and
Clovis (v. 40), she made more than one attempt on the lives of Bruncliilde and
Brunchilde’s son Childebert (vii. 20, viii. 29, x. 18. also against Guntrnm
viii. 43, 18), and an exceptionally horrible attempt with her own hand on her
own daughter Rigunthis (ix. 34). According to the Gesta (c. 35) she caused her husbanzl Chilperic to be murdered
because inadvertently she had discovered to him her adulterous intercourse with
Landerich. Lobell (p. 25, note) doubts the truth of this charge. Gregory has
not alluded to it, nor does he ever mention Landerich. Compare, however, bk.
vii. 7, where Childebert, in demanding the surrender of Fredegund, accuses her
of this murder amongst others.
She crowned her wickedness iathe eyes of her contemporaries
by having Praetextatus, bishop of Rouea, who had given her mortal offence by
blessing the marriage of Meroveus and Brunchilde, murdered before the altar,
and by openly poisoninga Frank noble who protested against her wickedness
(viii. 31, 41).
But her political assassinations were almost the least
horrible that she committed. Her personal revenge was absolutely implacable.
Once offended, she never rested satisfied with anything short of the blood of
her victim. And her revenge was prompted by various motives, indignation at
affront or false accusation, as in the case of Leudastes, towards whom she
showed the most calculating cold-blooded cruelty (v. 50, vi. 32); superstition,
as in the case of Mummolus (vi. 35); and lastly, the frantic rage of
disappointed passion or baulked vengeance (vii. 20, v. 19). No wonder that
Guntram, her brother-in-law. calls her “an enemy of God and man “ (ix. 20); and
Gregory adds “that she had no fear of God before her eyes “ (vii. l5). Devoid
of natural affection as she generally appeared to be (vi. 2.3, cp. vii. 7),
even she felt remorse for her wicked deeds when she saw her children dying
before her face. Seized, Gregory says. with a tardy repentance, she addressed
her husband thus: “ Long has the divine mercy suffered our evil deeds; we have
been warned by fevers and by other ills, but we have not repeated. And now we
are to lose our children, now they die, slain by the tears of the poor, the
wailing of the widow, the sighs of the orphan. We are bereft, and without hope,
none remains to us for whom to hoard. Do not our cellars overflow with wine,
our granaries with corn, our chests with gold. silver, and precious stones? And
yet the dearest treasure we possess, that we lose. Come, let us burn these
unjust taxation rolls, let us be content with the revenue that satisfied our
father Clotaire.” The king hesitated. “What!” she cried, “ you shrink? Follow
me. Even though we lose our beloved children we shall at least escape eternal
punishment.” Chilperic yielded, the rolls were burned, and the tax remitted (v.
3.3, cp. also x. 11).
That she really ruled rather than Chilperic, or that at any
rate she was the moving spirit in much political action that wu taken, is
evident from what has already been narrated or referred to, especially from the
stories of Praetextatns and Leudastes. Nor was she without vigour and resources
in adversity as well as in prosperity. On the murder of her husband she was
left with her infant son Clotairc. apparently defenceless and surrounded by
implacable and unscrupulous enemies. She took refuge and sanctuary at Paris,
and was astute enough to place herself for the moment under the protection of
Guntram, the least dangerous of her enemies, escaping
but only just escaping the vengeance of Childebert. “Let my lord come,” she
wrote, “and take the kingdom of his brother. I have a little child that I
desire to place in his arms. For myself I submit to his rule” (vii. 4-6, 7).
Subsequently she had to retire to Rueil (vii. 19), but even when her fortune
was at its lowest ebb she still hoped to find an escape for herself by the
murder of her foes (vii. 20). Later on her capital was at Tournai, and it was
there that in order to maintain internal peace within her realm she caused
three turbulent Frankish chiefs to be murdered at her table (x. 27). Apparently
a rising took place, Fredegund was seized, and was to be delivered over to
Childebert. She contrived, however, to raise a counter revolution within
Childebert’s kingdom in Champagne, and was herself rescued. Again she appealed
to Guntram, and got him solemnly to preside at the baptism of Clotaire (x. 28).
In 593 Guntram died, and Childebert became sole king of the Franks. Clotaire’s
kingdom and Fredegund’s rule at this time appear to have embraced little more
than the Frisian, Flemish, and Norman coast lands, the extreme north-west of
Neustria (Bonnell, Anffänge d. karol.
Hauses, p. 218). On Childebert’s death, however, in 596, Fredegund seized
Paris, Soissons, and other cities (Fred. 17) without warning or declaration of
war (ritu barbaro), and ravaged the country around Soissons, defeating the
forces of Theodebert and Theoderic at Lafaux (Fred. 17). A few months
afterwards she died, in 597, and was buried in St. Germaindes-Prés, at Paris.
Even though she may not have been guilty of the murder of
her husband, it is preposterous to attempt to exalt her in any way into a
heroine. The eulogy upon her by Fortuuatus (Carm.
iv. 1) may have been prompted by flattery or fear. But apologies such as were
made in the last century by M. Dreux du Radier (Mémoires historiques etc.
des Reines et Régentes de France, vol. i. Amsterdam, 1776), and in this
century by Luden, can only be maintained, as Lobell (pp. 342-4) has pointed
out, at the expense of the authenticity of Gregory or of the character of the
Frankish nation. Much relating to the history of Fredegund is to be found in
Thierry’s Récits des Temps Mrovingiens.
[T. R. B.]
[William Smith & Henry Wace, Vol. II, , A Dictionary of
Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, 1880, John Murray,
London, pp.561]
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