Louis joined the newly acquired parts of central Austrasia to the subkingdom of his son Louis the Younger in eastern Austrasia, while the illegitimate son of Lothair II, Hugh, was granted the Duchy of Alsace.
|
|
673–691) and joined his enemies, who chose Dagobert II (r. 676–679) as King of Austrasia. Theuderic III of Neustria The war between Theuderic of Neustria and Dagobert of Austrasia once more devastated Bèze. Waldalène had to rebuild the abbey from ruins.
|
|
This was even regarded by contemporaries as the beginning of his "reign". It also signalled the dominance of Austrasia over Neustria, which would last until the end of the Merovingian era. Map of Francia in 714 (Austrasia shown in green) In 718, Charles Martel had Austrasian support in his war against Neustria for control of all the Francian realms. He was not king himself, but appointed Chlothar IV to rule in Austrasia.
|
|
In the 7th century a law code for Austrasia was published as the Lex Ripuaria. After the reign of the last capable Salian Frankish king, Dagobert I in 639, the Carolingian Austrasian mayordomos gradually took over power, transforming Austrasia into the heartland of the Carolingian Empire.
|
|
The powerful Austrasian mayor of the palace, Pepin II had concluded peace with his Neustrian counterpart, Waratton, in 681. However, Waratton's successors had renewed the conflict between Austrasia and Neustria, which was common in times of disunion. The Frankish realm was then united under King Theuderic III, who inherited Austrasia in 679. Theuderic III—born and raised in Neustria and a Neustrian at heart—and the nobles of Neustria and Burgundy, under their mayor, Berthar, invaded Austrasia territory.
|
|
In 592 Guntram dies and Childebert becomes king of Austrasia and Burgundy. The Austrasia-Burgundy union lasted only until 595, when the death of Childebert II brought it to an end. His realm was then split between his two sons: Theudebert II inherited Austrasia, while Theuderic II received the kingdom of Burgundy. The two brothers then campaigned united against their cousin Chlothar II of Neustria, but their alliance lasted only until 599, when they took up arms against each other.
|
|
Father Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints, 1866. footnote on p.18 Austrasia next passed under the rule of the children of Sigebert's brother Clovis II for a period. Chlothar III, the elder son of Clovis II, became the king of Austrasia in 657.
|
|
He succeeded his brother Chlothar III in Neustria in 673, but Childeric II of Austrasia displaced him soon thereafter until he died in 675 and Theuderic retook his throne. He fought a war against Dagobert II. His forces under Ebroin were victorious at the Battle of Lucofao. When Dagobert died in 679, Theuderic became king of Austrasia as well, unifying the Frankish realms. He and the Neustrian mayor of the palace, Waratton, made peace with Pepin of Heristal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, in 681.
|
|
Clothar and a young Dagobert In 623, he gave the kingdom of Austrasia to his young son Dagobert I. This was a political move as repayment for the support of Bishop Arnulf of Metz and Pepin I, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, the two leading Austrasian nobles, who were effectively granted semi-autonomy.Lebecq, page 127. At the same time, Clothar made territorial changes by assigning the region of Reims to Neustria. But Dagobert, now the semi-autonomous king of Austrasia, negotiated its return in 626.
|
|
In 629, he inherited Neustria and Burgundy. Austrasia was again neglected until, in 633, the people demanded the king's son as their own king again. Dagobert complied and sent his elder son Sigebert III to Austrasia. Historians often categorise Sigebert as the first roi fainéant or do-nothing king of the Merovingian dynasty.
|
|
He redivided the Frankish territory amongst his four sons, but the four kingdoms coalesced into three on the death of Charibert I in 567. Austrasia (including the southern Netherlands) was given to Sigebert I. The southern Netherlands remained the northern part of Austrasia until the rise of the Carolingians. The Franks who expanded south into Gaul settled there and eventually adopted the Vulgar Latin of the local population. However, a Germanic language was spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Neustria as late as the 850s.
|
|
With Pope Stephen II's blessing, after 751 the Carolingian Pippin the Short, formally deposed the Merovingians and took control of the empire, he and his descendants ruling as kings. Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy then became united under one authority and, although it would split once again into various eastern and western divisions, the names "Neustria" and "Austrasia" gradually disappeared.
|
|
Ancient basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains from the 4th century in Metz, capital of the kingdom of Austrasia After the death of the Frankish king Clovis I in 511, his four sons partitioned his kingdom amongst themselves, with Theuderic I receiving the lands that were to become Austrasia. Descended from Theuderic, a line of kings ruled Austrasia until 555, when it was united with the other Frankish kingdoms of Chlothar I, who inherited all the Frankish realms by 558. He redivided the Frankish territory amongst his four sons, but the four kingdoms coalesced into three on the death of Charibert I in 567: Austrasia under Sigebert I, Neustria under Chilperic I, and Burgundy under Guntram. These three kingdoms defined the political division of Francia until the rise of the Carolingians and even thereafter.
|
|
Soon the local levy spread to Austrasia and the less Romanised regions of Gaul. On an intermediate level, the kings began calling up territorial levies from the regions of Austrasia (which did not have major cities of Roman origin). All the forms of the levy gradually disappeared, however, in the course of the 7th century after the reign of Dagobert I. Under the so-called , the levies disappeared by mid-century in Austrasia and later in Burgundy and Neustria. Only in Aquitaine, which was fast becoming independent of the central Frankish monarchy, did complex military institutions persist into the 8th century.
|
|
With the death of Pepin in 640, Grimoald became the head of his household, the most powerful in Austrasia. At this time, Radulf, Duke of Thuringia, rebelled against Sigebert III, king of Austrasia. Grimoald participated in the ensuing expedition against the insurrection, but it was a failure. Nevertheless, Grimoald succeeded in saving the life of the king and became his close friend.
|
|
617) and Chucus (c. 617 – c. 624), are believed to have preceded him and were potentially political rivals connected to the fellow Austrasian 'Gundoinings' noble family. Once elected, Pippin served faithfully under Chlotar until the latter's death in 629, and solidified the Pippinids' position of power within Austrasia by supporting Chlotar's son Dagobert who became King of Austrasia in 623.
|
|
1 February 2013. Web. 6 April 2017. In 633, a revolt of the nobles forced Dagobert to make the three-year old Sigebert king of Austrasia, similar to how his father Chlotar II had made him king of Austrasia in 623. However, he refused to give the power to Pepin of Landen by making him mayor of the palace for the child-king.
|
|
He was born around 677 or possibly towards 682. He succeeded his father as the sole ruler of the Franks upon the latter's death in 690 or 691. He ruled an undivided kingdom including Austrasia, Burgundy and Neustria. According to the Annals of Metz, a pro-Pippinid source, he was appointed by Pippin of Herstal, the mayor of the palace of Austrasia, and reigned four years.
|
|
It was probably created by Dagobert I in order to defend southern Austrasia from the Alemanni and to assert Austrasian claims to the region in the face of Burgundian opposition. In 596, Childebert II bequeathed Alsace to his son Theuderic II, who was raised there. This attached it to Burgundy, but in 610 Theudebert II, Theuderic's brother of Austrasia, forced Alsace' cession to him only to lose it two years later to Burgundy again. In 623, when Chlothar II granted Austrasia to Dagobert, he excluded Alsace, the Vosges, and the Ardennes, but was shortly after forced to concede it to Dagobert by the Austrasian nobility.
|
|
According to a late tradition, he was killed by his own godson, John, while hunting in the Woëvre. The traditional date of his death, 23 December, is likewise based on late sources but widely accepted. Following Dagobert's death, Ebroin managed to extend Theuderic III's authority over Austrasia. On Wilfrid's return trip through Austrasia in 680, he was arrested by Ebroin's men, who blamed him for having arranged Dagobert's return.
|
|
The pope wrote to King Theuderic II of Burgundy and to King Theudebert II of Austrasia, as well as their grandmother Brunhilda of Austrasia, seeking aid for the mission. Gregory thanked King Chlothar II of Neustria for aiding Augustine. Besides hospitality, the Frankish bishops and kings provided interpreters and were asked to allow some Frankish priests to accompany the mission.Brooks Early History of the Church of Canterbury pp.
|
|
The territory of the Duchy of Franconia was the part of the core Frankish realm of Austrasia which did not pass to Middle Francia/Lotharingia following the Treaty of Verdun The duchy evolved during the decline of the Carolingian Empire, when it was a part of the core Frankish realm of Austrasia (i.e. "Eastern Francia"), and got its form when the northwestern parts of Austrasia became a new realm called Lotharingia. Unlike the other stem duchies, Franconia did not evolve into a stable political entity, though the local Salian counts held large estates in the western parts (Rhenish Franconia). In 906 the Conradine relative Count Conrad the Younger in the Lahngau is mentioned as a dux Franconiae.
|
|
In 716, the king of the Franks, Chilperic II, and Ragenfrid, the mayor of the palace of Neustria, invaded Austrasia to impose their will on the competing factions there: those of Theudoald and Plectrude, Pepin's heir and widow respectively, and those of Martel himself, newly escaped from Plectrude's Cologne prison and acclaimed mayor of the palace of Austrasia. Simultaneously Radbod, King of Frisia invaded Austrasia, forcing Saint Willibrord and his monks to flee, and allied with the king and the Neustrians. Outside of Cologne, held by Plectrude, an ill-prepared Charles Martel was defeated by Radbod, and forced to flee to the mountains of the Eifel. Cologne fell after a short siege to Chilperic, the Frisians and the Neustrians.
|
|
Bilichilde (d. 610), was a queen of Austrasia by marriage to Theudebert II. She was a serf bought from the slave market by Brunhilda of Austrasia. In 1979, Alfred Friese hypothesised that she was apparented to Duke Gisulf I of Friuli, whose two daughters were captured and enslaved, only for one to be married to a Bavarian prince and the other to an Alaman prince. This hypothesis was then disproven by Christian Settipani.
|
|
After the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, the Franks came into the Rhine valley and took over Worms by force. At the same time they converted to Christianity. When the Frankish realm was divided into three parts under the Merovingians, Worms belonged to Austrasia. After the rulers of Austrasia and Neustria married each other's sisters, a war broke out, which led to the death of both rulers and one of the sisters.
|
|
The Duchy of Alsace (, Ducatum Elisatium; ) was a large political subdivision of the Frankish Empire during the last century and a half of Merovingian rule. It corresponded to the territory of Alsace and was carved out of southern Austrasia in the last decade of the reign of Dagobert I, probably to stabilise the southern reaches of Austrasia against Alemannia and Burgundy. By the late Middle Ages, the region was considered part of Swabia.
|
|
Instead, Dagobert turned to the Pippinids political rival family, the Gundoinings, whose connections in Adalgesil, Cunibert, archbishop of Cologne, Otto and Radulf (who would later revolt in 642) once again removed the Pippinid and Arnulfing influence in the Austrasia assemblies. Pippin did not reappear in the historical record until Dagobert's death in 638, when he had seemingly been reinstated as mayor of Austrasia and began to support the new young King Sigebert III. According to the Continuations, Pippin made arrangements with his rival Archbishop Cunibert to get Austrasian support for the 10-year-old King Sigibert III, who ruled Austrasia whilst his brother Clovis II ruled over Neustria and Burgundy. Soon after securing his position once again, he unexpectedly died in 640.
|
|
He then swiftly returned to Austrasia and besieged Cologne, defeating Plectrude and reclaiming his father's wealth and treasure. Charles bolstered his position by installing Merovingian King Chlothar IV in Austrasia as an opposing Merovingian to Chilperic II. Despite not having a Merovingian King for around 40 years in Austrasia, Charles' position was clearly weak at this time and he required the support of the established Merovingians to gather military support. Even despite his weaknesses, Charles' recent success had made him a greater political entity, as such Chilperic and Raganfred could not win a decisive victory against him. So, in 718 they to sent embassies and won the support of Duke Eudo of Aquitaine whom at their request mustered 'a Gascon army' to face Charles.
|
|
Warnachar (sometimes numbered Warnachar II; in modern French, Warnachaire or Garnier) was the mayor of the palace of Burgundy (617-626) and briefly Austrasia (612-617). He began his career as the regent during Theuderic II's minority (596-c.604). In 612, when Theuderic became king of Austrasia, he became mayor of the palace. In 613, he allied with King Clotaire II of Neustria, feeling that the young Sigebert II should not be under the hated Brunhilda's influence.
|
|
Whatever the case, Charles Martel, Pepin's illegitimate son, soon escaped Plectrude's prison and Dagobert III soon died. The new king, Chilperic II, reappointed Ragenfrid, whose power was affirmed by the people of Neustria while the magnates of Austrasia elected Charles mayor. Plectrude remained holed up in Cologne, still with some supporters in Austrasia, and the war became a three-way conflict. As soon as Charles Martel gathered his supporters and trained them, he triumphed over all comers.
|
|
Jean Verseuil, Les rois fainéants: Dagobert and Pépin, Paris, 1946 (). Pepin replaced Adalgisel as mayor of the palace of Austrasia in 639 but died the following year, in 640, and was replaced by his son Grimoald. In 640 the Duchy of Thuringia rebelled against Austrasia in the only war of Sigebert's reign. Grimoald allowed the young king to stand at the head of the army trying to quell the rebellion, but was defeated by Duke Radulph.
|
|
Following the assassination of Childeric II in 675, the kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria accepted different claimants. In Neustria, under the influence of Leudegar, bishop of Autun, Childeric's younger brother Theuderic III was installed as king. In Austrasia, Ebroin, the former mayor of the palace, installed Clovis III with support of a faction of the magnates opposed to the mayoralty of Wulfoald. Ebroin and his allies claimed that Clovis was a son of Chlothar III, Childeric's older brother.
|
|
Saint Romaric (died 653) was a Frankish nobleman who lived in Austrasia from the late 6th century until the middle of the 7th century. He and Amatus of Grenoble founded Remiremont Abbey.
|
|
Dagobert's accession in Neustria resulted in another temporary unification. In Austrasia under the Arnulfing mayor Grimoald the Elder attempted a coup against his liege, Clovis II had him removed and again reunited the kingdom from Neustria, but again temporarily. During or soon after the reign of Clovis's son Chlothar III, the dynasty of Neustria, like that of Austrasia before it, ceded authority to its own mayor of the palace. In 678, Neustria, under Mayor Ebroin, subdued the Austrasians for the last time.
|
|
His second marriage was to Austrigusa, a Gepid possibly named after her maternal descent from Ostrogothic rulers. Austrigusa was the mother of two daughters: Wisigarda (who married Theudebert I of Austrasia) and Waldrada (who married firstly Theudebald of Austrasia, secondly Chlothar I, King of the Franks, and thirdly Garibald I of Bavaria). Wacho's third marriage was to Silinga, a Heruli, mother of Waltari. According to some historians (Josef Poulík), he was buried on Žuráň hill, however, modern historians are not certain about it.
|
|
Despite the king's offers to stay in his kingdom, Columbanus left Neustria in 611 for the court of King Theudebert II of Austrasia in the northeastern part of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks.
|
|
The analogy to Austrasia is even more explicit in the variant Neustrasia.Neustrasia appears to be preferred by some authors writing in New Latin, e.g. by Caesar Baronius (d. 1607); Augustin Theiner (ed.) Caesaris S.R.E. Card.
|
|
Chlothar attempted to manage the unstable alliances he had with other noble families throughout much of Dagobert's reign. When Chlothar granted Austrasia to Dagobert, he initially excluded Alsace, the Vosges, and the Ardennes, but shortly thereafter the Austrasian nobility forced him to concede these regions to Dagobert. The rule of a Frank from the Austrasian heartland tied Alsace more closely to the Austrasian court. Dagobert created a new duchy (the later Duchy of Alsace) in southwest Austrasia to guard the region from Burgundian or Alemannic encroachments and ambitions.
|
|
Austrasia was centered on the Middle Rhine, including the basins of the Moselle, Main, and Meuse rivers. It bordered on Frisia and Saxony to the north, Thuringia to the east, Swabia and Burgundy to the south and to Neustria to the southwest. The exact boundary between Merovingian Neustria and Austrasia is unclear with respect to areas such as the medieval County of Flanders, County of Brabant, and County of Hainaut, and areas immediately to the south of these. Metz served as the Austrasian capital, although some Austrasian kings ruled from Reims, Trier, and Cologne.
|
|
As mayor of Austrasia, Pepin and Martin, the duke of Laon, fought the Neustrian mayor Ebroin, who had designs on all Francia. Ebroin defeated the Austrasians in the Battle of Lucofao and came close to uniting all the Franks under his rule; however, he was assassinated in 681, the victim of a combined attack by his numerous enemies. Pepin immediately made peace with his successor, Waratton. However, Waratton's successor, Berthar, and the Neustrian king Theuderic III, who, since 679, was nominal king of all the Franks, made war on Austrasia.
|
|
Wulfoald (died 680) was the mayor of the palace of Austrasia from 656 or 661, depending on when Grimoald I was removed from that office (accounts vary: see his article for details), to his death and mayor of the palace of Neustria and Burgundy from 673 to 675. He was the regent of Austrasia during the minority of Childeric II until 670. Even after Childeric achieved his majority, Wulfoald held the real power. In 673, he became the mayor of the palace in Neustria because Childeric had succeeded to its throne.
|
|
Early medieval Cologne was part of Austrasia within the Frankish Empire. In 716, Charles Martel commanded an army for the first time and suffered the only defeat of his life when Chilperic II, King of Neustria, invaded Austrasia and the city fell to him in the Battle of Cologne. Charles fled to the Eifel mountains, rallied supporters and took the city back that same year after defeating Chilperic in the Battle of Amblève. Cologne had been the seat of a bishop since the Roman period; under Charlemagne, in 795, bishop Hildebold was promoted to archbishop.
|
|
As the Easter issue appears to end around that time, Columbanus may have stopped celebrating Irish date of Easter after moving to Italy. Columbanus was also involved in a dispute with members of the Frankish royal family. Upon the death of King Gontram of Burgundy, the succession passed to his nephew, Childebert II, the son of his brother Sigebert and Sigebert's wife Brunhilda of Austrasia. When Childebert II died, he left two sons, Theuderic II who inherited the Kingdom of Burgundy, and Theudebert II who inherited the Kingdom of Austrasia.
|
|
By the 490s, Clovis I had conquered and united all the Frankish territories to the west of the Meuse, including those in the southern Netherlands. He continued his conquests into Gaul. After the death of Clovis I in 511, his four sons partitioned his kingdom amongst themselves, with Theuderic I receiving the lands that were to become Austrasia (including the southern Netherlands). A line of kings descended from Theuderic ruled Austrasia until 555, when it was united with the other Frankish kingdoms of Chlothar I, who inherited all the Frankish realms by 558.
|
|
Only little historical facts of his life can be stated with certainty, other than that he came to Francia, was appointed Bishop of Strasbourg and was venerated from the early medieval period as the saint who brought Christianity to the Alsace. Because of this, the given name Arbogast became especially popular in the region. His origin is variously given as Scotland or Ireland, or Aquitania. According to the vita, a 10th-century hagiographical account of his life, Arbogast found a warm friend in the Merovingian King Dagobert II of Austrasia, who reigned Austrasia 673-679.
|
|
Chlothar ceded rule over Austrasia to his young son Dagobert I in 623\. Unusually for a Merovingian monarch, he practiced monogamy, though deaths meant that he had three queens. He was generally an ally of the church and, perhaps inspired by the example of his uncle Guntram, his reign seems to lack the outrageous acts of murder perpetrated by many of his relations, with the exception of the execution of Brunhilda. Chapter 43 relates the attempted usurpation of Austrasia by the Pippinid mayor Grimoald the Elder in summary form.
|
|
Sigebert I (c. 535 – c. 575) was a Frankish king of Austrasia from the death of his father in 561 to his own death. He was the third surviving son out of four of Clotaire I and Ingund.
|
|
After that it was only divided again once (717–18). The main divisions of the kingdom were Austrasia, Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitaine. During the final century of Merovingian rule, the kings were increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role.
|
|
28 Jan. 2013 He was brother to Reccared I and brought up an Arian. Liuvigild made his sons co-regents. In 579 he married Ingund, daughter of the Frankish King Sigebert I of Austrasia who was a Chalcedonian Christian.
|
|
The Battle of Cologne was fought near the city of Köln (English: Cologne) (now part of Germany) in the year 716 CE. The battle is known chiefly as the first battle of Charles Martel's command and is the only defeat of his life. In 716, the king of the Franks, Chilperic II, and Ragenfrid, the mayor of the palace of Neustria, invaded Austrasia to impose their will on the competing factions there: those of Theudoald and Plectrude, grandson (and designated heir) and widow respectively of Martel's father Pepin of Heristal, and those of Martel himself, newly escaped from Plectrude's Cologne prison and acclaimed mayor of the palace of Austrasia. Simultaneously Radbod, King of Frisia invaded Austrasia and allied with the king and the Neustrians. Outside of Cologne, held by Plectrude, an ill-prepared Charles Martel was defeated by Radbod, and forced to flee to the mountains of the Eifel.
|
|
Theuderic III succeeded his brother Chlothar III in Neustria in 673, but Childeric II of Austrasia displaced him soon thereafter—until he died in 675, and Theuderic III retook his throne. When Dagobert II died in 679, Theuderic received Austrasia as well and became king of the whole Frankish realm. Thoroughly Neustrian in outlook, he allied with his mayor Berthar and made war on the Austrasian who had installed Dagobert II, Sigebert III's son, in their kingdom (briefly in opposition to Clovis III). In 687 he was defeated by Pepin of Herstal, the Arnulfing mayor of Austrasia and the real power in that kingdom, at the Battle of Tertry and was forced to accept Pepin as sole mayor and dux et princeps Francorum: "Duke and Prince of the Franks", a title which signifies, to the author of the Liber Historiae Francorum, the beginning of Pepin's "reign".
|
|
Before the end of the year, Charles Martel had escaped from prison and been acclaimed mayor by the nobles of Austrasia. That same year, Dagobert III died and the Neustrians proclaimed Chilperic II, the cloistered son of Childeric II, as king.
|
|
Baronii t. 11, (1867), p. 583. Neustria was also employed as a term for northwestern Italy during the period of Lombard domination. It was contrasted with the northeast, which was called Austrasia, the same term as given to eastern Francia.
|
|
They provide more contemporary evidence for the reign of Clovis I than any other source. The letters are particularly useful in illuminating the complex diplomatic relations between Austrasia and the Byzantine Empire. A majority of the letters concern this relationship.
|
|
Pepin took the young Sigebert and moved with him to his domains in Aquitane, where they stayed the next three years.Father Alban Butler. "Saint Sigebert II, French King of Austrasia, Confessor". Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints, 1866. CatholicSaints.Info.
|
|
Leudwinus was born a French nobleman and was a member of one of the most powerful clans in Austrasia. His parents were Warinus, Count of Poitiers and Gunza of Metz. Lambert of Maastricht was his kinsman. His Frankish name is Liutwin.
|
|
Leudwinus spent his early life at the royal court of Austrasia and was styled Count of Treves. He received his education from his maternal uncle, Saint Basinus, Archbishop of Treves. In 697, Leudwinus signed the Deed of Echternach with his uncle.
|
|
From 567 to the death of Sigbert II in 613, Neustria and Austrasia fought each other almost constantly, with Burgundy playing the peacemaker between them. These struggles reached their climax in the wars between Brunhilda and Fredegund, queens respectively of Austrasia and Neustria. Finally, in 613, a rebellion by the nobility against Brunhilda saw her betrayed and handed over to her nephew and foe in Neustria, Chlothar II. Chlothar then took control of the other two kingdoms and set up a united Frankish kingdom with its capital in Paris. During this period the first majores domus or mayors of the palace appeared.
|
|
The predecessor to Neustria was the Roman rump state of the Kingdom of Soissons. In 486 its ruler Syagrius lost the Battle of Soissons to the Frankish king Clovis I and the domain was thereafter under the control of the Franks. Constant re-divisions of territories by Clovis's descendants resulted in many rivalries that, for more than two hundred years, kept Neustria in almost constant warfare with Austrasia, the eastern portion of the Frankish Kingdom. Despite the wars, Neustria and Austrasia re-united briefly on several occasions, the first time under Clotaire I during his reign from 558 to 562.
|
|
Desiderius (died 587) was a Gallo-Roman dux in the Kingdom of the Franks during the reigns of Chilperic I and Guntram. He served Chilperic as Duke of Aquitaine and was his greatest general. When Sigebert I of Austrasia died in 575, Chilperic sent Desiderius to invade his kingdom, but Guntram of Burgundy sent the patrician Mummolus against him and Desiderius was defeated and forced to retreat, leaving Austrasia to Sigebert's son Childebert II. The following year, with the armies of Bladast and Berulf,Gregory of Tours, VI.31, calls him duke of Poitou, Anjou, Touraine, and Nantais. surrounded the territory of Bourges.
|
|
Clovis I divided his realm between his four sons, who united to defeat Burgundy in 534. Internecine feuding occurred during the reigns of the brothers Sigebert I and Chilperic I, which was largely fuelled by the rivalry of their queens, Brunhilda and Fredegunda, and which continued during the reigns of their sons and their grandsons. Three distinct subkingdoms emerged: Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy, each of which developed independently and sought to exert influence over the others. The influence of the Arnulfing clan of Austrasia ensured that the political centre of gravity in the kingdom gradually shifted eastwards to the Rhineland.
|
|
The Frankish realm as it was after the Treaty of Andelot in 587. The Burgundian kingdom of Guntram (pink) was inherited first by Childebert II and then by Theuderic II. Theuderic II (also Theuderich, Theoderic, or Theodoric; in French, Thierry) (587–613), king of Burgundy (595–613) and Austrasia (612–613), was the second son of Childebert II. At his father's death in 595, he received Guntram's kingdom of Burgundy, with its capital at Orléans, while his elder brother, Theudebert II, received their father's kingdom of Austrasia, with its capital at Metz. He also received the lordship of the cities (civitates) of Toulouse, Agen, Nantes, Angers, Saintes, Angoulême, Périgueux, Blois, Chartres, and Le Mans. During his minority, and later, he reigned under the guidance of his grandmother Brunhilda, evicted from Austrasia by his brother Theudebert II. In 596, Clotaire II, king of Neustria, and Fredegund, Clotaire's mother, took Paris, which was supposed to be held in common.
|
|
In 719, Francia was united by Martel's family, the Carolingian dynasty, under Austrasian hegemony. While the Frankish kings continued to divide up the Frankish realm in different ways over subsequent generations, the term Austrasia was only used occasionally after the Carolingian dynasty.
|
|
Arnulf of Metz ( 582645) was a Frankish bishop of Metz and advisor to the Merovingian court of Austrasia. He later retired to the Abbey of Remiremont. In French he is also known as Arnoul or Arnoulf. In English he is known as Arnold.
|
|
Chlothar, who outlasted his rival kinsmen and became sole Frankish king, retained Dentelin when he installed his son Dagobert I as king of Austrasia in 623. When Dagobert died in 639, Dentelin was included in Neustria, and remained part of that kingdom afterwards.
|
|
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.
|
|
Fredegund, seated on her throne, gives orders to assassinate Sigebert, King of Austrasia, steel engraving after a 15th-century window in the Cathedral of Tournai. Upon the death of Chilperic I in 584, Fredegund became regent during the minority of her infant son Chlothar II.
|
|
In 806, Charlemagne first made provision for the traditional division of the empire on his death. For Charles the Younger he designated Austrasia and Neustria, Saxony, Burgundy and Thuringia. To Pippin, he gave Italy, Bavaria, and Swabia. Louis received Aquitaine, the Spanish March and Provence.
|
|
535 – c. 575), king of Austrasia, when perhaps it is, in fact, Sigobert the Lame (died c. 509), king of Cologne. Although Doda is reputed to be the daughter of Sigobert's son Chlodoric, chronologically, it seems difficult to make of Doda a daughter of Chlodéric.
|
|
In the 8th century it is recorded that the village was at the centre of a large royal estate. During the time of King Childeric II, the lands and forests of Kintzheim were subject to royal taxation: this was the time when Mayor Wulfoald (or Vulfoald) exercised great power in Austrasia, even after the king came into his majority. Childeric was killed in 675 while hunting: Wulfoald then arranged for the return from Ireland to Austrasia of Dagobert II. Dagobert was king until he, too, was killed on December 23, 779: subsequently Dagobert became known as Saint Dagobert, his day being December 23. Mayor Wulfoald died soon afterwards, in 780.
|
|
As before, distinct jurisdictions were awarded. Charles received Pepin's original share as Mayor: the outer parts of the kingdom bordering on the sea, namely Neustria, western Aquitaine, and the northern parts of Austrasia; while Carloman was awarded his uncle's former share, the inner parts: southern Austrasia, Septimania, eastern Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, and Swabia, lands bordering Italy. The question of whether these jurisdictions were joint shares reverting to the other brother if one brother died or were inherited property passed on to the descendants of the brother who died was never definitely settled. It came up repeatedly over the succeeding decades until the grandsons of Charlemagne created distinct sovereign kingdoms.
|
|
Liber Historiae Francorum, chapter 46 In that time, Wulfoald of Austrasia having died and the kings having died, Martin and the younger Pippin, son of the late Ansegisel, governed in Austrasia until finally it came to the point where these dukes turned in hatred against Ebroin. Having gathered a large following of Austrasians, they sent the force against King Theuderic and Ebroin. Theuderic and Ebroin came out against them with an army at a place called Bois-du-Fays, and as soon as they joined battle they cut each other down in a great slaughter. And there a great multitude of the army fell.
|
|
The Arnulfing clan reappear in the contemporary historical record in c. 676 when the LHF mentions 'Pippin and Martin' rising up against a tyrannical Ebroin, mayor of Austrasia. Pippin II, now head of the faction, and Martin, who was either Pippin's brother or relative, rose up against Ebroin and gathered an army (potentially with the aid of Dagobert II whom had been brought back to Austrasia by mayor Wulfoald) According to the LHF, the Arnulfing army met Ebroin, who had gained the support of King Theuderic III, at Bois-du-Fays and they were easily defeated. Martin fled to Laon from where he was lured and murdered by Ebroin at Asfeld.
|
|
In 596, Childebert II bequeathed Alsace to his son Theuderic II, who was raised there. This attached it to Burgundy, but in 610 Theudebert II, Theuderic's brother of Austrasia, forced Alsace' cession to him only to lose it two years later to Burgundy again. In 623, when Chlothar II granted Austrasia to Dagobert, he excluded Alsace, the Vosges, and the Ardennes, but was shortly after forced to concede it to Dagobert by the Austrasian nobility. Sometime probably between 629 and 631 Dagobert granted it as a dukedom to Gundoin, a Frank from the Austrasian heartland of the Meuse valley, a move which tied Alsace more closely to the Austrasian court.
|
|
This ended suddenly in 405, when the Alamani crossed the Rhine and occupied Sundgau. They, in turn, were followed by the Franks following their victory at the Battle of Tolbiac in 496. Sundgau was incorporated into the kingdom of Austrasia and Christianity was introduced under the Merovingians.
|
|
Saint Balderic (or Baudry) was the founding abbot of Montfaucon. Balderic and his sister Beuve (or Bove or Bova) lived in the 7th century in France. They were reputed to be children of Sigebert I, king of Austrasia,Monks of Ramsgate. “Balderic”. Book of Saints, 1921. CatholicSaints.Info.
|
|
Leutharis, Leuthari, Leuthard, or Leutharius II (fl. c. 643) was the Duke of Alamannia in the early seventh century. Leuthari murdered Otto, the mayor of the palace of Austrasia, in 643. By doing so he made Grimoald I the mayor of the palace for Sigebert III.
|
|
By inheritance, he was the ruler of Auvergne and the Limousin. He conquered Poitou and Aquitaine in 893 on behalf of Ebalus Manser. He kept the latter for himself and was proclaimed duke. His possessions extended from Austrasia to Toulouse and included the Autunois and Mâconnais.
|
|
Austrasia was a territory which formed the northeastern section of the Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks during the 6th to 8th centuries. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the Franks, including both the so-called Salians and Rhineland Franks, which Clovis I conquered after first taking control of the bordering part of Roman Gaul, now northern France, which is sometimes described in this period as Neustria. In AD 567, Austrasia became a separate kingdom within the Frankish kingdom and was ruled by Sigebert I. In the 7th and 8th centuries it was the powerbase from which the Carolingians, originally mayors of the palace of Austrasia, took over the rule of all Franks, all of Gaul, most of Germany, and Northern Italy. After this period of unification, the now larger Frankish empire was once again divided between eastern and western sub-kingdoms, with the new version of the eastern kingdom eventually becoming the foundation of the Kingdom of Germany.
|
|
Chlothar was made king at the instigation of Charles Martel following his victory over the forces of Chilperic II and the mayor of the palace, Ragamfred, at the Battle of Vincy on 21 March 717. This put Charles in control of most of Austrasia, although pockets still recognised Chilperic.
|
|
They are also said to be related to King Dagobert, presumably Dagobert I of Austrasia. Saint Beuve was the first abbess of Saint-Pierre-les- Dames in Reims. In 639, her brother Balderic established the convent for her. She was succeeded as abbess by her niece Doda (or Dode).
|
|
Bonitus was born in Auvergne, France and became chancellor to Sigebert III. the king of Austrasia; and by his zeal, religion, and justice, flourished in that kingdom under four kings. After the death of Dagobert II. Thierry III. made him governor of Marseilles and all Provence, in 680Butler, Alban.
|
|
He may be educated too in Austrasia by Scottish monks attracted by the reputation of Saint Columbanus. Some sceptical scientists add this legend would definitely distinguish Déodat as a holy itinerant who was not a benedictin monk : he comes from nowhere. Maybe he was just a Christian chief. Only one fact is sure : Déodat is the founder and first patron of a Merovingian district with political and religious power, a ban decided by the king of Austrasia Childeric II.This territory takes a lot of montanous land from his fiscus, or royal reserve named foresta, but integers private domains and little villages too And, after his dead, he was considered and consacred by local populations as a holy man.
|
|
The clergy are not mentioned in the Lex Frisionum as they were not liable to civil law. The Frisians received the title of freemen and were allowed to choose their own podestat or imperial governor. In the Lex Frisionum three districts of Frisia are clearly distinguished: the law governs all of Frisia, but West Frisia "between Zwin and Vlie" and East Frisia "between Lauwers and Weser" have certain stated exceptional provisions. At the partition treaty of Verdun (843) the whole of Frisia became part of Lotharingia; at the treaty of Meersen (870) it was briefly divided between the kingdoms of the East Franks (Austrasia) and the West Franks (Neustria), but in 808 the whole country was reunited under Austrasia.
|
|
The Carolingian line began first with two important rival Frankish families, the Pippinids and Arnulfings whose destinies became intermingled in the early 7th century. Both men came from noble backgrounds on the western borders of the Austrasia territory between the Meuse and Moselle rivers, north of Liège. The first two figures Pippin I of Landen and Arnulf of Metz, from whom historians have taken the family names, both first appeared in the fourth book of the Continuations of Fredegar as advisers to Chlotar II of Neustria who ‘incited’ revolt against King Theuderic II and Brunhild of Austrasia in 613. Through shared interest, Pippin and Arnulf allied their families through the marriage of Pippin's daughter Begga and Arnulf's son Ansegisel.
|
|
Dagobert III (c.699–715) was Merovingian king of the Franks (711–715). He was a son of Childebert III. He succeeded his father as the head of the three Frankish kingdoms--Neustria and Austrasia, unified since Pippin's victory at Tertry in 687, and the Kingdom of Burgundy--in 711.
|
|
115 He served King Sigebert III of Austrasia (634–656) as a duke (Latin dux, a military leader) and domesticus. He was killed sometime before 679, slain in a feud by his enemy Gundewin. Through his son Pepin, Ansegisel's descendants would eventually become Frankish kings and rule over the Carolingian Empire.
|
|
886), documented as a princeps militiae of the East Frankish king Louis the Younger and dux of Austrasia under emperor Charles the Fat. Dux Henry died fighting against the Vikings during the Siege of Paris in West Francia. Hedwiga married Otto (d. 912), a younger son of late Saxon count Liudolf.
|
|
Ekkehard may be related to Count Meginhare. In 834, Louis was imprisoned by his son Lothair, and Ekkehard attempted to procure the release of the emperor. Louis turned the loyal barons of Austrasia and Saxony against Lothair, who fled to Burgundy. Louis was restored the next year, on 1 March 834.
|
|
By 718, his younger son Charles Martel had taken control of both Austrasia and Neustria. His descendants are the Carolingians proper, although some historians take this name as far back as the union of Ansegisel and Begga. The descendants of Charles's brother, Childebrand, on the other hand, are known as the Nibelungids.
|
|
In 678, Martin and his brother Pepin, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, met in battle the Neustrian mayor Ebroin, who had designs on all Francia. Ebroin defeated the Austrasians in the Battle of Lucofao (679/80). Pepin escaped; Martin made it back to Laon, where he was assassinated on Ebroin's orders.
|
|
Landrada of Austrasia (died ca. 690) was an abbess who is venerated as a Catholic saint. She is credited with the foundation of Munsterbilzen Abbey (Belgium), where, in 2006, 10 massive oak trunk graves were discovered, one of which is believed to have been hers. She died in Munsterbilzen about A.D. 690.
|
|
He pursued the fleeing king and mayor to Paris. On this success, he proclaimed Clotaire IV king of Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic and deposed the bishop of Rheims, Rigobert, replacing him with one Milo. The defeated Chilperic II, and his mayor of the palace, Ragenfrid, were essentially broken after this battle.
|
|
Under pressure from their northern enemies, the Saxons, they were first able to infiltrate the left bank of the Rhine in 274 AD. In the chaotic years after the definitive collapse of Roman power in western Europe, they managed to occupy the Roman city of Cologne and the lower and middle Rhineland in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia. Few historical details are known before the Rhineland kingdom eventually became an important part of the Merovingian Frankish empire in the sub-kingdom known as Austrasia, which also included the original Germanic speaking Salian region. Austrasia included not only the Rhineland-Palatinate, but apparently the whole of the Germania Inferior (re-named in the late Roman empire as Germania II) and Gallia Belgica II. The border between Austrasia and Neustria was the Silva Carbonaria in modern Wallonia, but the exact definition of this forest region is now unclear. On the right bank of the Rhine, the Ripuarian Franks had control over the river basin of the Main, in later years also called Franconia, one of the five stem duchies, from which in the middle of the 9th century the kingdom of Germany was formed.
|
|
Other important cities included Verdun, Worms and Speyer. Fulda monastery was founded in eastern Austrasia in the final decade of the Merovingian period. In the High Middle Ages, its territory became divided among the duchies of Lotharingia and Franconia in Germany, with some western portions including Reims and Rethel passing to France. Its exact boundaries were somewhat fluid over the history of the Frankish sub-kingdoms, but Austrasia can be taken to correspond roughly to the territory of present-day Luxembourg, parts of eastern Belgium, north-eastern France (Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne), west- central Germany (the Rhineland, Hesse and Franconia) and the southern Netherlands (Limburg, North Brabant, with a salient north of the Rhine including Utrecht and parts of Gelderland).
|
|
Childeric II (c. 653 - 675) was the king of Austrasia from 662 and of Neustria and Burgundy from 673 until his death, making him sole King of the Franks for the final two years of his life. Childeric was the second eldest son of King Clovis IIJean Verseuil, Les rois fainéants: de Dagobert à Pépin le Bref 629-751, édition Critérion, Paris, 1946 () and grandson of King Dagobert I and Queen Nanthild.Detlev Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band I (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1980), Tefel 1 His mother was Saint Balthild and his elder brother was Chlothar III, who was briefly sole king from 661, but gave Austrasia to Childeric the next year.
|
|
According to Gerberding narrative, Grimoald and Dido organised around 16th January 651 Dagobert's exile to Ireland at Nivelles, then when Sigibert died a month later they acted out the plan and tonsured Dagobert, replacing him with Childebert, who ruled until 657. Clovis II then immediately acted and invaded Austrasia, executing Grimoald and his son. Then either in 657 or 662, the Neustrians (either Clovis II who died in 657 or his son Chlothar III) installed infant King Childeric II to the throne of Austrasia, marrying him to Bilichild, the daughter of Sigibert's widow Chimnechild of Burgundy. Grimoald and Childebert's deaths brought an end to the direct Pippinid line of the family, leaving the Arnulfing descendants from Begga and Ansegisel to continue the faction.
|
|
Very little is known about Pippin's early life, but a controversial story from AMP suggests that Pippin reclaimed power in Austrasia by killing a legendary 'Gundoin' as revenge for the assassination of his father Ansegisel. This story is regarded as slightly fantastical by Paul Fouracre, who argues the AMP, a pro-Carolingian source potentially written by Giselle (Charlemagne's sister) in 805 at Chelles, is that Pippin's role primes him perfectly for his future and demonstrates his family to be a 'natural leaders of Austrasia.' However, Fouracre does also acknowledge his existence in charter evidence and confirms that he was political link to rival mayor Wulfoald. These rivalries would make Pippin natural enemies with Gundoin; making the murder plausible as part of Pippin's rise to power.
|
|
Saint Gérard (in Walloon Sint-Djuråd) (c. 895 – October 3, 959) was an abbot of Brogne Abbey. A native of Staves (Namur), he was a member of the family of dukes of Lower Austrasia. Originally a soldier, he rebuilt a family chapel into a large church and later became a monk at Saint-Denis.
|
|
He became Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia in 680. Pepin subsequently embarked on several wars to expand his power. He united all the Frankish realms by the conquests of Neustria and Burgundy in 687. In foreign conflicts, Pepin increased the power of the Franks by his subjugation of the Alemanni, the Frisians, and the Franconians.
|
|
Vulfetrude, or Wulfetrude (died 669), was an Abbess of Nivelles from 659-669 AD. She was a daughter of Grimoald I, therefore, a grand daughter Pepin the Elder, mayor of the palace of Austrasia and Itte Idoberge of the Carolingian dynasty.Pierre Riché, Les Carolingiens, une famille qui fit l'Europe, Paris: Hachette, coll. « Pluriel », 1983 (reprinted 1997), 490 p.; pp.
|
|
The Germanic Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to Austrasia was Westphalia and furthest away was Eastphalia. Between them was Engria and north of these three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia. In his first campaign, in 773, Charlemagne forced the Engrians to submit and cut down an Irminsul pillar near Paderborn.
|
|
Saint Beuve (or Bove or Bova) and her brother Balderic (or Baudry) lived in the 7th century in France. According to Christian Settipani, their father was probably Sigobert the Lame, King of Cologne, rather than Sigebert I of Austrasia, as indicated by Flodoard. Together they founded the Abbey of Saint Pierre de Reims. Beuve was the first abbess.
|
|
He finally succeeded in c. 641, when Leuthar, Duke of the Alamans killed Otto under Grimoald's, and we must assume, Cunibert's orders. Grimoald then became mayor of Austrasia. His power at this time was extensive, with properties in Utrecht, Nijmegen, Tongeren and Maastricht; he was even called 'ruler of the realm' by Desiderius of Cahors in 643.
|
|
Gregor of Tours, Historiae III,20, III,27. She was daughter of Wacho, king of the Lombards and grew up in the middle Danube region. After an abnormally long term of engagement of seven years, Wisigard married Theudebert I, Merovingian king of Austrasia. Around 531 Theuderich I, father of Theudebert I, had arranged the engagement for political reasons.
|
|
The Austrasian mayor Wulfoald took over the power in Neustria, but fled back to Austrasia on the assassination of Childeric II in 675. The Neustrians turned to Leudesius to replace him. The next year, Ebroin returned. Leudesius and Theuderic III fled with the royal treasure to Baizieux,Liber Historiæ Francorum, p 139, calls the place Bacivo villa.
|
|
Bavo was born near Liège, to a Frankish noble family that gave him the name Allowin.Butler, Alban, The Lives of the Saints, Vol. X,1866 His father was Pippin of Landen, the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, and his mother Itta of Metz. A wild, young aristocrat of Brabant, he contracted a beneficial marriage, and had a daughter.
|
|
Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia is executed __NOTOC__ Year 613 (DCXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 613 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
|
|
King Sigebert III of Austrasia (c. 630–656) __NOTOC__ Year 656 (DCLVI) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 656 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
|
|
King Dagobert II of Austrasia (c. 650–679) __NOTOC__ Year 676 (DCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 676 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
|
|
A tremissis of Theudebert II minted at Clermont Theudebert II () (c.585-612), King of Austrasia (595–612 AD), was the son and heir of Childebert II. He received the kingdom of Austrasia plus the cities (civitates) of Poitiers, Tours, Le Puy-en-Velay, Bordeaux, and Châteaudun, as well as the Champagne, the Auvergne, and Transjurane Alemannia. During his early years, his grandmother Brunhilda ruled for Theudebert and his brother Theuderic II, who had received the realm of Burgundy. After the two brothers reached adulthood, they were often at war, with Brunhilda siding with Theuderic. In 599, Theuderic defeated Theudebert at Sens, but then the two brothers allied against their cousin Chlothar II and defeated him at Dormelles (near Montereau), thereby laying their hands on a great portion of Neustria (600-604).
|
|
Dagobert I (; 603 – 19 January 639 AD) 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 king of the Merovingian dynasty to wield any real royal power. Dagobert was the first of the Frankish kings to be buried in the royal tombs at Saint Denis Basilica.
|
|
Toul was known to the Romans as , and was the capital of the Gaulish tribe of the Leuci. In 550, King Theudebald convoked a synod at Toul. In 612, King Theudebert II of Austrasia was defeated by King Theuderic II of Burgundy near Toul. By the Treaty of Meerssen of 870, Toul became part of East Francia, the later Holy Roman Empire.
|
|
Grimoald I (616–657), called the Elder (in French, Grimaud l'Ainé), was the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia from 640 to 656. He was the son of Pepin of Landen and Itta.Christian Settipani, La Préhistoire des Capétiens (Nouvelle histoire généalogique de l'auguste maison de France, vol. 1), 1993 ()Alban Butler's Lives of the saints, edited, revised and supplemented by Thurston and Attwater.
|
|
Ebroin was murdered in 680. In 687, Pippin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of the King of Austrasia, defeated the Neustrians at Tertry. Neustria's mayor Berthar was assassinated shortly afterwards and following a marriage alliance between Pippin's son Drogo and Berthal's widow, Pippin became mayor of the Neustrian palace. Pippin's descendants, the Carolingians, continued to rule the two realms as mayors.
|
|
In 587 or 588, King Childebert II of Austrasia wrote to him seeking a peace treaty with the Romans. This letter is preserved in the collection known as the Epistulae Austrasicae. In the testament that Maurice had drawn up in 596 or 597, which was only discovered in the reign of Heraclius, Domitian was named guardian of the emperor's children.
|
|
Gundemar continued a policy of amity with Clotaire II of Neustria and Theodobert II of Austrasia. To this end, he sent grand sums of money to support their cause against their relative (cousin and brother, respectively) Theuderic II of Burgundy. At other times, he pursued a hostile policy against Brunhilda.E. A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Clarendon P., 1969), p. 160.
|
|
Some remains from the 1st to the 4th century including villas have been discovered in the town and surrounding areas. Segessera seemed to have existed from the Roman period to the first Lyonnais in the territory of the Lingones. The city was devastated by Attila. After the division of the kingdom of Clovis by his son the town became part of Austrasia.
|
|
Childebrand I (678 - 751 or 743) was a Frankish duke (dux), illegitimate son of Pepin of Heristal and Alpaida, and brother Charles Martel. He was born in Autun, where he would later die. He married Emma of Austrasia and was given Burgundy by his father, becoming a duke. He distinguished himself in the expulsion of the Saracens from Francealongside his brother.
|
|
The duchy of Dentelinus was primarily meant as a military and strategical deterrent against Frisian and Saxon invasions. It was a cornerstone in the military defense of the Merovingian Empire. In 600 Chlothar II (584–628) was forced to temporarily cede the duchy of Dentelinus to Austrasia, but after restoration of Austrasian dual-monarchy in 622/623 the duchy was returned.
|
|
Theodo established his capital at Ratisbona (modern Regensburg). He married Folchaid, of the Frankish (possibly Robertian as the daughter of Robert II) aristocracy in Austrasia, to build diplomatic ties there. He intervened in Lombard affairs by harbouring the refugees Ansprand and Liutprand, whom he assisted militarily on his return to claim the Iron Crown. Liutprand later married his daughter Guntrude.
|
|
Pippin fled to Austrasia and soon received Ermenfred, an officer of a royal fisc who had assassinated Ebroin. The Neustrians, with Ebroin dead, installed Waratto as mayor and he looked for peace with the Austrasians. Despite an exchange of hostages, Warrato's son Gistemar attacked Pippin at Namur and displaced his father. Shortly after, he died and Warrato resumed his position.
|
|
Itta of Metz, O.S.B. (also Ida, Itte or Iduberga; 592–8 May 652) was the wife of Pepin of Landen, Mayor of the Palace of the Kingdom of Austrasia. After his death, she founded the Abbey of Nivelles, where she became a Colombanian nun along with her daughter, Gertrude of Nivelles. Both are honored as saints by the Catholic Church.
|
|
He married Waldrada, daughter of the Lombard king Wacho and his step-aunt (a sister of his father's second wife). This marriage fortified the alliance between Austrasia and Lombardy. Nevertheless, Theudebald could not hold on to the conquests of his father in the north of Italia. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I sent an army under the command of Narses in 552.
|
|
Charibert received Neustria (the region between the Somme and the Loire), Aquitaine, and Novempopulana with Paris as his capital. His other chief cities were Rouen, Tours, Poitiers, Limoges, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Cahors, and Albi. Guntram received Burgundy. Sigebert received Austrasia (including Rheims) with his capital at Metz, and the youngest brother Chilperic received a compact kingdom with Soissons as its capital.
|
|
However, the population make-up of the Frankish Empire, or even early Frankish kingdoms such as Neustria and Austrasia, was not dominated by Franks. Though the Frankish leaders controlled most of Western Europe, the Franks themselves were confined to the Northwestern part (i.e. the Rhineland, the Low Countries and Northern France) of the Empire.Encyclopædia Britannica Online; entry 'History of the Low Countries'.
|
|
In 607, Witteric, king of the Visigoths, initiated a quadruple alliance against Theuderic II of Burgundy involving Theudebert II of Austrasia, Clotaire II of Neustria, and Agilulf. Theuderic's grandmother and sister had murdered Theuderic's wife, the daughter of Witteric. The alliance does not seem to have had success. Nothing of any actual combat is known except that it took place, probably around Narbonne.
|
|
He was an advisor to Sigebert II of Austrasia and convinced him to establish the double-monastery of Stavelot and Malmedy in 648. Remaclus served as abbot of Stavelot and Malmedy. St. Remacle Square, in Stavelot He was appointed missionary bishop of Maastricht in 652 and served until 663. Inhabitants of this troubled diocese had murdered some of his predecessors.
|
|
Theudebert was the eldest son of King Chilperic I of Soissons, through his first wife Audovera. Theudebert was given command of Soissons in the early years of his father's reign. When his father precipitated a war with his brother Sigebert I of Austrasia, Sigebert marched on his capital and took the city, capturing and imprisoning Theudebert. He was out of prison a year later.
|
|
But when Childeric died, Wulfoald had to flee to Austrasia. Wulfoald and the nobles proclaimed Dagobert II king, but Ebroin, the rival mayor of the palace of Neustria, tried to place Clovis III on the Austrasian throne to extend his influence. It wasn't until 676 that Wulfoald succeeded in putting Dagobert definitively on the throne. War continued on the border until 677, when Neustria recognised Austrasian independence.
|
|
Cologne was the homeland of her family clan and where she kept Pepin's money. In 716, Chilperic II, the king of the Franks, and Ragenfrid, the mayor of the palace, led an army into Austrasia, near Cologne, where Plectrude had gone. They defeated her and freed Charles Martel. The king and his mayor then turned to besiege their other rival in the city and claimed it.
|
|
The Frankish kingdoms at the time of the death of Pepin of Heristal. Aquitaine (yellow) was outside Arnulfing authority and Neustria and Burgundy (pink) were united in opposition to further Arnulfing dominance of the highest offices. Only Austrasia (green) supported an Arnulfing mayor, first Theudoald then Charles. The German duchies to the east of the Rhine were de facto outside of Frankish suzerainty at this time.
|
|
By the following spring, Charles had attracted enough support to invade Neustria. Charles sent an envoy who proposed a cessation of hostilities if Chilperic would recognize his rights as mayor of the palace in Austrasia. The refusal was not unexpected but served to impress upon Martel's forces the unreasonableness of the Neustrians. They met near Cambrai at the Battle of Vincy on 21 March 717.
|
|
Coin of Ebroin and bearing his effigy Ebroin (died 680 or 681) was the Frankish mayor of the palace of Neustria on two occasions; firstly from 658 to his deposition in 673 and secondly from 675 to his death in 680 or 681. In a violent and despotic career, he strove to impose the authority of Neustria, which was under his control, over Burgundy and Austrasia.
|
|
Wilfrid's biographer says that most of the nobles converted,Levison England and the Continent pp. 50–51 but the success was short-lived. After Frisia, he stopped at the court of Dagobert II in Austrasia, where the king offered Wilfrid the Bishopric of Strasbourg, which Wilfrid refused. Once in Italy, Wilfrid was received by Perctarit, a Lombard king, who gave him a place at his court.
|
|
Gregory detested Chilperic, calling him "the Nero and Herod of his time" (VI.46): he had provoked Gregory's wrath by wresting Tours from Austrasia, seizing ecclesiastical property, and appointing as bishops counts of the palace who were not clerics. Gregory also objected to Chilperic's attempts to teach a new doctrine of the Trinity.Gregory of Tours Although some scholars dispute the extent to which Gregory disliked Chilperic.
|
|
18 August 2012 based on oral tradition recorded by Flodoard, Canon of Reims, three centuries later. They are also said to be related to King Dagobert, presumably Dagobert I of Austrasia. Balderic was ordained as a priest, and later founded the monastery of Montfaucon in the province of Lorraine. In 639 he established a convent "St-Pierre-les-Dames" in Reims for his sister Beuve.
|
|
When King Theuderic IV died in 737, Charles did not install a Merovingian successor. Unlike his Carolingian predecessors, Charles was clearly strong enough by the end of his reign to not rely on Merovingian loyalties. He had created his own power bloc through the vassals he installed in Frankish heartlands and peripheral states. Even prior to Theuderic's death, Charles did act with complete sovereignty in Austrasia.
|
|
After the 860s, Lotharingian noble Robert the Strong became increasingly powerful as count of Anjou, Touraine and Maine. Robert's brother Hugh, abbot of Saint-Denis, was given control over Austrasia by Charles the Bald. Robert's son Odo was elected king in 888.The Cambridge Illustrated History of France Odo's brother Robert I ruled between 922 and 923 and was followed by Rudolph from 923 until 936.
|
|
The Austrasian Letters () is a collection of 48 Latin letters sent from or to Austrasia between the 470s and 590s. The collection is transmitted in a single 9th-century manuscript from the Abbey of Lorsch. The collection was probably assembled in Metz in the late 6th century. It has been attributed to Bishop Magneric of Trier, who was a counsellor of King Childebert II in the 580s.
|
|
142 (no. 79). No answer to the letter is known, but it is known that Boniface sided with Pippin. Historian Roger Collins notes that "given a choice in 747 between Pippin and his nephew, for Boniface to favour the already proven western ruler over the young and inexperienced eastern one [made] pragmatic sense." It is not known for how long Drogo exercised mayoral authority in Austrasia.
|
|
He is considered an early example of rhythmic anthemstrophy, in the word accent prevails. As a poet, he was the first Westerner to adopt the iambic rhythm derived from the Saturnian metre, the preferred metre of Roman folk and secular poetry. The poem is preserved in a collection of various writings written or sent in Austrasia, which was compiled in 585. The only surviving manuscript is Cod.
|
|
The term orientalis Francia originally referred to Franconia and orientales Franci to its inhabitants, the ethnic Franks living east of the Rhine. The use of the term in a broader sense, to refer to the eastern kingdom, was an innovation of Louis the German's court. Since eastern Francia could be identified with old Austrasia, the Frankish heartland, Louis's choice of terminology hints at his ambitions.Goldberg 2006, 73.
|
|
Mansi (ed.), Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, editio novissima, Tomus IX (Florence 1763), pp. 919-922. In 603 a council was held at Chalon, in which, at the instigation of Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia, Bishop Desiderius of Vienne was deposed and exiled.J.-D. Mansi (ed.), Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, editio novissima, Tomus X (Florence 1764), pp. 493-494. Hefele, IV, pp. 434, 463.
|
|
The Royal Frankish Annals record battles in the years 772–780, 782–785, 793–799, 802 and 804. The Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to the ancient Frankish kingdom of Austrasia was Westphalia, and farthest was Eastphalia. In between the two kingdoms was that of Engria (or Engern), and north of the three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nordalbingia.
|
|
Dagobert II (; ; died 679) was the Merovingian king of the Franks ruling in Austrasia from 675 or 676 until his death. He is one of the more obscure Merovingians. He has been considered a martyr since at least the ninth century. None of the narrative histories of the Merovingian period give an account of Dagobert's reign, which must be reconstructed from several different sources.
|
|
Benediktinerabtei St. Maritius Tholey. Retrieved: 14 May 2015. He was named the bishop of Verdun about 630 by King Dagobert I. According to his biography he was made bishop against his will due to the influence of one of his students, Adalgisel Grimo. Reportedly he found the diocese in a very poor financial state and was aided by gifts from Adalgisel and the Frankish King of Austrasia.
|
|
Expansion of the Frankish Empire: Blue = realm of Pippin III in 758, Orange = expansion under Charlemagne until 814 Yellow = marches and dependencies Red = Papal States After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the Franks, like other post-Roman Western Europeans, emerged as a tribal confederacy in the Middle Rhine-Weser region, among the territory soon to be called Austrasia (the "eastern land"), the northeastern portion of the future Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks. As a whole, Austrasia comprised parts of present-day France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Unlike the Alamanni to their south in Swabia, they absorbed large swaths of former Roman territory as they spread west into Gaul, beginning in 250. Clovis I of the Merovingian dynasty conquered northern Gaul in 486 and in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496 the Alemanni tribe in Swabia, which eventually became the Duchy of Swabia.
|
|
The Mayor of the Palace Grimoald managed to convince the young Sigebert, who was childless at the time, to adopt as his heir Grimoald's son Childebert the Adopted. However, the king married Chimnechild of Burgundy and had a son of his own, the future king Dagobert II. He also had a daughter, Bilichild, the future Queen of Neustria and Burgundy.The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources... by Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger, Helmut Reimitz In 656, after the death of Sigebert, Grimoald attempted to usurp the throne of Austrasia and had the young Dagobert (who was seven years old at the time) tonsured and sent to a monastery in Ireland. Grimoald's son Childebert was proclaimed King of Austrasia in 656, but the reign was short-lived as he was deposed after seven months in 657 and both he and his father were killed in a revolt.
|
|
In 610 Theudebert had extorted the Duchy of Alsace from Theuderic, beginning a long period of conflict over which kingdom was to have the region of Alsace, Burgundy or Austrasia, which was only terminated in the late seventh century. During the brief minority of Sigebert II, the office of the Mayor of the Palace, which had for sometime been visible in the kingdoms of the Franks, came to the fore in its internal politics, with a faction of nobles coalescing around the persons of Warnachar II, Rado, and Pepin of Landen, to give the kingdom over to Chlothar in order to remove Brunhilda, the young king's regent, from power. Warnachar was himself already the mayor of the palace of Austrasia, while Rado and Pepin were to find themselves rewarded with mayoral offices after Chlothar's coup succeeded and Brunhilda and the ten-year-old king were killed.
|
|
Dagobert was the eldest son of Chlothar II and Haldetrude (575–604) and the grandson of Fredegund. Chlothar had reigned alone over all the Franks since 613. In 622, Chlothar made Dagobert king of Austrasia, almost certainly to bind the Austrasian nobility to the ruling Franks. As a child, Dagobert lived under the care of the Carolingian dynasty forebears and Austrasian magnates, Arnulf of Metz and Pepin of Landen.
|
|
Very quickly, Sigebert moved his capital from Reims to Metz, while Guntram moved his from Orléans to Chalon. On the death of Charibert in 567, the land was again split between the three survivors, of greatest importance Sigebert (Metz) received Paris and Chilperic (Soissons) received Rouen. The names Austrasia and Neustria seem to have appeared as the names of these kingdoms for the first time at this point.
|
|
According to local legend King Dagobert III of Neustria and of Austrasia drowned in this spring when his carriage ran into it. Directly to the south of the spring is an isolated fortified farm called The Riedhof, which may have been built on the foundations of a Roman fort, possibly an outlying fortification of the Fourth Legion garrison which guarded the important religious centre at Hellelum (modern Ehl, Bas-Rhin).
|
|
Roman artifacts dating to AD 150 on the hill "Am Hüttenberg" attest to the early origins of Waxweiler. In the Middle Ages Waxweiler was part of Austrasia in the Frankish Empire. Around 700, Saint Willibrord (657–739), a Benedictine monk from Northumbria, brought Christianity to Waxweiler (see also Dancing procession of Echternach) and at that time the Church was founded in the town. The first official documents mention Waxweiler in 943.
|
|
The Frankish armies saw the Italian conflict as an opportunity for plunder and a chance to exert their own claims to northern Italy. In the event the Byzantines were forced to fight the Franks as much as the Ostrogoths. Theudebert seems to have revelled in his power growing on the European stage. His letters show him laying claim to a vast array of lands around Austrasia, including Byzantine lands.
|
|
When Louis the Stammerer died in 879 after a two-year reign, the kingdom was divided between his two young sons. Louis III received the ancient northern partitions of the Merovingian kingdom, Neustria and Austrasia (including the Lorraine). His second son Carloman received the southern partitions, Burgundy and Aquitaine (including Septimania). The problems plaguing the throne were exacerbated when both Louis (882) and Carloman (884) died soon after their succession.
|
|
Nothing is known about his early years. In 603, in a conflict with Brunhilda of Austrasia, the legitimacy of whose children he had attacked,Edward James, The Origins of France (1982), p. 139. he was deposed after she combined forces with Aridius, bishop of Lyon. He was stoned to death, some years later,Jo Ann McNamara, John E. Halborg, E. Gordon Whatley, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (1992), p. 121.
|
|
The Saracen Army outside Paris, 730–32, in an early-nineteenth- century depiction by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Between 718 and 732, Charles secured his power through a series of victories. Having unified the Franks under his banner, Charles was determined to punish the Saxons who had invaded Austrasia. Therefore, late in 718, he laid waste their country to the banks of the Weser, the Lippe, and the Ruhr.
|
|
The Battle of Tertry was an important engagement in Merovingian Gaul between the forces of Austrasia under Pepin II on one side and those of Neustria and Burgundy on the other. It took place in 687 at Tertry, Somme, and the battle is presented as an heroic account in the Annales mettenses priores. After achieving victory on the battlefield at Tertry, the Austrasians dictated the political future of the Neustrians.
|
|
Galswintha (540–568) was a queen consort of Neustria. She was the daughter of Athanagild, Visigothic king of Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal), and Goiswintha. Galswintha was the sister of Brunhilda, Queen of Austrasia; and the wife of Chilperic I, the Merovingian king of Neustria. Galswintha was likely murdered at the urging of Chilperic's former wife, Fredegund, instigating a 40 year civil war within the Merovingian kingdom.
|
|
On the death of Guntram in 592, Childebert annexed the kingdom of Burgundy, and even contemplated seizing Clotaire's estates and becoming sole king of the Franks. However, he and his young wife Faileuba were poisoned to death in 595. He had two minor sons: the older, Theudebert II, inherited Austrasia with its capital at Metz, and the younger, Theuderic II received Guntram's former kingdom of Burgundy, with its capital at Orléans.
|
|
The Sepulchre of Louis the Pious in St. Arnulf in Metz has often been considered as representative of the family tradition. Arnulf of Metz, mayor of the palace in Austrasia, is supposed to be the progenitor of the Carolingians (Arnulflings). But in fact, Saint-Arnulf of Metz was primarily a burial place for the women of the Carolingian family. Before or after Louis the Pious, no Carolingian king was buried there.
|
|
By 500, Clovis had united all the Frankish tribes, ruled all of Gaul and was proclaimed King of the Franks between 509 and 511. Clovis, unlike most Germanic rulers of the time, was baptized directly into Roman Catholicism instead of Arianism. His successors would cooperate closely with papal missionaries, among them Saint Boniface. After the death of Clovis in 511, his four sons partitioned his kingdom including Austrasia.
|
|
Metz, the capital and the prefecture of both the Lorraine region and the Moselle department in France, has a recorded history dating back over 3,000 years. During this time, it was successively a Celtic oppidum, an important Gallo-Roman city,Vigneron B. (1986) Metz antique: Divodurum Mediomatricorum. Eds. Maisonneuve. the Merovingian capital of the Austrasia kingdom,Huguenin A. (2011) Histoire du royaume mérovingien d'Austrasie. Eds. des Paraiges. pp.
|
|
The Frankish court was itinerant and the rulers moved according to the circumstances. Around 765, Pepin the Short had a palace erected over the remains of the old Roman building; he had the thermae restored and removed its pagan idols.P. Riché, La vie quotidienne dans l’Empire carolingien, p. 57 As soon as he came to power in 768, Charlemagne spent time in Aachen as well as in other villas in Austrasia.
|
|
The name Brunhild in its various forms is derived from the equivalents of Old High German (armor) and (conflict). The name is first attested in the sixth century, for the historical Brunhilda of Austrasia, as . In the context of the heroic tradition, the first element of her name may be connected to Brunhild's role as a shieldmaiden. In the Eddic poem , the valkyrie from is identified with Brunhild.
|
|
He established a peace treaty with Duke Eudo that ensured Chilperic II was returned to Francia; thereafter, until Chilperic's death in 720 at Noyon, the Kingship was restored with Carolingian control and Charles became the maior palatii in both Neustria and Austrasia. Following Chilperic II's death, the Merovingian King Theuderic IV, son of Dagobert III, was taken from Chelles monastery and appointed by the Neustrians and Charles as the Frankish King.
|
|
The Codex Claromontanus was also the basis of the critical edition by Krusch published in 1888 and of the partial English translation by Wallace-Hadrill published in 1960. Most of the other surviving manuscripts were copied in Austrasia and date from the early ninth century or later. The first printed version, the editio princeps, was published in Basel by Flacius Illyricus in 1568. He used MS Heidelberg University Palat. Lat.
|
|
Convents, violence and competition for Power in Francia. In Theuws, France; De Jong, Mayke; van Rhijn, Carine Topographies of power in the Early Middle Ages. Leeiden: Koninkslijke Brill NV, 2001. captured and executed him in 657 or Chlothar III annexed Austrasia in 661, deposing the young usurper and executing them both the next year. The family reappeared in politics with the rise of Ansegisel’s son, Pepin of Herstal.
|
|
Liber Historiae Francorum () is a chronicle written anonymously during the 8th century. The first sections served as a secondary source for early Franks in the time of Marcomer, giving a short of events until the time of the late Merovingians. The subsequent sections of the chronicle are important primary sources for the contemporaneous history. They provide an account of the Pippinid family in Austrasia before they became the most famous Carolingians.
|
|
Tassilo I (or Tassilon) (560 – 610) was Duke of Bavaria from 591 to his death. According to Paul the Deacon, he was appointed as Bavarian rex by Childebert II, Frankish king of Austrasia, in 591, ending the war with the Franks. The war began during the reign of Tassilo's predecessor, Garibald I, when Garibald concluded a marriage alliance with the Lombards. We do not know whether Garibald died or was deposed.
|
|
Some time before 585, the Merovingian court attempted to bind Duke Garibald more closely to its interests by arranging a marriage between his daughter Theodelinda and King Childebert II of Austrasia. At the same time the Merovingians were attempting to normalise relations with Authari, the Lombard king, by arranging a marriage between Childebert's sister and Authari. Both these proposals fell through. The offended Authari was engaged to Theodelinda in 588.
|
|
Drogo (born c. 730) was a Frankish nobleman of the Pippinid family and the eldest son of Carloman, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, under the Merovingian king Childeric III. He succeeded to his father's office in 747, but was soon squeezed out of power by his uncle, Pippin III, the mayor in Neustria. He resisted his uncle's takeover, but in 753 was captured and forced to become a monk.
|
|
Gold tremissis of Clovis Clovis III was the Frankish king of Austrasia in 675 and possibly into 676. A member of the Merovingian dynasty, he was a child and his reign so brief and contested that he may be considered only a pretender. He is sometimes even left unnumbered and Clovis IV is instead called Clovis III. The only source for his reign is the contemporary Suffering of Leudegar.
|
|
In 584 the Frankish kings Guntram of Burgundy and Childebert II of Austrasia invaded northwestern Italy. The fortress Anagnis, north of Trent, surrendered to them and was consequently the victim of a plundering expedition by Ragilo, the Lombard count of Lagaris. Ragilo and his army, however, were attacked in the field of "Rotalian" by a Frankish army under Chramnichis. Ragilo and many of his followers, still with their booty, were killed.
|
|
On succeeding there, he proclaimed Chlothar IV king of Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic. In 718, Chilperic, in response, allied with Odo the Great, the duke of Aquitaine who had made himself independent during the contests in 715, but he was again defeated by Charles, at Soissons. The king fled with his ducal ally to the land south of the Loire and Ragenfrid fled to Angers. Soon Chlothar IV died.
|
|
Saint Begga (also Begue, Begge) (b. 613 - d. 17 December 693 AD) was the daughter of Pepin of Landen, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, and his wife Itta of Metz. On the death of her husband, Ansegisel, she took the veil, founded seven churches, and built a convent at Andenne on the Meuse River (Andenne sur Meuse) where she spent the rest of her days as abbess.
|
|
According to the Kentish royal legend, Domne Eafe's father was Eormenred, son of King Eadbald of Kent and Emma of Austrasia, and grandson of Æthelberht of Kent, England's first Christian king. Domne Eafe's mother is called Oslafa. It is probable that Eormenred shared the kingship of Kent with his brother Eorcenberht, the senior king, and also that he predeceased Eorcenberht.Yorke, pp. 32, 33, table 1 & 35; Rollason, pp. 37–38.
|
|
The eldest, Chlothar, succeeded him and his second eldest, Childeric, was placed on the Austrasian throne by Ebroin while Clovis was still alive. The youngest, Theuderic, succeeded Childeric in Neustria and eventually became the sole king of the Franks. Clovis was a minor for almost the whole of his reign. He is sometimes regarded as king of Austrasia during the interval 656–57 when Childebert the Adopted had usurped the throne.
|
|
Towards the end of this century, parts of Thuringia came under Saxon rule. By the time of Charles Martel and Saint Boniface, they were again subject to the Franks and ruled by Frankish dukes with their seat at Würzburg in the south. Under Martel, the Thuringian dukes' authority was extended over a part of Austrasia and the Bavarian plateau. The valleys of the Lahn, Main, and Neckar rivers were included.
|
|
Sainted Women of the Dark Ages states that Balthild "was not the first Merovingian queen to begin her career in servitude". Other Merovingian queens who arose from servile status include Fredegund, the mother of Clothaire II; Bilichild, the wife of Theudebert of Austrasia; and possibly Nanthild, the mother of Clovis II. During the minority of Clotaire III, she had to deal with the attempted coup of Grimoald, the major domus of Austrasia, but she enjoyed the continued support of her former master Erchinoald, who became a sort of 'political mentor' to her throughout her marriage to Clovis II. According to some historians, Balthild's creation of and involvement with monasteries was perhaps an act to "balance or even neutralize the efforts of the aristocratic opposition". By installing her supporters as bishops of different sees, she gained even greater power as a ruler. According to the Vita Sancti Wilfrithi by Stephen of Ripon, Bathild was a ruthless ruler, in conflict with the bishops and perhaps responsible for several assassinations.
|
|
With the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Germanic Alemanni. The Alemanni were agricultural people, and their Germanic language formed the basis of modern-day dialects spoken along the Upper Rhine (Alsatian, Alemannian, Swabian, Swiss). Clovis and the Franks defeated the Alemanni during the 5th century AD, culminating with the Battle of Tolbiac, and Alsace became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia. Under Clovis' Merovingian successors the inhabitants were Christianized.
|
|
Chlothar IV (died 718) was the king of Austrasia from 717 until his death. He was a member of the Merovingian dynasty, and was installed by Charles Martel, a contender for the office of mayor of the palace, in opposition to Chilperic II, whose rule was thereby restricted to Neustria. This marked the first time since 679 that the kingdom of the Franks was divided. Following Chlothar's death, it was reunited under Chilperic.
|
|
The Battle of Amblève took place in 716 near Amel. The mayor of the palace of Austrasia, Charles Martel, defeated his Neustrian and Frisian rivals who were led by King Chilperic II, his mayor Ragenfrid, and Radbod, Duke of the Frisians. It was the first major victory of Martel in a long career of victories. In this battle Martel began demonstrating the military genius which would mark the remainder of his life.
|
|
The Frankish kingdom was subdivided by Charlemagne into three separate areas to make administration easier. These were the inner "core" of the kingdom (Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy) which were supervised directly by the missatica system and the itinerant household. Outside this was the regna where Frankish administration rested upon the counts, and outside this was the marcher areas where ruled powerful governors. These marcher lordships were present in Brittany, Spain, and Bavaria.
|
|
These officials acted as mediators between king and people in each realm. The first Austrasian mayors came from the Pippinid family, which experienced a slow but steady ascent until it eventually displaced the Merovingians on the throne. In 623, the Austrasians asked Chlothar II for a king of their own and he appointed his son Dagobert I to rule over them with Pepin of Landen as regent. Dagobert's government in Austrasia was widely admired.
|
|
His court was dominated by the mayors. In 657, the mayor Grimoald the Elder succeeded in putting his son Childebert the Adopted on the throne, where he remained until 662. Thereafter, Austrasia was predominantly the kingdom of the Arnulfing mayors of the palace and their base of power. With the Battle of Tertry in 687, Pepin of Heristal defeated the Neustrian king Theuderic III and established his mayoralty over all the Frankish kingdoms.
|
|
Ingunde, Ingund, Ingundis or Ingunda, (born in 567/568), was the eldest child of Sigebert I, king of Austrasia, and his wife Brunhilda, daughter of King Athanagild of the Visigoths. She married Hermenegild and became the first Catholic queen of the Visigoths. Following the tradition of the time, it would follow that Ingund was named after her father's mother. Her siblings included a sister, Chlodosind (born about 569) and a brother Childebert (born 570).
|
|
Sigebert became ruler of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia in 561 on the death of his father Chlothar I. In 575, Sigebert was embroiled in a civil war with his half brother, Chilperic I, king of Neustria. On the verge of victory, Sigebert was assassinated. With the death of Sigebert, Brunhilda and the children were in great fear for their safety. Childebert, only five years old, faced almost certain death from Chilperic.
|
|
He was the son of Blessed Adela of the family of the dukes of Austrasia . Devoted from his earliest youth to the service of God, Trudo came to St. Remaclus, Bishop of Liège (Acta Sanctorum, I Sept., 678) and was sent by him to Chlodulph, Bishop of Metz. Here he received his education at the Church of St. Stephen, to which he always showed a strong affection and donated his later foundation.
|
|
In 536, the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian ceded all of Provence to the Merovingian kings. The Merovingians were the first northern European rulers to govern Provence. They had their capitals in Soissons, Metz, Paris, Orléans, and Reims, and rarely visited the south. After 561, Provence was split between two distant Merovingian kings; Sigebert I, the king of Austrasia, ruled Marseille, Aix and Avignon, while Guntram, the King of Burgundy, ruled the eastern part of Provence.
|
|
Paul the Deacon (1907), History of the Langobards (Historia Langobardorum), William Dudley Foulke, trans. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania), III, ix. Paul records that it was around this time, when Sigebert I of Austrasia was assassinated by Chilperic I of Neustria (584), that Euin married a daughter of Garibald I, whom Paul refers to as "king of the Bavarians". The elder sister of Euin's wife was Theudelinda, who in 589 married the Lombard king Authari.
|
|
Once Clovis defeated his Roman competitor for power in northern Gaul, Syagrius, he turned to the kings of the Franks to the north and east, as well as other post-Roman kingdoms already existing in Gaul: Visigoths, Burgundians, and Alemanni. The original core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia (the "eastern lands"), while the large Romanised Frankish kingdom in northern Gaul came to be known as Neustria.
|
|
Clovis II, Dagobert's successor in Neustria and Burgundy, which were thereafter attached yet ruled separately, was a minor for almost the whole of his reign. He was dominated by his mother Nanthild and the mayor of the Neustrian palace, Erchinoald. Erchinoald's successor, Ebroin, dominated the kingdom for the next fifteen years of near-constant civil war. On his death (656), Sigbert's son was shipped off to Ireland, while Grimoald's son Childebert reigned in Austrasia.
|
|
While his parents proposed to have him married to a daughter of a respectable senator, Gal had other plans, and privately withdrew to a monastery at Cournon. Once he received the consent of his parents, he joyfully embraced a life of religious poverty. Gal's intelligence and piety caused his recommendation as councilor to Quintianus, the bishop of Clermont, who ordained him a priest. Theuderic I, the king of Austrasia, invaded Auvergne and took Gal prisoner.
|
|
Miliduch (also Miliduh and , , ; d. 806) was a knyaz of the Lusatian Serbs (Sorbs). Formerly allied to Charlemagne, the Sorbs ended their vassalage to the Franks and rebelled, invading Austrasia. Charles the Younger launched a campaign against the Slavs in Bohemia in 805, and after killing Duke Lecho of the Bohemians, Charles himself crossed the Saale with his army and killed Miliduch and knyaz Nussito (Nessyta), near modern-day Weißenfels, in 806.
|
|
It is a notable historical document because it is linked to queen Brunhilda of Austrasia. On the back there is a list of names of Frankish kings, all relatives of Brunhilda, indicating the important position of queens within Frankish royal families. Brunhilda ordered the list to be inscribed and offered it to the church as a votive image. Although it is not a consular diptych, it shares many features of their decorative schemes.
|
|
Eventually, Clotaire II in 613 reunited the entire Frankish realm under one ruler. Later divisions produced the stable units of Austrasia, Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitania. The frequent wars had weakened royal power, while the aristocracy had made great gains and procured enormous concessions from the kings in return for their support. These concessions saw the very considerable power of the king parcelled out and retained by leading comites and duces (counts and dukes).
|
|
Hen believes that for Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitania, colloquial Latin remained the spoken language in Gaul throughout the Merovingian period and remained so even well in to the Carolingian period. However, Urban T. Holmes estimated that a Germanic language was spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Neustria as late as the 850s, and that it completely disappeared as a spoken language from these regions only during the 10th century.
|
|
Upon the death of his father in 656, he was deprived of the succession and exiled to Ireland to live as a monk. His return to Austrasia was arranged by Wilfrid, bishop of York. He ascended the throne following the assassination of his cousin in 675. During his brief reign he made war on the neighbouring Frankish kingdom of Neustria, signed a peace treaty with the Lombard Kingdom in Italy and reintroduced gold coinage.
|
|
Her mother was the Visigoth princess Brunhilda of Austrasia. The twelve-year-old Ingund was pressured by Hermenegild's stepmother Goiswintha to abjure her beliefs, but she stayed firm in her faith.Gregory of Tours translated by Lewis Thorpe, History of the Franks (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974,) page 302 Liuvigild sent Hermenegild to the south to govern on his behalf. There he came under the influence of Leander of Seville, older brother of Isidore of Seville.
|
|
Authari was the son of Cleph, King of the Lombards. When the latter died in 574, the Lombard nobility refused to appoint a successor, resulting in a ten-years-long interregnum known as the Rule of the Dukes. In 574 and 575 the Lombards invaded Provence, then part of the kingdom of Burgundy of the Merovingian Guntram. The latter, in alliance with his nephew, the king of Austrasia Childebert II, replied by invading Northern Italy.
|
|
Boniface or Bonifacius was the second Duke of Alsace, in the mid 7th century. He is an obscure figure and his background is unknown, but charter evidence and onomastics make him a relative of the families of Gundoin and Wulfoald, a powerful extended kin group in Austrasia. He succeeded Gundoin as duke in Alsace and was himself succeeded by Adalrich, founder of the Etichonids. Boniface had trouble keeping the people of the Sornegau from revolting.
|
|
The abbey was founded by Itta of Metz, the widow of Pepin of Landen, Mayor of the Palace of the Kingdom of Austrasia, with their daughter, Gertrude of Nivelles. Christianity was not at all widespread in that place and time. It was only the development of cities and the initiative of bishops that led to a vast movement of evangelism, which led to the flowering of monasteries everywhere in the seventh and eighth centuries.Donnay-Rocmans, Claudine.
|
|
In 715, the nobility acclaimed Ragenfrid mayor of Neustria and Charles Martel mayor of Austrasia. Theudoald was the legitimate but later claimed illegitimate son of Grimoald II (son of Pepin II of Herstal and Plectrude) and Theudesinda of Frisia (daughter of king Radbod). Thus, he was a grandson of the Frisian king. His grandmother Plectrude tried to have him recognised by his grandfather as the legitimate heir to all the Pippinid lands, instead of Charles Martel.
|
|
Goiswintha or Goisuintha was Visigothic Queen consort of Hispania and Septimania. She was the wife of two Kings, Athanagild and Liuvigild. From her first marriage, she was the mother of two daughters — Brunhilda and Galswintha — who were married to two Merovingian brother-kings: Sigebert I of Austrasia and Chilperic, king of the Neustrian Franks. Following the death of her first husband Athanagild in 567, she became the second wife of Liuvigild the brother of Athangild's successor Liuva.
|
|
Following the failed coup of the Pippinid mayor Grimoald the Elder in Austrasia, the Merovingian court resided in Neustria. According to the Liber historiae Francorum, during the reign of Chlothar III the mayor Erchinoald of Neustria died. A council of Franks then elected Ebroin as his replacement. The Life of Saint Eligius records that as of the middle 670s Ebroin had only one child, a son named Bobo; Bobo was then convalescing from an illness contracted during his adolescence.
|
|
Fredegund, then her son's regent, sent a force to Laffaux and the armies of Theudebert and Theuderic were defeated. In 599, Brunhilda was forced out of Austrasia by Theudebert and she was found wandering near Arcis in Champagne by a peasant, who brought her to Theuderic. The peasant was supposedly rewarded with the bishopric of Auxerre. Theuderic welcomed her and readily fell under her influence, which was inclined to vengeful war with Theudebert at the time.
|
|
From 647 till 650, Amand briefly served as Bishop of Maastricht. The pope gave him some advice on how to deal with disobedient clerics and warned him about the Monothelite heresy, at that time prevalent in the East. Amand was commissioned by the pope to organize church councils in Neustria and Austrasia in order to pass on the various decrees from Rome. The bishops asked Amand to transmit the proceedings of the church councils to the pope.
|
|
582 Aachen's geographic location was a decisive factor in Charlemagne's choice: the place was situated in the Carolingian heartlands of Austrasia, the cradle of his family, East of the Meuse river, at a crossroads of land roads and on a tributary of the Rur, called the Wurm. From then, Charlemagne left the administration of the Southern regions to his son Louis, named King of Aquitaine,J. Favier, Charlemagne, 1999, p. 287 which enabled him to reside in the North.
|
|
He made secure succession plans, likely learning from his father, that ensured Francia was effectively divided between his sons, Carloman and Pippin as maior palatii. According to the Continutations, the eldest son, Carloman, was given control of the eastern kingdoms in Austrasia, Alammania and Thuringia, while Pippin was given the western kingdoms in Burgundy, Neustria and Provence. Charlemagne The greatest Carolingian monarch was Charlemagne, Pepin's son. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III at Rome in 800.
|
|
Drogo succeeded his father in Austrasia and in rule over Alemannia and Thuringia. This fact was obscured by later chroniclers, like Einhard and the anonymous compiler of the Annals of Metz, neither of whom mention Drogo. They sought to create a simplified Pippinid family tree so as to make the position of Pippin III, founder of the Carolingian dynasty, appear stronger than it was. At the time Carloman left on his pilgrimage, Drogo's position must have been strong.
|
|
The Chronicle of Fredegar claims, misleadingly, that Carloman entrusted both Austrasia and Drogo to Pippin's care. The main piece of evidence that Drogo actually succeeded to his father's office is a short anonymous letter preserved in the collection of Saint Boniface's letters. The letter writer asks a certain Andhemus "whether he [Boniface] has gone to the synod of the duke of the western provinces [Pippin] or to the son of Carloman [Drogo]."Translated in Emerton 1940, p.
|
|
Claude Muller, Heurs et malheurs du Dauphiné, pp. 112–114. To the east of the city, the Royal Navy soldiers were forced to open fire in order to protect the city's arsenal, fearing that the rioters would seize the weapons and ammunition. Meanwhile, Colonel Count Chabord began deploying the regiment of Austrasia to aid and relieve the Royal Navy soldiers. Three of the city's four consuls gathered at the City Hall and attempted to reason with the crowd.
|
|
Actual power was increasingly in the hands of the mayor of the palace, the highest-ranking official under the king. In 656, the mayor Grimoald I tried to place his son Childebert on the throne in Austrasia. Grimoald was arrested and executed, but his son ruled until 662, when the Merovingian dynasty was restored. When King Theuderic IV died in 737, the mayor Charles Martel continued to rule the kingdoms without a king until his death in 741.
|
|
After Ebroin's death in 681, he went to Cologne and succeeded in restoring peace between Neustria and Austrasia, but died shortly thereafter at the royal villa at Clichy on 24 August 684. He was buried in the Church of Sant-peter which he himself had built. The former abbot of Fontenelle, Ansbert, succeeded Audoin as Bishop and had his predecessor reburied behind the high altar, the equivalent of a canonization. Audoin wrote a vita of his friend, St. Eloi.
|
|
Formerly a Celtic region, this area was conquered by the Roman Empire under Emperor Augustus in about 12 BCE, whereafter it was part of the Germania Superior province. During the decay of the Empire, Alamanni tribes settled here; their territory was conquered by Francia under King Clovis I about 496. From 511 onwards the area belonged to the eastern part of Frankish Austrasia, that—as Rhenish Franconia—became part of East Francia according to the 843 Treaty of Verdun.
|
|
Some critics have commented on the historical anachronisms that were common in English Renaissance drama but are notably glaring in Thierry and Theodoret. The play's plot is based on the careers of Frankish rulers of the late 6th and early 7th centuries, Brunhilda of Austrasia and her grandsons Theuderic II and Theudebert II (transformed in the play into Brunhalt and her sons Thierry and Theodoret), but their soldiers are armed with muskets, and the characters observe the gods of Ancient Greece.
|
|
In 599, he made war with his nephews, Theuderic II of Burgundy and Theudebert II of Austrasia, who were old enough to be his cousins. They defeated him at Dormelles (near Montereau), forcing him to sign a treaty that reduced his kingdom to the regions of Beauvais, Amiens and Rouen, with the remainder split between the two brothers. 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.
|
|
Saint Chlodulf (Clodulphe or Clodould) (605 - June 8, 696 or 697, others say May 8, 697) was bishop of Metz approximately from 657 to 697. Chlodulf was the son of Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and the brother of Ansegisel, mayor of the palace of Austrasia. Before his ordination Chlodulf had married an unknown woman and had begotten a son called Aunulf. In 657, he became bishop of Metz, the third successor of his father, "despite a reputation for impiety in his youth".
|
|
As of 2017, it had a population of 5,549,586 inhabitants. The administrative capital and largest city, by far, is Strasbourg. The East of France has a rich and diverse culture, being situated at a crossroads between the Latin and Germanic worlds which is reflected in the variety of languages spoken there (Alsatian, Champenois, Lorraine Franconian etc.). Most of today's Grand Est region was considered "Eastern" as early as the 8th century, when it constituted the southern part of the Francian territory of Austrasia.
|
|
The king and his mayor were decisively defeated at the Battle of Tertry (Textrice) in the Vermandois in 687. Berthar and Theuderic withdrew themselves to Paris, where Pepin followed and eventually forced on them a peace treaty with the condition that Berthar leave his office. Pepin was created mayor in all three Frankish kingdoms (Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy) and began calling himself Duke and Prince of the Franks (dux et princeps Francorum)."Pépin de Herstal (687 à 714)", Histoire-fr.
|
|
A spring of water is said to have gushed forth in the place of the martyrdom. Pepin, Duke of Austrasia, having heard of the wonders that had occurred, caused the bodies to be buried in Cologne, where they were solemnly enshrined in the collegiate church of St. Kunibert. The heads of the martyrs were bestowed on Frederick, Bishop of Münster, by Archbishop Anno of Cologne, at the opening of the shrine in 1074. These relics were probably destroyed by the Anabaptists in 1534.
|
|
In 622, shortly after Chlothar had appointed Dagobert to rule Austrasia, the Frankish kingdom that bordered the Saxons, Berthoald rose in revolt and began marching against him. Dagobert crossed the Rhine and invaded Saxon territory to meet him. In the subsequent battle the Franks were defeated and Dagobert received a strong blow to his helmet, by which a portion of his characteristically long Merovingian hair was lost. He retrieved it and sent it with his armiger to his father, to request his assistance.
|
|
Gallia Belgica was infiltrated by the Germanic Franks from the 4th century, and was abandoned by Rome in AD 406. The territory of what would become Luxembourg by the 480s, became part of Merovingia Austrasia and eventually part of the core territory of the Carolingian Empire. With the Treaty of Verdun (843), it fell to Middle Francia, and in 855, to Lotharingia. With the latter's division in 959, it then fell to the Duchy of Upper Lorraine within the Holy Roman Empire.
|
|
It was founded by Wandregisel or Saint Wandrille (d. 22 July 668) on land obtained through the influence of Wandregisel's friend Saint Ouen, Archbishop of Rouen. Wandrille, being of the royal family of Austrasia, held a high position in the court of his kinsman Dagobert I, but wishing to devote his life to God, he retired to the abbey of Montfaucon-d'Argonne, in Champagne, in 629. Later he went to Bobbio Abbey and then to Romainmôtier Abbey, where he remained for ten years.
|
|
The road from Metz to Worms via Kaiserslautern through the Eisbach valley played a central role in the settlement. This road increased further in importance during the Merovingian era because it linked Metz, the capital of the eastern part of the empire, Austrasia, with the Upper Rhine region. During the Saxon Wars, Charlemagne used Worms as an assembly area for his troops, because there, near the Palatinate, was sufficient room and plentiful supplies for large armies. darin S. 49ff, 55 u. 58.
|
|
After the wars with the Lombards, Mummolus went to the aid of the king of Austrasia, Sigebert I, against the king of Soissons, Chilperic I. He successfully recovered Tours and Poitiers. He then met Desiderius, Chilperic's chief general, and defeated him in battle. By this time, he was the proven best general in Gaul. He joined the rebellious duke Guntram Boso and at first supported Gundoald as pretendent king in Aquitaine against Guntram, but abandoned that cause and rejoined Guntram against the insurrection.
|
|
A Conflict of Traditions: Women in Religion in the Early Middle Ages, 500-840, University Press of America, 1992 Anstrudis was caught up in the dynastic struggle between Dagobert II of Austrasia and Ebroin, mayor of the place of Neustria, who supported Theuderic III.Fox, Yaniv. Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, Cambridge University Press, 2014 Her brother Baldwin was treacherously assassinated while attempting to negotiate a settlement of some dispute regarding the convent. She herself was accused of wrongdoing by Ebroin.
|
|
Since King Sigibert I, Metz was frequently the residence of the Merovingian kings of Kingdom of Austrasia. When the Carolingians acceded to the Frankish throne, the town preserved the good-will of the rulers as it had long been a base of their family and their primal ancestors; Saint Arnuff and Chlodulf had been bishops of Metz. So, Emperor Charlemagne considered making Metz his imperial capital, before he finally decided in favor of Aachen.Mc Kitterick (2008) Charlemagne: the formation of a European identity.
|
|
Saint Gregory of Utrecht ( 700/705 – 770s) was born of a noble family at Trier. His father Alberic was the son of Addula, who in her widowhood was Abbess of Pfalzel (Palatiolum) near Trier. (Because of the similarity of names and also because of a forged will, Addula has been frequently confused with Saint Adela of Pfalzel, daughter of Dagobert II of Austrasia, thus wrongly imputing to Gregory membership of the royal house of the Merovingians). He received his early education at Pfalzel.
|
|
"Brunnhild" (1897) by Gaston Bussière Brunhild, also known as Brunhilda or Brynhild (, , or ), is a powerful female figure from Germanic heroic legend. She may have her origins in the Visigothic princess Brunhilda of Austrasia. In the Norse tradition, Brunhild is a shieldmaiden or valkyrie, who appears as a main character in the and some Eddic poems treating the same events. In the continental Germanic tradition, where she is a central character in the , she is a powerful Amazon-like queen.
|
|
Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, the Carolingian heir, was ousted out of the succession by Hugh Capet; his sons died childless. Extinct c. 1012. Charles Martel (c. 688 or 686, 680–741), Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, had six sons (3 illegitimate);Annales Einhardi 741, MGH SS I, p. 135 :1. Carloman (between 706 and 716–754) , Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia, had one son; ::A.
|
|
In 357 AD, Germanic tribes attempted to conquer Alsace but they were rebuffed by the Romans. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Germanic Alemanni. The Alemanni were agricultural people, and their Germanic language formed the basis of modern-day dialects spoken along the Upper Rhine (Alsatian, Alemannian, Swabian, Swiss). Clovis and the Franks defeated the Alemanni during the 5th century AD, culminating with the Battle of Tolbiac, and Alsace became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia.
|
|
The Frankish Empire in 555, the year of Theudebald's death Theudebald or Theodebald (in modern English, Theobald; in French, Thibaut or Théodebald; in German, Theudowald) (c. 535-555), son of Theudebert I and Deuteria, was the king of Metz, Rheims, or Austrasia--as it is variously called--from 547 or 548 to 555. He was only thirteen years of age when he succeeded and of ill health. However, the loyalty of the nobility to his father's memory preserved the peace during his minority.
|
|
While the eldest son Lothair I kept the imperial title and the kingdom of Middle Francia, Charles the Bald received West Francia and Louis the German received the eastern portion of mostly Germanic-speaking lands: the Duchy of Saxony, Austrasia, Alamannia, the Duchy of Bavaria, and the March of Carinthia. The contemporary East Frankish Annales Fuldenses describes the kingdom being "divided in three" and Louis "acceding to the eastern part".AF a. 843: in tres partes diviso ... Hludowicus quidem orientalem partem accepti.
|
|
Columbanus was exiled from Luxeuil by Theuderic II of Austrasia and the dowager Queen Brunehaut. He was succeeded as abbot by Saint Eustace of Luxeuil, the head of the monastic school, which under Eustace and his successor Saint Waldebert, established a high reputation. The school and example of Luxeuil contributed significantly to the conversion of the Burgundians. Luxeuil sent out monks to found houses at Bobbio, between Milan and Genoa, where Columbanus himself became abbot, and monasteries at Saint-Valéry and Remiremont.
|
|
The Frankish language, also "Old Frankish", was the language of the Franks. It is a West Germanic language and was spoken in Merovingian times, preceding the 7th century. Austrasia formed the northeastern portion of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks (Francia), comprising parts of the territory of present-day western Germany, eastern and northern France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The Franks first established themselves in the Netherlands and Flanders before they started to fight their way down south and east.
|
|
Innocent, count of Gévaudan and elected bishop of Rodez under pressure from Brunhilda of Austrasia, attempting to claim more land, accused Ursicinus of unjustly holding parishes that should be under the bishopric of Rodez. To judge this dispute, Sulpitius, the archbishop of Bourges, convened a council in Clermont in 587. It was decided there that the bishop of Cahors would keep the parishes for which the bishop of Rodez could not prove that a bishop of Rodez had exercised his authority there.
|
|
The murder of Childeric provided the occasion for Dagobert's return, but its immediate result was civil war. The former mayor of the palace, Ebroin, declared a certain Clovis III, son of the Neustrian king Chlothar III (658–673), as king in Austrasia, while Clovis II's third son, Theuderic III, was placed on the Neustrian throne by Leodegar. After Leodegar's capture, Ebroin abandoned Clovis for Theuderic, and in so doing lost his Austrasian allies. In this situation, Dagobert was recalled from his Irish exile.
|
|
Gogo (died 581) was the mayor of the palace of Austrasia and nutricius (also nutritius, tutor/regent) for the young Childebert II from 576 until his death. Gogo had become a very prominent member of the court of Sigebert I by 565. It was he who headed an embassy to Spain to fetch the Visigothic princess Brunhilda, Sigebert's betrothed. When Sigebert was assassinated he, possibly at the request of Brunhilda, took over the regency for Sigebert and Brunhilda's son Childebert.
|
|
Theuderic III (or Theuderich, Theoderic, or Theodoric; in French, Thierry) (c.651–691) 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 Ebroin, the Mayor of the Palace, who may have even appointed him without the support of the nobles.
|
|
After Valentinian's death in 455 Franks and Alemanni overran the Rhine provinces and conquered Cologne and Trier. After the Battle of Tolbiac in 496, the Alamanni came under Frankish rule and the fort was again burned. In the cultural strata of the 6th century, only isolated sporadic traces of settlement were found. After the death of its founder Clovis I 511, the Frankish Empire was divided into two parts, and Alzey was assigned to the eastern part of the empire, Austrasia, with its capital at Mediomatricum (Metz).
|
|
The sources describe at least eight separate campaigns waged by Henry against the Vikings, most of them successful. Henry is described in the sources as a Saxon, Frank or Thuringian. His title is given variously as count (Latin comes), margrave (marchensis) or duke (dux). The territory he governed is described variously in the sources as Francia, Neustria or Austrasia, perhaps indicating that his military command covered most of the north of the empire from the Breton March in the west to Frisia and Saxony in the east.
|
|
In 436, the Burgundian kingdom was destroyed by the Western Roman magister militum Flavius Aëtius with help from Hunnish troops. These events were worked into the Nibelungenlied and form the origin of the legendary figure Volker von Alzey, the gleeman in the Nibelungenlied. After 450, Alzey passed to the Alamanni and the Franks when they took over the land. After Clovis I's death in 511, the Frankish Empire fell apart into separate smaller kingdoms, and Alzey became part of Austrasia, whose capital was at Metz.
|
|
Drogo, however, was made duke in Champagne, a frontier region between Neustria and Austrasia. His power in Champagne was enhanced through his control of the monastery of Montier-en-Der and possibly the monastery of Hautvillers. The Liber Historiae Francorum, a history of the Franks written in Neustria in 727, portrays the Austrasian Drogo as sympathetic to the Neustrians because of his marital connections. He did, however, fall foul of the abbey of Saint-Denis, which sued him in the king's court in a property dispute.
|
|
François-Régis de La Bourdonnaye was born in La Varenne, Maine-et-Loire, on 19 March 1767. He was from a noble Breton family which participated in the crusades, and of which a branch had settled in Anjou a century before. In 1786 he joined the Austrasia infantry regiment as an officer. In the early days of the French Revolution 1789–1799 he was a member of the pro-monarchy Chevaliers du poignard (Knights of the dagger) who placed themselves at the service of King Louis XVI.
|
|
When Carloman died of natural causes, Charles blocked the succession of Carloman's young son and installed himself as the king of the united Austrasia and Neustria. Charles, more often known as Charles the Great or Charlemagne, embarked upon a programme of systematic expansion in 774 that unified a large portion of Europe, eventually controlling modern-day France, northern Italy, and Saxony. In the wars that lasted beyond 800, he rewarded allies with war booty and command over parcels of land.Bauer History of the Medieval World pp.
|
|
Gistemar, Ghislemar, or Gilmer (died in the 680s) was briefly the mayor of the palace in Neustria and Burgundy after deposing his father Waratton in 682. He reversed the peace with Austrasia of his father and warred with Pepin of Heristal, overcoming him in Namur. He reigned thereafter briefly and Waratton soon fought himself back into his office. However Gistemar did not give it up easily and continued to contend for the title until his death, before his father, in 683, 684, or 686.
|
|
After the reign of Dagobert I (629–639) the Merovingians effectively ceded power to the Pippinid Mayors of the Palace, who ruled the Frankish realm of Austrasia in all but name. They controlled the royal treasury, dispensed patronage, and granted land and privileges in the name of the figurehead king. Charles' father, Pepin of Herstal, was able to unite the Frankish realm by conquering Neustria and Burgundy. He was the first to call himself Duke and Prince of the Franks, a title later taken up by Charles.
|
|
The king was forced to recognise Pepin's mayorship over Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy. Eclipsing the Neustrian Mayors, Pepin's victory brought about the effective end of the old seat of Merovingian power, enabling the Arnulfing Mayors to control Neustrian political developments. According to historian Rosamond McKitterick, the Battle of Tertry constitutes one of the "decisive" moments for the Carolingian house and its history. Despite the importance of Tertry in strengthening Pepin's position, it was another two generations before Pepin the Short claimed the kingship of the Franks.
|
|
The humiliation to which Louis was then subjected at Notre Dame in Compiègne turned the loyal barons of Austrasia and Saxony against Lothair, and the usurper fled to Burgundy, skirmishing with loyalists near Chalon-sur-Saône. Louis was restored the next year, on 1 March 834. On Lothair's return to Italy, Wala, Jesse, and Matfrid, formerly count of Orléans, died of a pestilence. On 2 February 835 at the palace Thionville, Louis presided over a general council to deal with the events of the previous year.
|
|
In 608, Bilichildis married King Theudebert II of Austrasia and gave birth to a daughter, betrothed to Adaloald, son Agilulf, king of the Lombards. She may also the mother of Merovech, but Karl August Eckhardt doubts this, esteeming that it is more likely that he is the son of Theodechilde. Even if she was of "low origin" (which could otherwise be a concern for a queen), she was loved by her subjects. She was reportedly murdered by her spouse when he wished to marry Theodechilde (d. 613).
|
|
Champagne () was a province in the northeast of the Kingdom of France, now best known as the Champagne wine region for the sparkling white wine that bears its name in modern-day France. The County of Champagne, descended from the early medieval kingdom of Austrasia, passed to the French crown in 1314. Formerly ruled by the counts of Champagne, its western edge is about 160 km (100 miles) east of Paris. The cities of Troyes, Reims, and Épernay are the commercial centers of the area.
|
|
The next year, in 658, he also became King of Neustria and Burgundy upon the death of his father, thus temporarily reuniting the Frankish kingdoms under one rule. A few years later however, the Austrasian nobility again pressed successfully for the kingdoms to be separated. As a result, Childeric II, the younger brother of Chlotar III, became king of Austrasia from 662 to his death in 675. The nobles had put on the throne Clovis III, about whom not much is known, but his reign was short.
|
|
Otto (died 643 or 644) was the mayor of the palace of Austrasia briefly in the mid-seventh century. Otto was the son of a domesticus named Uro who served in the court of Dagobert I. Otto was raised with Dagobert's son Sigebert III and subsequently acted as Sigebert III's baiolos (bailiff?). On the death of Pepin of Landen in 639 or 640, Otto challenged the succession of Grimoald to the mayorship. Otto was eventually murdered by Leuthard II, Duke of Alemannia, at the request of Grimoald.
|
|
The original Frankish mayors or majordomos were like the Welsh meiri lords commanding the king's lands around the Merovingian courts in Austrasia, Burgundy, and Neustria. The mayorship of Paris eventually became hereditary in the Pippinids, who later established the Carolingian dynasty. In modern France, since the Revolution, a mayor (maire) and a number of mayoral adjuncts (adjoints au maire) are selected by the municipal council from among their number. Most of the administrative work is left in their hands, with the full council meeting comparatively infrequently.
|
|
Dentelin was a region of the Frankish Empire disputed between Austrasia and Neustria. Mentioned in the Chronicle of Fredegar, the Duchy of Dentelin included far north-western parts of modern France and south-western parts of Belgium. The cities of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Thérouanne, Tournai, Arras, and Cambrai lay within the duchy. Dentelin formed part of the inheritance of the Merovingian king of Neustria Chlothar II, but was lost by him to his cousins, Theudebert II and Theuderic II, following the battle of Dormelles in 599.
|
|
Saint-Riquier (originally Centula or Centulum ) gained fame for its abbey, founded about 625 by Riquier (Richarius), son of the governor of the town, when the town was within Austrasia in the Merovingian Kingdom. It was enriched by King Dagobert I and prospered in the early 9th century Carolingian Empire under the abbacy of Angilbert, son-in-law of Charlemagne. In the year 881 Northmen burned the abbey and destroyed much of what was Centula. The monastery was rebuilt in the Middle Ages on a smaller scale.
|
|
The Duchy of Thuringia was an eastern frontier march of the Merovingian kingdom of Austrasia, established about 631 by King Dagobert I after his troops had been defeated by the forces of the Slavic confederation of Samo at the Battle of Wogastisburg. It was recreated in the Carolingian Empire and its dukes appointed by the king until it was absorbed by the Saxon dukes in 908. From about 1111/12 the territory was ruled by the Landgraves of Thuringia as Princes of the Holy Roman Empire.
|
|
In the late Roman times these forests also helped define the boundary between the Roman provinces of Belgica secunda and Germania secunda, and therefore they later helped define the medieval church archdioceses of Reims and Cologne, which were partly based upon Roman provinces. During the evolutions of the Frankish kingdoms, the southern frontier also remained an important one, defining the boundary between Neustria and Austrasia in Merovingian times. In Carolingian times it continued to form the boundary of Western Francia which evolved into France.
|
|
The Duke had two elite regiments in Grenoble,Jean Sgard, Les trente récits de la Journée des Tuiles. the Regiment of the Royal Navy (Régiment Royal-La-Marine) whose colonel was Marquis d'Ambert and the regiment of Austrasia (Régiment d'Austrasie) which was commanded by Colonel Count Chabord. The Royal Navy was the first to respond to the growing crowds and was given the order to quell the rioting without the use of arms. However, as the mob stormed the hotel entrance, the situation escalated.
|
|
The city, seat of a powerful archdiocese for much of its history, has a Gothic Cathedral, the Catedral Primada de España ("The Primate Cathedral of Spain"), and a long history in the production of bladed weapons, which are now common souvenirs of the city. People who were born or have lived in Toledo include Brunhilda of Austrasia, Al-Zarqali, Garcilaso de la Vega, Eleanor of Toledo, Alfonso X, Israeli ben Joseph, Halevi, and El Greco. , the city had a population of 83,226 and an area of .
|
|
Saint Remaclus Saint Remaclus founded the Abbey of Stavelot on the river, circa 650, on lands along the border between the bishoprics of Cologne and ,, notably referenced there. Both sites last accessed 2 January 2010. this territory previously having been part of the Frankish Carolingian Empire. A charter of Sigebert III, king of Austrasia entrusted Remaclus with the monasteries of both Stavelot and Malmedy, which was located a few kilometres eastwards in the forest, "a place of horror and solitary isolation which abounds with wild beasts".
|
|
Clovis II (633 - 657) is King of Neustria and Burgundy succeeded his father Dagobert I in 639. His brother Sigebert III had been King of Austrasia since 634. He was initially under the regency of his mother Nanthild until her death in her early thirties in 642. Nanthild was probably poisoned or secretly murdered by the nobility, as her death allowed Clovis to fall under the influence of the secular magnates, who reduced the royal power in their own favour; first Aega and then Erchinoald.
|
|
Forgetful of their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998 After her three sons reached adulthood and had become established in their respective territories (Clotaire in Neustria, Childeric in Austrasia, and Theuderic in Burgundy), Balthild withdrew to her favourite Abbey of Chelles near Paris. Balthild died on 30 January 680 and was buried at the Abbey of Chelles, east of Paris. Her Vita was written soon after her death, probably by one of the community of Chelles.
|
|
Dynamius or Dinamius was the Rector of Provence (rector Provinciae) from 575, when he replaced Albinus. At the time, Provence and Austrasia lay within the kingdom of Childebert II, though half of Marseille, the chief Provençal city, was under the lordship of Guntram, King of Burgundy. Dynamius and Guntram allied together for their own mutual benefit at the expense of Childebert. Dynamius instigated the canons of the Diocese of Uzès to elect their deacon Marcellus, son of the senator Felix, as bishop in opposition to their already- elected bishop Jovinus, a former governor of Provence.
|
|
Parthemius (or Parthenius) (died 548) was the mayor of the palace of Austrasia during the reign of Theudebert I. He was very unpopular with the people for the tributes he exacted. He was a glutton and a murderer too, having disposed of his friend Ausanius and his wife Papianella out of jealousy. Soon after the death of the king in 548, the people conspired against him and he fled the capital to Treves in the company of two bishops. He hid in a church, but the townsmen sought him out and stoned him to death.
|
|
Wickham Inheritance of Rome pp. 158–159 Ireland was divided into even smaller political units, usually known as tribal kingdoms, under the control of kings. There were perhaps as many as 150 local kings in Ireland, of varying importance.Wickham Inheritance of Rome pp. 164–165 The Carolingian dynasty, as the successors to Charles Martel are known, officially took control of the kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria in a coup of 753 led by (r. 752–768). A contemporary chronicle claims that Pippin sought, and gained, authority for this coup from Pope (pope 752–757).
|
|
The siege was successful, Gundovald's support drained away quickly and he was handed over by the besieged to be executed. The sole source for Gundovald is Gregory of Tours, who wrote about the events in his 'Histories', books 6 and 7. Gundovald was never king of Aquitaine as is sometimes thought; there was no such separate kingdom at the time. While his main backers were magnates of Austrasia, the Byzantine support consisted of treasure to buy followers and it is probable that Gundovald spent time in Constantinople before setting off to conquer parts of Gaul.
|
|
Time on time she was disrupted in her worshipping by magpies, and she fled from the birds. Eventually she arrived in Toxandria (Austrasia) in a little settlement called Rode (old Dutch word for a man made open place in the woods), where the villagers built her a hut on the heath and she settled as a hermit. After she died in 726 A.D. the villagers were getting pilgrims from the entire region, and started to call the place Sint- Oda's-Rode, which became Sint-Oedenrode in present-day speaking.
|
|
New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909 Prior to his death, he had, at his wife Plectrude's urging, designated Theudoald, his grandson by their late son Grimoald, his heir in the entire realm. This was immediately opposed by the nobles because Theudoald was a child of only eight years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, Plectrude had him imprisoned in Cologne, the city which was intended to be her capital. This prevented an uprising on his behalf in Austrasia, but not in Neustria.
|
|
In 716, Chilperic and Ragenfrid together led an army into Austrasia intent on seizing the Pippinid wealth at Cologne. The Neustrians allied with another invading force under Redbad, King of the Frisians, and met Charles in battle near Cologne, which was still held by Plectrude. Charles had little time to gather men, or prepare, and the result was the only defeat of his career. The Frisians held off Charles, while the king and his mayor besieged Plectrude at Cologne, where she bought them off with a substantial portion of Pepin's treasure.
|
|
When Lothair tried to call a general council of the realm in Nijmegen, in the heart of Austrasia, the Austrasians and Rhinelanders came with a following of armed retainers, and the disloyal sons were forced to free their father and bow at his feet (831). Lothair was pardoned, but disgraced and banished to Italy. Pepin returned to Aquitaine and Judith – after being forced to humiliate herself with a solemn oath of innocence – to Louis's court. Only Wala was severely dealt with, making his way to a secluded monastery on the shores of Lake Geneva.
|
|
Fredegund Fredegund or Fredegunda (Latin: Fredegundis; French: Frédégonde; died 8 December 597) was the Queen consort of Chilperic I, the Merovingian Frankish king of Soissons. She served as regent during the minority of her son Chlothar II from 584 until 597. Fredegund has traditionally been given a very bad reputation, foremost by the accounts of Gregory of Tours, who depicts her as ruthlessly murderous and sadistically cruel, and she is known for the many cruel stories about her, particularly for her long going feud with queen Brunhilda of Austrasia.
|
|
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 Brunhild. After the mysterious assassination of Chilperic in 584 AD, Fredegund seized the Kings 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\. Newly widowed, Fredegund attempted to seduce the Neustrian official Eberulf but was ultimately rejected.
|
|
Chilperic then made war with the protector of Sigebert's wife and son, Guntram. 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. In 578, Chilperic sent an army to fight the Breton ruler Waroch II of the Bro- Wened along the Vilaine. The Frankish army consisted of units from the Poitou, Touraine, Anjou, Maine, and Bayeux. The Baiocassenses (men from Bayeux) were Saxons and they in particular were routed by the Bretons.
|
|
He was present at the Council of Paris 557, where marriages within certain degrees of consanguinity were declared incestuous, and at the Council of Tours (566). In 575, Prætextatus presided as minister over the wedding of Merovech of Soissons, son of King Chiperic I of Neustria, and Brunhild, the widow of King Sigebert I of Austrasia and Merovech’s own aunt, in his diocese of Rouen.Hist., V.2. King Chiperic opposed this marriage and later brought charges against Prætextatus, accusing him of bribing his people with gifts to turn them against his kingship.
|
|
189-90 He soon invaded his brother's kingdom and displaced him, becoming sole king. He made his Austrasian Mayor of the Palace, Wulfoald, mayor also in Neustria and Burgundy, displacing Ebroin of Neustria and upsetting his supporters in Burgundy who did not wish to see functionaries active in a kingdom other than their native one. In March 675, Childeric had granted honores in Alsace to Adalrich with the title of dux. This grant was most probably the result of Adalrich's continued support for Childeric in Burgundy, which had often disputed possession of Alsace with Austrasia.
|
|
"The Frankish dynasties of Austrasia and Neustria by the Treaty of Andelot, consolidated their grip on part of the former territory of the Nine Peoples [...] In the 4th century Lapurdum continued to exist and by the end of the 6th century returned to its function as a fortress. Lapurdum controlled firstly the routes leading to the Pyrenean passes and secondly the cabotage routes of the Frankish fleets from Bordeaux to Asturias ".Manex Goyhenetche, General History of Basque country, Prehistory, Roman era, Middle Ages, Vol. 1, Elkarlanean, Donostia and Bayonne, 1998, 492 pages, , BnF FRBNF37031711, p.
|
|
His father Clotaire evidently had a bigamous marriage (not then uncommon) and he was the offspring of the junior wife. When his father, Clotaire II, King of the Franks, died in 629, Charibert made a bid for the kingdom of Neustria against his elder half-brother Dagobert I, who had already been king of Austrasia since 623. In the ensuing negotiations, Charibert, a minor, was represented by his uncle Brodulf, the brother of Queen Sichilde. Dagobert had Brodulf killed, but did not intercede when his half-brother took over the near-independent realm of Aquitaine.
|
|
After the mythological poems, Codex Regius continues with heroic lays about mortal heroes. The heroic lays are to be seen as a whole in the Edda, but they consist of three layers: the story of Helgi Hundingsbani, the story of the Nibelungs, and the story of Jörmunrekkr, king of the Goths. These are, respectively, Scandinavian, German, and Gothic in origin. As far as historicity can be ascertained, Attila, Jörmunrekkr, and Brynhildr actually existed, taking Brynhildr to be partly based on Brunhilda of Austrasia, but the chronology has been reversed in the poems.
|
|
Uncelen, Uncelin, or Uncilin (from Latin Uncelenus; died c. 613) was the Duke of Alemannia from 587 to 607. He was appointed to replace Leutfred by the Austrasian king Childebert II. On Childebert's death in 595, the Thurgau, Kembsgau, and Alsace passed to the Kingdom of Burgundy, then under the rule of Theuderic II. In 605 Theuderic went to war with his brother Theudebert II, who ruled Austrasia. His army, which did not wish to go to war, he placed under the command of his majordomo Protadius with instructions to induce the soldiers to fight.
|
|
Frankish power however eventually extended over neighbouring Romans. From at least the eighth century Hesbaye was an important geographical division in the Merovingian Frankish kingdom of Austrasia. In the 8th century, Robert, who has been proposed as an ancestor of the Capetians, was described as a Duke or Count of Hasbania, implying that in his lifetime maybe it formed one large political area. In a grant of 741 some of his lands near Diest were described as being in the country of "Hasbaniensi et Mansuarinsi", the Hasbanians and the Mansuarini.
|
|
The 10th-century County of Flanders next to Lotharingia. In 751 the Carolingian Mayors of the Palace succeeded in removing the Merovingians from power and obtaining the throne for themselves. The last Merovingian king, Childeric III, was placed in captivity at the later Abbey of Saint Bertinus in St. Omer, and his long hair, a symbol of royal power, was cut off. Charlemagne succeeded his father Pepin the Short in Neustria and Austrasia, and after the death of his brother Karloman he was able to reunite the entire Frankish Empire.
|
|
The word 'France' appears in the time of the first Merovingians, in the fifth century. In the 6th century it was used to designate the entire area granted in fief by them, from the Rhine to the Loire. In Carolingian times, the area so designated was reduced to territory located between Austrasia and Neustria, and during the tenth and eleventh centuries, was further reduced to apply only to the north east of Paris. There was doubtless a subdivision of the Diocese of Paris corresponding to the area, the Archdeaconry of France.
|
|
Around 656, about the time of the usurpation of Grimoald in Austrasia and the banishment of the boy- heir Dagobert II, Leodegar was called to the Neustrian court by the widowed Queen Bathilde to assist in the government of the united kingdoms and in the education of her children. Then in 659 he was named to the see of Autun, in Burgundy. He again undertook the work of reform and held a council at Autun in 661. The council denounced Manichaeism and was the first to adopt the Trinitarian Athanasian Creed.
|
|
She is believed to have her origins in Ildico, last wife of Attila the Hun, and two queens of the Merovingian dynasty, Brunhilda of Austrasia and Fredegund. In both the Continental (German) and Scandinavian traditions, Gudrun/Kriemhild is the sister of the Burgundian king Gunther/Gunnar and marries the hero Siegfried/Sigurd. Both traditions also feature a major rivalry between Gudrun and Brunhild, Gunther's wife, over their respective ranks. In both traditions, once Sigurd has been murdered, Gudrun is married to Etzel/Atli, the legendary analogue of Attila the Hun.
|
|
As repayment for their help in the Austrasian conquest, Chlotar rewarded both men with important positions of power in Austrasia. However, Arnulf was the first to gain. He was bestowed the bishopric of Metz in 614, entrusting him with the management of the Austrasian capital and the education of Chlotar's young son, the future Dagobert I. This is a position he would hold until his retirement in 629 after Chlotar's death, when he left for a small ecclesiastical community near Habendum; he was later buried at the monastery of Remiremont after his death c. 645.
|
|
Pippin, with support from Arnulf and other Austrasian magnates, even used the opportunity to support the killing of an important political rival Chrodoald, an Agilolfing lord. Following King Dagobert I's ascent to the throne in c.629, he returned Frankish politics back to Paris in Neustria, from whence it had been removed by Chlotar in 613. As a result, Pippin lost his position as mayor and the support of the Austrasian magnates, who were seemingly irritated by his inability to persuade the King to return the political centre to Austrasia.
|
|
In 532 or 533 or around that year he put forth a claim to royal descent as being or claiming to be a son of Chlodoric the Parricide and asked for a share of the kingdom of Austrasia from Theuderic I. He had a band of sworn followers. Theuderic attempted to summon him to court in order to kill him, but after Munderic refused, a force was sent against him. The pretender took refuge with his loyal supporters in Vitry. The Austrasian army, however, lacked siege engines and were unable to invest the place.
|
|
Time on time she was disrupted in her worshipping by magpies, and she fled from the birds. Eventually she arrived in Toxandria (Austrasia) in a little settlement called Rode (old Dutch word for a man made open place in the woods), where the villagers built her a hut on the heath and she settled as a hermit. After she died in 726 A.D. the villagers were getting pilgrims from the entire region, and started to call the place Sint- Oda's-Rode, which became Sint-Oedenrode in present-day speaking.
|
|
Dagobert acceded to the throne of Austrasia at the age of seven, upon the death of Sigebert III, but was quickly deposed. Dagobert fled to Ireland and returned to Metz in 673 and claimed the throne. During exile, some have said he married an Anglo-Saxon princess named Matilda (or Mechthilde) and had five children, with saints Adela and Irmina among them.According to the 8th century Vita Sancti Wilfrithi ("Life of St. Wilfrid"), and also mentioned in one of the versions of the Vita Sancti Arbogasti by Utho Argentinensis.
|
|
Meanwhile, the tyrannical conduct of Ebroin, mayor of the Neustrian palace, caused a general emigration of the nobles and others to the court of Austrasia at Metz. Hubert soon followed them and was warmly welcomed by Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace, who created him almost immediately grand-master of the household. About this time (682) Hubert married Floribanne, daughter of Dagobert, Count of Leuven. Their son Floribert of Liège would later become bishop of Liège, for bishoprics were all but accounted fiefs heritable in the great families of the Merovingian kingdoms.
|
|
Sources making the opposite claim do not. Ian Wood recommends focusing only on the four earliest sources for this information, as later sources are based on these few documents. He starts with the continuations of the chronicles of Fredegar, which do not mention this connection, and are based on an earlier work. He says that "since Childebrand himself was the half-brother of Charles Martel, it is not surprising that the Fredegar continuator add the information contained in the Liber Historiae Francorum material largely concerned with Austrasia and Frisia" in 751.
|
|
When Pippin died, Gertrude's brother Grimoald competed with Otto to become the new mayor of the palace; he revolted in a grab for power.Fredegar ch 86 After Otto died in battle a decade later, "the dignity of mayor of Sigebert's palace and control of all the kingdom of Austrasia was thus decisively assured to Grimoald" and the Pippinids.Fredegar, ch 88 The mention of Gertrude's decided rejection of her Austrasian suitor is unique for the era. At least one scholar considers it to have been deliberately included by the chronicler as expressing her character.
|
|
After the death of the Merovingian king Theudebald of Austrasia, his successor Chlothar I had "begun to have intercourse with""History of the Franks" IV.9, by Gregory of Tours his widow Waldrada (531–572), daughter of the Lombard king Wacho. Chlothar's bishops objected, so he gave Waldrada to Garibald to marry in 556. Not only did this grant Garibald prestige, but it created lasting political ties between the Bavarii and the Lombards of Pannonia and Bohemia. This would have consequences after the Lombards moved into Italy in 568.
|
|
Adalgisel or Adalgis (Adalgyselus ducis in contemporary Latin) was a Frankish duke and the mayor of the palace of Austrasia. He assumed that office in December 633 or January 634 at the same time that Sigebert III assumed the kingship. Along with Cunibert, Bishop of Cologne, he acted as regent for the young king. Adalgisel, Cunibert, and Sigebert were all appointed by Dagobert I. Adalgisel and Grimoald led the Austrasian army against the Thuringii sometime around 639, but their magnates defected and they were forced to concentrate on protecting the young king's life.
|
|
"Theodard of Maastricht", The Book of Saints, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015 His biographers describe him as a cheerful and likeable person who performed his role as bishop with great energy and pastoral care. As bishop, in 664 he presided over the dedication of Trudo's abbey (Saint-Trond) to St. Quentin and St. Remigius of Reims. He was murdered, probably c.670, while on a journey through the forest of Bienwald near Speyer, on his way to seek justice from Childeric II of Austrasia in a legal dispute regarding Frankish nobles plundering the diocese.
|
|
Succeeding his father as the Mayor of the Palace in 741, Pepin reigned over Francia jointly with his elder brother Carloman. Pepin ruled in Neustria, Burgundy and Provence, while his older brother Carloman established himself in Austrasia, Alemannia and Thuringia. The brothers were active in suppressing revolts led by the Bavarians, Aquitanians, Saxons and the Alemanni in the early years of their reign. In 743, they ended the Frankish interregnum by choosing Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian monarch, as figurehead king of the Franks.
|
|
The kingdom, which included the Kingdom of Italy, Burgundy, the Provence, and the west of Austrasia, was an unnatural creation of the Treaty of Verdun, with no historical or ethnic identity. The kingdom was split on the death of Lothair II in 869 into those of Lotharingia, Provence (with Burgundy divided between it and Lotharingia), and north Italy. East Francia was the land of Louis the German. It was divided into four duchies: Swabia (Alamannia), Franconia, Saxony and Bavaria; to which after the death of Lothair II were added the eastern parts of Lotharingia.
|
|
Grasulf I (died after 571) was a brother of Alboin, the first Lombard King of Italy, and possibly the first Duke of Friuli. Grasulf's son, Gisulf, is the other candidate for first Duke of Friuli. Paul the Deacon names Gisulf, but some scholars have favoured Grasulf based on a diplomatic letter which refers to him as duke. This letter was written by Gogo, Frankish mayor of the palace of Austrasia under Sigebert I and Childebert II, sometime between Gogo's rise to power in 571 and his death in 581.
|
|
27 In 595, Gregory chose Augustine, who was the prior of the Abbey of St Andrew's in Rome, to head the mission to Kent. The pope selected monks to accompany Augustine and sought support from the Frankish royalty and clergy in a series of letters, of which some copies survive in Rome. He wrote to King Theuderic II of Burgundy and to King Theudebert II of Austrasia, as well as their grandmother Brunhild, seeking aid for the mission. Gregory thanked King Chlothar II of Neustria for aiding Augustine.
|
|
The son of Walchisus, a kinsman of Pepin of Landen, he was born around 605, near Verdun in the region then known as Austrasia. He was educated at the Frankish court in Metz. Wandregisel was part of a group of young courtiers Audoin and Didier of Cahors who served Dagobert I, but in 629 he retired from court to become a monk at Montfaucon under the guidance of Saint Balderic. Wandregisel had received the tonsure without the permission normally required for a courtier, and was summoned to court to explain this apparent oversight.
|
|
Unlike many smaller pagi, Hasbania did not correspond to a single county, but contained several. It is therefore described as a "", like the Pagus of Brabant, by modern German historians such as Ulrich Nonn. The Hesbaye was a core agricultural territory for the early Franks who settled in the Roman Civitas Tungrorum, which was one of the main parts of early Frankish Austrasia, and later Lotharingia. The region was also spiritually and culturally important, a central part of what is referred to in art history as the Mosan region.
|
|
Waldrada (also Vuldetrada) (531572), widow (firstly) of Theudebald, King of Austrasia (ruled 548–555), reputed mistress (secondly) of Chlothar I, King of the Franks (ruled until 561), was the daughter of Wacho, King of the Lombards (ruled ca. 510–539) and his second wife called Austrigusa or Ostrogotha, a Gepid. The Origo Gentis Langobardorum names "Wisigarda…secundæ Walderada" as the two daughters of Wacho and his second wife, specifying that Waldrada married "Scusuald regis Francorum" and later "Garipald".Origo Gentis Langobardorum 4, MGH SS rer Lang I, p. 4.
|
|
The Carolingian Kingdom of Aquitaine subordinated to the Carolingian king or (later) emperor based in Francia (Austrasia, Neustria). It included not only Aquitaine proper, but also Gothia, Vasconia (Gascony) and the Carolingian possessions in Spain as well. In 806, Charlemagne planned to divide his empire between his sons. Louis received Provence and Burgundy as additions to his kingdom. When Louis succeeded Charlemagne as emperor in 814, he granted Aquitaine to his son Pepin I, after whose death in 838 the nobility of Aquitaine chose his son Pepin II of Aquitaine (d.
|
|
The Life of Dagobert, on the other hand, says that Dagobert was buried at Stenay in the church dedicated to Saint Remigius. This is not implausible, since Stenay was in the centre of Austrasia. The source, however, dates to the 890s and confuses Dagobert II and Dagobert III (711–715), who died of illness. In 872, the cult of Dagobert was brought to life (or revived) by Charles the Bald, king of West Francia (840–877), who had his relics translated to a specially built basilica in Stenay staffed with its own canons.
|
|
Odo led his forces to play a major role in defeating the Umayyad army when they broke into the main Cordovan camp and set fire to it, sparking confusion and wreaking havoc with the enemy's rearguard. The alliance defeated the Umayyads at the Battle of Tours in 732, and expelled them from Aquitaine. After the battle, Charles headed back north to his domains in Francia--Neustria and Austrasia-- and duke Odo was left as ruler in Aquitaine and Vasconia. In 735 the Duke Odo abdicated or died, and was succeeded by his son Hunald.
|
|
The Basilica of St. Martin Basilica of St. Martin ( ) also called Bingen am Rhein Basilica Is the main catholic church of the city of Bingen am Rhein, in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. The church is located on the bank of the Nahe. It was restored and renovated several times, so it is a fusion of different styles; Around 793 the crypt was built, which is one of the oldest crypts of Austrasia. The church is dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, which is depicted above the main entrance and in many frescoes and the altarpiece.
|
|
The area was later incorporated into Frankish Austrasia and Swabian settlers entered the region under the reign of King Sigebert I from 561 to 575. Other nearby shires (Friesenfeld and Engelin) are also named after distant Germanic tribes. In 927 the East Frankish king Henry the Fowler, Saxon duke since 912, installed his confidant Thietmar of Merseburg as count in the Schwabengau; upon his death he was succeeded by his son Siegfried in 932. Schwabengau was ruled by the Margraves of the Saxon Eastern March until the death of Thietmar II in 1030.
|
|
Adalrich maintained his power in a restricted dukedom which did not encompass land west of the Vosges as it had under Boniface and his predecessors. This land was a part of the kingdoms of Neustria and Burgundy, and only the land between the Vosges and the Rhine south to the Sornegau, later Alsace proper, remained with Austrasia under Adalrich. The west of Vosges was under duke Theotchar. In Alsace, however, the civil war had resulted in a curtailed royal power and Adalrich's influence and authority, though restricted in territory, was augmented in practical scope.
|
|
The Pippinids or Arnulfings were a Frankish aristocratic family from Austrasia during the Merovingian period. They dominated the office of mayor of the palace after 687 and eventually supplanted the Merovingians as kings in 751, founding the Carolingian dynasty. The names "Pippinid" and "Arnulfing" are modern conventions, reflecting the claimConstance Bouchard, Rewriting Saints and Ancestors: Memory and Forgetting in France, 500–1200 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), p. 114. that the family traced its descent from two contemporaries, Arnulf of Metz (died c. 640) and Pippin of Landen (died 640), through the marriage of Arnulf's son Ansegisel and Pippin's daughter Begga.
|
|
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. In historian Ian Wood's view, Dagobert's creation of a sub-kingdom for his son Sigibert had "important long-term implications for the general structure of Merovingian Francia." Detail of Dagobert's tomb, thirteenth century As king, Dagobert made Paris his capital.
|
|
The Dark Ages, 476-918, Rivingtons, 1908, p. 174 Brunhilde is dragged to her death 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 Chlothar's hands. Brunhilda and Sigebert met Chlothar'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. They got as far as the Orbe, but Chlothar's soldiers caught up with them by the lake Neuchâtel.
|
|
Old Low Frankish had its most long lasting effects in the bilingual regions of what is now northern France, resulting in the split between the more Germanic- influenced langue d'oïl and the southern langue d'oc (the separate Occitan language). Germanic languages remained spoken by officials in Neustria and Austrasia into the 10th century. Urban T. Holmes Jr., A. H. Schutz (1938), A history of the French language, p. 29, Biblo & Tannen Publishers, Off the coast of mainland Europe, Germanic settlers in England began to speak Old English, displacing Old Brittonic with the Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon dialects. Crystal, David. 2004.
|
|
Gothia The Hispanic Marches resulted from the expansion south of the Frankish realm from their heartland in Neustria and Austrasia starting with Charles Martel in 732 and after various decades fighting between the Franks and Umayyads (Saraceni) in the Iberian Peninsula. The Muslim invasion reached the Pyrenees in the Iberian Peninsula. In 719 the forces of Al-Samh ibn Malik surged up the east coast, overwhelming the remaining Visigoth province of Septimania and establishing a fortified base at Narbonne. Control was secured by offering the local population generous terms, inter-marriage between ruling families or treaties.
|
|
Immediately after the death of his father in 561, he 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. His eldest brother Charibert received Paris, the second eldest brother Guntram received Burgundy with its capital at Orléans, and Sigebert received Austrasia. On the death of Charibert in 567, Chilperic's estates were augmented when the brothers divided Charibert's kingdom among themselves and agreed to share Paris.
|
|
The Battle of Lucofao (or Bois-du-Fays) was the decisive engagement of the civil war that afflicted the Frankish kingdoms during and after the reign of Dagobert II (676–79). In the battle, the Neustrian forces of Theuderic III and his majordomo Ebroin defeated the forces of Austrasia under the dukes Pippin and Martin. Map of the Frankish kingdoms showing location of Latofao (Lucofao) not far from the site of Tertry, just inside the border of Neustria. The location of the battle, Lucofao or Locofao, is now part of Sévigny-Waleppe, not far from Rethel, in the Ardennes.
|
|
Coming with his army to the villa of Asfeld, he sent envoys to Martin so that with pledges having been given and with a guarantee he [Martin] might come to King Theuderic. This they [the envoys] craftily and falsely swore to him [Martin] on empty [relic] boxes. But he trusted them and came to Asfeld, where he was killed along with his companions. Continuations of the Chronicle of Fredegar, chapter 3 After the death of Wulfoald and the disappearance of the kings, Duke Martin and Pippin, son of the deceased Ansegisel, a Frank of noble stock, ruled over Austrasia.
|
|
After the Gothic takeover, the Visigothic dominions were generally known as Septimania. The king of the Visigoths, Alaric I was killed at the Battle of Vouillé in 507, a battle won by Clovis I and Velay came under Frankish rule. On Clovis' death in 511, his kingdom was divided among his four sons, and Velay was included in the part of the king of Austrasia, then part of the French kingdom. These subdivisions were united under the auspices of his longest surviving son Chlothar I, only to be split again under his four sons at his death.
|
|
So Bayan and his horde in 563 rode around the northern Carpathians to Germany, where they were soundly stemmed along the river Elbe by the Frankish king Sigebert I of Austrasia. This defeat induced them to come back on their footsteps to the Lower Danube region. After vainly trying to force the Danubian border when the new Byzantine emperor Justin II denied them both entry and wage, the Avars renewed their ride to Thuringia. This time (566) they did defeat Sigebert, but had nonetheless to stop; in the meantime the Göktürks, in pursuit of their former subjects, remained a real danger.
|
|
Eorcenberht of Kent (also Ærconberht, Earconberht, or Earconbert) (died 14 July 664) was king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent from 640 until his death, succeeding his father Eadbald. The Kentish Royal Legend (also known as the Mildrith legendD. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (series "Studies in the Early History of Britain", Leicester University) 1983.) suggests that he was the younger son of Eadbald and Emma of Austrasia, and that his older brother Eormenred was deliberately passed over, although another possibility is that they ruled jointly. According to Bede (HE III.
|
|
The final moment of Grimoald's life is an area that is disputed in both date and event, titled: 'Grimoald's coup'. It involves Grimoald and his son Childebert the Adopted taking the Austrasian throne from the true Merovingian King Dagobert II, son of the late Sigibert who died young at 26 years old. Historians like Pierre Riché are certain that Sigibert died in 656, having adopted Childebert due to his lack of an adult male heir. Following this, young Dagobert II was then exiled and tonsured by Grimoald and Dido of Poitiers, who then installed Childebert as King of Austrasia.
|
|
630, but Fredegar records that around 631 an Alemannic army under duke Chrodobert participated in Dagobert I's assault on the realm of the Slavs to the east. The Alemannic host (exercitus Alamannorum) was one of the three columns of the Austrasian army (exercitus regnum universum Austrasiorum). While the Alemanni won a battle at an unknown location and the Lombard allies were successful against the Slavs in the Julian Alps, the main army of Austrasian Franks under Dagobert was defeated at the Battle of Wogastisburg. Chrodobert's authority in Alemannia probably increased after the succession of Sigebert III to the throne of Austrasia.
|
|
The Council of Clermont (Concilium Arvernense) of 535 was one of the early Frankish synods. Held at Arvernum, (the later Clermont, conquered by Clovis I in 507), it was attended by fifteen prelates of the kingdom of Austrasia under the presidency of Honoratus, bishop of Bourges. Among those bishops attending was Saint Gal, the bishop of Clermont. Seventeen canons were drawn up at the council, of which the first sixteen are contained in the Decretum Gratiani (compiled in the 12th century by Gratian); they have become part of the corpus of canon law of the Catholic Church, the Corpus Iuris Canonici.
|
|
The early history of Gertrude's family is not well documented. The anonymous author of her Early Middle Ages biography, Vita Sanctae Geretrudis, only hints at her origins: "it would be tedious to insert in this account in what line of earthly origin she was descended. For who living in Europe does not know the loftiness, the names, and the localities of her lineage?"Vita Sanctae Geretrudis Gertrude's father, Pepin of Landen (Pippin the Elder), a nobleman from east Francia, had been instrumental in persuading King Clothar II to crown his son, Dagobert I, as the King of Austrasia.
|
|
Cunibert (sometimes spelled Honoberht) was born somewhere along the Moselle to a family of the local Ripuarian Frankish aristocracy, and educated in Metz at the court of Chlothar II. He entered the church and became archdeacon of Trier."Cunibert of Cologne", Oxford Dictionary of Saints He was made bishop of Cologne in 623. As bishop, Cunibert served as an advisor to King Dagobert I. In 633 or 634 Dagobert's son and heir Sigebert III was invested as king of Austrasia. Following this, Dagobert made Cunibert and Adalgisel, the mayor of the palace, co-regents of the kingdom.
|
|
Nonn "Die Franken", p. 85: "Heute dürfte feststehen, dass es sich dabei um römische Einheiten handelt; die in der Gallia riparensis, einem Militärbezirk im Rhônegebiet, stationiert waren, der in der Notitia dignitatum bezeugt ist." Their territory on both sides of the Rhine became a central part of Merovingian Austrasia, which stretched to include Roman Germania Inferior (later Germania Secunda, which included the original Salian and Ripuarian lands, and roughly equates to medieval Lower Lotharingia) as well as Gallia Belgica Prima (late Roman "Belgium", roughly medieval Upper Lotharingia), and lands on the east bank of the Rhine.
|
|
Pepin's father Charles Martel died in 741. He divided the rule of the Frankish kingdom between Pepin and his elder brother, Carloman, his surviving sons by his first wife: Carloman became Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, Pepin became Mayor of the Palace of Neustria. Grifo, Charles's son by his second wife, Swanahild (also known as Swanhilde), demanded a share in the inheritance, but he was besieged in Laon, forced to surrender and imprisoned in a monastery by his two half-brothers. In the Frankish realm the unity of the kingdom was essentially connected with the person of the king.
|
|
34–37 The historian Ian Wood has suggested that Mellitus' journey through Gaul probably took in the bishoprics of Vienne, Arles, Lyons, Toulon, Marseilles, Metz, Paris, and Rouen, as evidenced by the letters that Gregory addressed to those bishops soliciting their support for Mellitus' party. Gregory also wrote to the Frankish kings Chlothar II, Theuderic II, Theudebert II, along with Brunhilda of Austrasia, who was Theudebert and Theuderic's grandmother and regent. Wood feels that this wide appeal to the Frankish episcopate and royalty was an effort to secure more support for the Gregorian mission.Wood "Mission of Augustine" Speculum p.
|
|
The Rhine Province (green) as of 1830 superimposed on modern borders. Historically, the Rhinelands refers (physically speaking) to a loosely defined region embracing the land on the banks of the Rhine in Central Europe, which were settled by Ripuarian and Salian Franks and became part of Frankish Austrasia. In the High Middle Ages, numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the former stem duchy of Lotharingia, without developing any common political or cultural identity. A "Rhineland" conceptualization did not evolve until the 19th century after the War of the First Coalition, when a short-lived Cisrhenian Republic was established.
|
|
Sculpture of Æthelberht on Canterbury Cathedral in EnglandThere are many indications of close relations between Kent and the Franks. Æthelberht's marriage to Bertha certainly connected the two courts, although not as equals: the Franks would have thought of Æthelberht as an under-king. There is no record that Æthelberht ever accepted a continental king as his overlord and, as a result, historians are divided on the true nature of the relationship. Evidence for an explicit Frankish overlordship of Kent comes from a letter written by Pope Gregory the Great to Theuderic, king of Burgundy, and Theudebert, king of Austrasia.
|
|
The Carolingians had assumed the regal status and practice, though not the regal title, of the Merovingians. The division of the kingdom gave Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia to Carloman and Neustria, Provence, and Burgundy to Pepin. It is indicative of the de facto autonomy of the duchies of Aquitaine (under Hunoald) and Bavaria (under Odilo) that they were not included in the division of the regnum. After Charles Martel was buried, in the Abbey of Saint-Denis alongside the Merovingian kings, conflict immediately erupted between Pepin and Carloman on one side and Grifo their younger brother on the other.
|
|
It is undated and unattached to the name of either king he served. It has traditionally been assigned to around the year of his death (581), but an alternative solution put forward by Walter Goffart places it as early as 571-572 around the time of Sigebert's embassy to Constantinople. In it Gogo urges Grasulf to ally himself with the Franks to oust the infestantes (presumably the Lombards or other barbarian groups) from Italy in league with the Byzantine Empire and the Papacy. Ambassadors were waiting in Austrasia for Grasulf's reply in case he wished to delay his response to the emperor.
|
|
At this time the duchy, which was divided into numerous Gaue (counties), took the shape which it retained throughout the Middle Ages. It stretched south of Frankish Austrasia (the later Duchy of Franconia) along the Upper Rhine, Lake Constance, up the High Rhine, and down the Danube to the Lech tributary. The Lech, separating Alamannia from the Duchy of Bavaria in the east, did not form, either ethnologically or geographically, a very strong boundary, and there was a good deal of intercommunion between the two peoples. By the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Alamannia fell to East Francia.
|
|
Di Rocco A. (2009) Année 451 : la bataille qui sauva l'Occident. Eds. Thélès. pp. 156–158 Gibbon E (1788) History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 4:35 Between the 6th and 8th centuries, the city was the residence of the Merovingian kings of Austrasia. After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Metz became the capital of the Kingdom of Lotharingia and was ultimately integrated into the Holy Roman Empire, being granted semi-independent status. During the 12th century, Metz became a republic and the Republic of Metz stood until the 15th century.
|
|
Stavelot Abbey Malmedy Abbey In 747, Carloman, Duke of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, enlarged the abbeys' lands with gifts from his own, on his abdication. Throughout the ninth century, the abbeys played an important cultural role in Lotharingia, particularly thanks to abbot Christian. Around 875, the relics of St Quirinus were translated from to Malmedy Abbey after the intercession of Emperor Charles the Bald, partly to secure relics comparable to those of St. Remaclus at Stavelot. and, cited therewithin, Through the seventh and eighth centuries, the two abbeys followed their mission of evangelism, along with forest clearance.
|
|
Map of the Sorbian March, by Włodzimierz Dzwonkowski, 1918. The Sorbs ended their partial vassalage to the Franks (the Carolingian Empire) and revolted, invading Austrasia; Charles the Younger launched a campaign against the Slavs in Bohemia in 805, killing their dux, Lecho, and then proceeded crossing the Saale with his army and killed rex (king) Melito (or "Miliduoch") of the Sorabi or Siurbis, near modern-day Weißenfels, in 806.Henryk Łowmiański, O identyfikacji nazw Geografa bawarskiego, Studia Źródłoznawcze, t. III: 1958, s. 1–22; reed: w: Studia nad dziejami Słowiańszczyzny, Polski i Rusi w wiekach średnich, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im.
|
|
The ancestors of the Capetians form a family group consisting of servants in the last Merovingians in Neustria such as Robert, an adviser to Dagobert I, then from the first Carolingians of Austrasia, Count Robert I of Worms and Hesbaye who died in 764.Hervé Pinoteau, La symbolique royale française, Ve – XVIIIe siècle, P.S.R. éditions, 2004, p. 43. In 836, a member of this family, Robert the Strong, sided with Charles the Bald against his brother Lothair I, which led him to leave his Rhine possessions to the Loire Valley, where the king gave him significant counties.
|
|
The most likely place of origination of Ulberht swords is in the Rhineland region (i.e. in Austrasia, the core region of the Frankish realm, later part of the Franconian stem duchy). A Frankish origin of the original swords has long been assumed because of the form of the personal name Ulfberht; a sword found in Lower Saxony in 2012 used lead in its hilt which has reportedly been analysed as originating in the Taunus region, reinforcing the hypothesis of Frankish manufacture of the Ulfberht swords. Hannover University (2015) but were clearly sought-after, prestigious artefacts in Viking Age Scandinavia.
|
|
In 744 Saint Sturm, a disciple of Saint Boniface, founded the Benedictine monastery of Fulda as one of Boniface's outposts in the reorganization of the church in Germany. It later served as a base from which missionaries could accompany Charlemagne's armies in their political and military campaigns to fully conquer and convert pagan Saxony. The initial grant for the abbey was signed by Carloman, Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia (in office 741–47), the son of Charles Martel. The support of the Mayors of the Palace, and later of the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was important to Boniface's success.
|
|
Chlothar had recently assumed the full kingship of the Franks, in 613, when he deposed his cousin Sigebert II, king of Austrasia, and his regent, his great-grandmother Brunhilda. The Edict has been commonly seen as a series of concessions to the Austrasian nobility, which had sided with him against Brunhilda. In Der Staat des hohen Mittelalters, Heinrich Mitteis compared the Edict to the English Magna Carta. More popular now is the belief that it was primarily aimed at correcting abuses which had entered the judicial system during the civil wars which had dominated the kingdom since the beginning of the feud of Brunhilda with Chlothar's mother, Fredegund (568).
|
|
He started his reign as an infant under the regency of his mother, who was in an uneasy alliance with Clothar's uncle King Guntram of Burgundy, who died in 592. Clothar took power upon the death of his mother in 597; though rich, Neustria was one of the smallest portions of Francia. He continued his mother's feud with Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia with equal viciousness and bloodshed, finally achieving her execution in an especially brutal manner in 613, after winning the battle that enabled Chlothar to unite Francia under his rule. Like his father, he built up his territories by seizing lands after the deaths of other kings.
|
|
Fredegund was sent to the Villa de Vaudreuil, in the diocese of Rouen, where she was put under the supervision of the bishop Pretextatus. During the summer of 585, Guntram returned to Paris to act as godfather of Clothar, as he swore to Fredegund, along with three bishops and three hundred nobles of Neustria who recognized Clothar II as the son of Chilperic I. However the baptism at this time was postponed. It was expected to reconvene at the council of Troyes, but Austrasia refused to participate if Guntram would not disinherit Clothar. The council is moved to Burgundy and he was baptized on 23 October 585.
|
|
Pepin of Landen and his contemporary Remaclus at the façade of the provincial palace in Liège Pepin I (also Peppin, Pipin, or Pippin) of Landen (c. 580 - 27 February 640), also called the Elder or the Old, was the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia under the Merovingian King Dagobert I from 623 to 629. He was also the Mayor for Sigebert III from 639 until his death. Through the marriage of his daughter Begga to Ansegisel, a son of Arnulf of Metz, the clans of the Pippinids and the Arnulfings were united, giving rise to a family which would eventually rule the Franks as the Carolingians.
|
|
Alès may be the modern successor of Arisitum, where, in about 570, Sigebert, King of Austrasia, created a bishopric. In his campaign against the Visigoths, the Merovingian king Theudebert I (533–548) conquered part of the territory of the Diocese of Nîmes. His later successor Sigebert set up the new diocese, comprising fifteen parishes in the area controlled by the Franks, which included a number of towns to the north of the Cevenne: Alès, Le Vigan, Arre, Arrigas, Meyrueis, Saint-Jean-du-Gard, Anduze, and Vissec. The diocese disappeared in the 8th century with the conquest of the whole of Septimania by the Franks.
|
|
14th-century depiction of the death of Charles Martel Charles Martel died on 22 October 741, at Quierzy-sur-Oise in what is today the Aisne département in the Picardy region of France. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica in Paris. His territories had been divided among his adult sons a year earlier: to Carloman he gave Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia, and to Pippin the Younger Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and Metz and Trier in the "Mosel duchy"; Grifo was given several lands throughout the kingdom, but at a later date, just before Charles died.Riche, Pierre (1993) The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe, [Michael Idomir Allen, transl.
|
|
These remained in contact with the province of the Ubii, as is described by Tacitus concerning the Batavian revolt. It is thought that all of these relatively Romanized Germanic tribes may have contributed to the origins of the Ripuarii in later centuries. The Ripuarian Franks lost their independence almost as soon as they entered the historical record, being subsumed in the Frankish core province of Austrasia. Apart from Roman military lists and mention by Jordanes in Getica of some unknown Ripuarii who fought as auxiliaries of Flavius Aetius in the Battle of Chalons in 451,Paragraph 191 the first mention of the Ripuarii comes from Gregory of Tours, in Historia Francorum.
|
|
By the 6th century, the western Germanic tribe of the Franks had been Christianised, due in considerable measure to the Catholic conversion of Clovis I. Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, was the most powerful of the kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire. Following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed the rois fainéants ("do-nothing kings"). Almost all government powers were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace. In 687, Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry.
|
|
However, at this time large parts of the Frisian coast were under Viking control and therefore only divided on paper. The borderline ran roughly along the rivers Meuse, Ourthe, Moselle, Saone and Rhone. In the north, Louis received most of Lothair's Austrasia, with his eastern part including both Aachen and Metz, and most of Frisia. But in the south, while Louis received most of Upper Burgundy that was left to Lothair (after ceding the southern half to Italy), Charles received Lothair's inheritance in Lower Burgundy (including Lyon) and a small western part of Upper Burgundy (parts of Portois and Varais (including Besançon)) – this opened him the way to Italy.
|
|
The chronological indication is the same in both of the primary sources, the Liber Historiae Francorum and the continuation of the Chronicle of Fredegar: the battle took place "after the death of Wulfoald and the disappearance of the kings". The date of Wulfoald's death and the identity of the deceased kings, however, are uncertain and scholars have reached different conclusions. If Childeric II and Chlothar III (673) are meant, as seems more likely, then the battle took place during the reign of Dagobert II in Austrasia. If, on the other hand, Childeric II and Dagobert II are the kings referred to, then the traditional date is accurate.
|
|
It is clear that this prince can only be Pepin of Landen, mayor of the palace of Austrasia. Apart from Baldéric and Beuve, the only other known child of Sigobert is Chlodéric, who died in 508, so Doda, if she is the daughter of Chlodéric, was born at the latest in 508. Pépin of Landen became mayor of the palace in 613 at the earliest, giving Doda an age of at least 105 years at the time of signature of the act of protection, although it is not clear that Pepin was already mayor at the time the act was issued. There is no evidence that Doda was Chlodéric's daughter.
|
|
She was likely born of an unnamed daughter of Sigebert, towards the end of his life, around 505-508. Her daughter Doda would then be born between 520 and 550, which gives her a more reasonable age at the time of the act of protection. The date of 545 may be retained for the birth of Doda. This leaves sixteen years to the accession of Sigebert I as king of Austrasia, and the legend affirms that she was promised in marriage to a lord of the court of Sigebert I." Sainte Beuve de Reims", Vie des Saints et des Bienheureux selon l'ordre du calendrier, vol.
|
|
The Frankish realm under Charles Martel was the foremost military power of western Europe. During most of his tenure in office as commander-in-chief of the Franks, it consisted of north and eastern France (Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy), most of western Germany, and the Low Countries (Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands). The Frankish realm had begun to progress towards becoming the first real imperial power in western Europe since the fall of Rome. However, it continued to struggle against external forces such as the Saxons, Frisians, and other opponents such as the Basque-Aquitanians led by Odo the Great (Old French: Eudes), Duke over Aquitaine and Vasconia.
|
|
Following their victory, the Neustrians joined with Radbod, King of the Frisians and invaded Austrasia, aiming towards the Meuse river to take the heartland of the factions support. It is at this moment that Charles Martel is first mentioned in historical records, which note him surviving imprisonment by his step-mother Plectrude. Charles managed to escape and mustered an Austrasian army to face the encroaching Radbod and the Neustrians. In 716, Charles finally met the Frisians as they approached and, although the AMP attempts equalize the losses, it is confirmed from the descriptions in the LHF and the Continuations that Charles was defeated with heavy losses.
|
|
Christian Settipani, La Préhistoire des Capétiens (Nouvelle histoire généalogique de l'auguste maison de France, vol. 1), 1993 () He was adopted by King Sigebert III and Queen Chimnechild.Spiritual Kinship As Social Practice: Godparenthood and Adoption in the Early Middle Ages by Bernhard Jussen When Sigebert III died in 656,R. P. Vincent, Histoire fidelle de st Sigisbert: XII roy d'Austrasie et III du nom; avec un abrégé de la vie du roy Dagobert, son fils: le tout tiré des antiquités austrasiennes Grimoald had Sigebert’s biological son Dagobert IIFredegario, Fredegarii scholastici chronicum, Pars quarta, LXXXVIII shorn of hair and sent him to an Irish monastery and then proclaimed Childebert king of Austrasia.
|
|
Pirmin was probably from the area of Narbonne, possibly of Visigothic origin. Many Visigoths fled to Francia after the Arab conquest of Spain at the beginning of the 8th century. From 718 onwards, he was abbot of the monastery Quortolodora in Antwerp (Austrasia)"De ecclesia in Antweppo (sic) castello" by Theodoricus, Codex aureus, Echternach, 1190-1191 and, together with its pupils, the minister of the church inside the broch, Het Steen. (In the 12th century, this church was dedicated to Saint Walpurga.) After a while Pirmin was invited by count Rohingus to stay at his villa in Thommen, near Sankt Vith in the Ardennes.
|
|
Under the nearly continuous campaigns of Pepin of Herstal, Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious—father, son, grandson, great-grandson and great-great-grandson—the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire was secured by the early 9th century, by this point dubbed as the Carolingian Empire. During the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties the Frankish realm was one large kingdom polity subdivided into several smaller kingdoms, often effectively independent. The geography and number of subkingdoms varied over time, but a basic split between eastern and western domains persisted. The eastern kingdom was initially called Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse, and expanding eastwards into central Europe.
|
|
Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia. Theudebert was the first Frankish king to formally sever his ties to the Byzantine Empire by striking gold coins with his own image on them and calling himself magnus rex (great king) because of his supposed suzerainty over peoples as far away as Pannonia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Raetia, Noricum, and part of Veneto.
|
|
The eldest son, Charibert I, inherited the kingdom with its capital at Paris and ruled all of western Gaul. The second eldest, Guntram, inherited the old kingdom of the Burgundians, augmented by the lands of central France around the old capital of Orléans, which became his chief city, and most of Provence. The rest of Provence, the Auvergne, and eastern Aquitaine were assigned to the third son, Sigebert I, who also inherited Austrasia with its chief cities of Reims and Metz. The smallest kingdom was that of Soissons, which went to the youngest son, Chilperic I. The kingdom Chilperic ruled at his death (584) became the nucleus of later Neustria.
|
|
After his death, Guntram had to again force the Bretons to submit. In 587, the Treaty of Andelot—the text of which explicitly refers to the entire Frankish realm as Francia—between Brunhilda and Guntram secured his protection of her young son Childebert II, who had succeeded the assassinated Sigebert (575). Together the territory of Guntram and Childebert was well over thrice as large as the small realm of Chilperic's successor, Chlothar II. During this period Francia took on the tripartite character it was to have throughout the rest of its history, being composed of Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy. Gaul as a result of the Treaty of Andelot (587).
|
|
Francia and neighbouring Slavic peoples c. 650 Dagobert, in his dealings with the Saxons, Alemans, and Thuringii, as well as the Slavs beyond the borders of Francia, upon whom he tried to force tribute but who instead defeated him under their king Samo at the Battle of Wogastisburg in 631, made all the far eastern peoples subject to the court of Neustria and not of Austrasia. This, first and foremost, incited the Austrasians to request a king of their own from the royal household. The subkingdom of Aquitaine corresponded to the southern half of the old Roman province of Aquitaine and its capital was at Toulouse.
|
|
Protadius was appointed to succeed Berthoald, though the Chronicle of Fredegar remarks that he had the capabilities of his predecessor, but not his virtues. Perhaps frightened by the same schemes which had ensured his elevation, he undermined the nobility to secure his position and was an exceedingly cruel extortionist. His paramour Brunhilda pressured her grandson to go to war against her other grandson, Theudebert II of Austrasia, and Protadius was put in charge of the army. At the palace of Quierzy, Theuderic assembled the army, but the men did not want to fight their countrymen and the Duke of Alemannia, Uncelen, declared that the king ordered Protadius' death.
|
|
As a result, Sigebert III, King of Austrasia, called Goar to Metz and requested that he fill Rusticus's position in Trier. Another version of the story states that Goar was accused of sorcery by Rusticus himself, cleared by Sigebert in Metz, and then, after Rusticus was deposed for his dishonesty, the saint was offered the see of Trier. In any case, it is certain that Goar did not want to saddle himself with the responsibilities and pressures of a bishopric, and asked for time to reflect on the offer. Upon returning to Oberwesel, however, he fell ill and died on 6 July 649, having never become bishop.
|
|
Disregarding threats, he steadfastly fulfilled his duty. He excommunicated King Chlothar I (511-61), who for some time was sole ruler of the Frankish dominions, on account of his misdeeds; in return the king exiled the determined bishop in 560. The king died, however, in the following year, and his son and successor Sigebert I, the ruler of Austrasia (561-75), allowed Nicetius to return home. Nicetius took part in several synods of the Frankish bishops: the synod of Clermont (535), of Orléans (549), the second synod of Council of Clermont (549), the synod of Toul (550), at which he presided, and the synod of Paris (555).
|
|
Brittia (), according to Procopius,De bellis 8.20 [The Gothic War 4.20], written from Constantinople in the 540s. was an island known to the inhabitants of the Low Countries under Frankish rule (viz. the North Sea coast of Austrasia), corresponding both to a real island used for burial and a mythological Isle of the Blessed, to which the souls of the dead are transported. Procopius's Brittia lies no farther than 200 stadia (25 miles) from the mainland, opposite the mouth of the Rhine but between the islands of Brettania and legendary Thule, and three nations live in it, Angiloi, Phrissones and Brittones, that is, Angles, Frisians and Britons.
|
|
Ancient Merovingian basilica in Metz, capital of the Austrasia kingdom The Merovingian king redistributed conquered wealth among his followers, both material wealth and the land including its indentured peasantry, though these powers were not absolute. As Rouche points out, "When he died his property was divided equally among his heirs as though it were private property: the kingdom was a form of patrimony." Some scholars have attributed this to the Merovingians' lacking a sense of res publica, but other historians have criticized this view as an oversimplification. The kings appointed magnates to be comites (counts), charging them with defense, administration, and the judgment of disputes.
|
|
Their deputies overtook him at the court of King Sigebert of Austrasia, and being compelled to acquiesce, though much against his will, Gregory was consecrated by Giles, Bishop of Rheims, on 22 August 573, at the age of thirty-four. He spent most of his career at Tours, although he assisted at the council of Paris in 577. The rough world he lived in was on the cusp of the dying world of Antiquity and the new culture of early medieval Europe. Gregory lived also on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo- Roman culture of the south of Gaul.
|
|
The creation of a duchy of Alsace corresponded with the creation of counties in the region. Thitherto counties had not been found in most of Austrasia, but by the eighth century they were common in the south. The counts of Alsace were known in contemporary Latin texts by the title (plural ), which may have indicated a slightly different office from that of the traditional (plural ), which was used in the more Romanised parts of Gaul. Alsace about 1000, divided into Nordgau and Sundgau Under Gundoin's successors, the famous Etichonids, the counties -- Alsace was already generally divided into a Nordgau and Sundgau -- were brought under direct ducal control.
|
|
After the war, parts of the Frankish kingdom saw a more powerful viceregal hand under the exercise of the mayors of the palaces, while other regions were even less directly affected by the royal prerogative. The Merovingian palace at Marlenheim in Alsace was never visited by a royal figure again in Adalrich's lifetime. While southern Austrasia had been the centre of Wulfoald's power, the Arnulflings were a north Austrasian family, who took scarce interest in Alsatian affairs until the 730s and 740s. Adalrich had initially made his allies counts, but in 683 he granted the comital office to his son and eventual successor Adalbert.
|
|
After the death of Charles, power was not divided to include their half-brother Grifo, Charles' son by his second wife Swanachild. This was per Charles' wishes; although Grifo demanded a portion of the realm, his brothers refused him. In 741, Carloman and Pepin besieged Grifo in Laon, took him captive and forced him into a monastery. Each brother turned his attention towards his own area of influence as majordomo, Pepin in the West (in what was called Neustria, roughly the area between Nancy and Reims) and Carloman in the East (in what was called Austrasia, roughly the area between Bruges, Metz and Fulda), which was the Carolingian base of power.
|
|
In 507 he scored the most impressive victory in his career, prevailing at the Battle of Vouillé against the Visigoths, who were led by Alaric II, the conqueror of Spain. Frankish expansion from the early Clovis I' kingdom (481) to the divisions of Charlemagne's Empire (843/870) Following Clovis, territorial divisions in the Frankish domain sparked intense rivalry between the western part of the kingdom, Neustria, and the eastern part, Austrasia. The two were sometimes united under one king, but from the 6th to the 8th centuries they often warred against each other. Early in the 8th century, the Franks were preoccupied with Islamic invasions across the Pyrenees and up the Rhone Valley.
|
|
Hugobert (also Chugoberctus or Hociobercthus) (died probably in 697) was a seneschal and a count of the palace at the Merovingian court during the reigns of Theuderic III and Childebert III. He was a grandson of the dux Theotar, and it is assumed, but not proven, that his father was Chugus, who in 617 became mayor of the palace of Austrasia. The juxtaposition of names in the Vita Landiberto episcopi Traiectensis may imply a relationship between him and the family of Saint Lambert (see below). It has been disproven that he is one and the same with bishop Hugobert of Liège, because his wife appears in the records of Echternach in the year 698 as a widow.
|
|
Karl Ferdinand Werner goes further, saying that "in all the Frankish kingdoms properly so-called," that is, in Austrasia, Neustria and Franconia, "Charles gave all powers to his commander-in-chief Henry."Karl Ferdinand Werner, "Les Robertiens", in M. Parisse and X. Barral i Altet (eds.), Le Roi de France et son royaume autour de l'an mil (Paris: 1992), pp. 15–26, at 20–21: "dans tous les royaumes proprement francs, Charles avait donné tous les pouvoirs à son général en chef Henri". On the other hand, Donald Jackman sees Henry's final command as restricted to Neustria proper, where he succeeded Hugh the Abbot after the latter's death on 12 May 886.
|
|
To retain his independence he allied with Fara, a descendant of the powerful Agilolfing dynasty in Bavaria who ruled over large estates along the Main river. About 640 King Sigebert III of Austrasia with his Mayors of the Palace, Adalgisel and Grimoald the Elder, marched against the insurgents and at first easily routed Fara's troops, while the Agilolfing himself was killed in battle. Reaching Thuringia however, Duke Radulf, entrenched in his fortress at the Unstrut river, was not overcome, partially because he had gained the support of significant numbers of the king's forces. In 642, he rebelled against Sigebert and defeated his army, taking the title of rex or king of Thuringia.
|
|
The Ramsund carving in Sweden It is difficult to trace the development of the traditions surrounding Sigurd. If the theory that he has his origins in Sigebert I is correct, then the earliest part of the tradition would be his murder as the result of a feud between two women, in real life between his wife Brunhild of Austrasia and Fredegund, in the saga then between his wife Kriemhild/Gudrun and Brünhild/Brynhild. The earliest attested tradition about Sigurd is his slaying of a dragon, however, which supports the notion that he may have a purely mythological origin, or that he represents the combination of a mythological figure with a historical one.
|
|
Upon this success, Charles proclaimed Chlothar IV king of Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic and deposed Rigobert, archbishop of Reims, replacing him with Milo, a lifelong supporter. In 718, Chilperic responded to Charles' new ascendancy by making an alliance with Odo the Great (or Eudes, as he is sometimes known), the duke of Aquitaine, who had become independent during the civil war in 715, but was again defeated, at the Battle of Soissons, by Charles.Strauss, Gustave Louis M. (1854) Moslem and Frank; or, Charles Martel and the rescue of Europe, Oxford, GBR:Oxford University Press, see , accessed 2 August 2015. Chilperic fled with his ducal ally to the land south of the Loire and Ragenfrid fled to Angers.
|
|
Even though Chilperic retained Galswintha's dowry, her untimely death aroused the enmity of her sister Brunhilda against him and Fredegund; it also incurred the wrath of his brother Sigebert, bringing about 40 years of conflict between the Frankish kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria—a veritable Merovingian civil war. When Chilperic was murdered in 584, Brunhilda's anger remained unassuaged, and the conflict following Galswintha's murder continued until Fredegund's death in 597. Beyond this, the result of such antipathy was a three-generation-long feud that essentially "wrecked the Merovingian family" and contributed to the death of ten of its kings. Galswintha remains listed in modern genealogical charts demonstrating the links between the Visigothic kingdoms and the Byzantine Empire.
|
|
Authority over Austrasia passed back and forth from autonomy to royal subjugation, as successive Merovingian kings alternately united and subdivided the Frankish lands. During the 5th and 6th centuries the Merovingian kings conquered the Thuringii (531 to 532), the Kingdom of the Burgundians and the principality of Metz and defeated the Danes, the Saxons and the Visigoths. King Chlothar I (558 to 561) ruled the greater part of what is now Germany and undertook military expeditions into Saxony, while the South-east of what is modern Germany remained under the influence of the Ostrogoths. Saxons controlled the area from the northern sea board to the Harz Mountains and the Eichsfeld in the south.
|
|
Following the reign of Dagobert I (629–634), the power of the Merovingian kings gradually declined into a ceremonial role, while the real power in the Frankish kingdom was increasingly wielded by the mayors of the palace. In 718, Charles Martel combined the roles of mayor of the palace of Neustria and mayor of the palace of Austrasia, consolidating his position as the most powerful man in Francia. After the death of king Theuderic IV in 737, the throne remained vacant, and Charles Martel became de facto king. After Charles Martel's death in 741, Carloman and Pepin the Short, his sons by his first wife Rotrude, became co-mayors of the palace.
|
|
The struggle for power continued with Queen Fredegund of Neustria (the widow of King Chilperic I (reigned 566–584) and the mother of the new king Clotaire II (reigned 584–628) unleashing a bitter war. After his mother's death and burial in Saint Denis Basilica near Paris (597), Clotaire II continued the struggle against Queen Brunhilda, and finally triumphed in 613 when Brunhilda's followers betrayed the old queen into his hands. Clotaire had Brunhilda put to the rack and stretched for three days, then chained between four horses and eventually ripped limb from limb. Clotaire now ruled a united realm, but only for a short time as he made his son Dagobert I king of Austrasia.
|
|
Guntram and Childebert II, from the Grandes Chroniques de France. The division of Gaul after the Andelot treaty The Treaty of Andelot (or Pact of Andelot) was signed at Andelot-Blancheville in 587 between King Guntram of Burgundy and Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia. Based on the terms of the accord, Brunhilda agreed that Guntram adopt her son Childebert II as his successor and ally himself with Childebert against the revolted leudes. Gregory of Tours wrote in his Historia Francorum that in the thirteenth year of Childebert, he went on an embassy for the king from Metz to Chalon to meet Guntram, who alleged that prior promises were being broken, especially concerning the division of Senlis.
|
|
Records of such territorial changes are increasingly scarce with the centuries, thus territorial histories tend to obscure with time. Few attestations are available for the founding or change of territory through the late first millennium, but records gradually improve, and by the late second millennium, scholars like Cassini, Lepage, and Boutilleir have largely collated all the toponyms attested in charts concerning the history of Austrasia into dictionaries and other tombs of reference. Consider Condé- Northen in Moselle, which began as the ancient commune, Condé (specifically Condium or Condicum), attested as existing in 787. In 1804, a neighboring commune, Northen, was attached to Condé and the new territory became known by the name it bears today.
|
|
Later statue depicting Gontrand In 567, his elder brother Charibert I died and his lands of the Kingdom of Paris were divided between the surviving brothers: Gontrand, Sigebert I, and Chilperic I. They shared his realm, agreeing at first to hold Paris in common. Charibert's widow, Theudechild, proposed a marriage with Gontrand, the eldest remaining brother, though a council convened at Paris as late as 557 had forbidden such tradition as incestuous. Gontrand decided to house her more safely, though unwillingly, in a monastery in Arles. In 573, Gontrand was caught in a civil war with his brother Sigebert I of Austrasia, and in 575 summoned the aid of their brother Chilperic I of Soissons.
|
|
The Lombard attacks were ultimately repelled following Mummolus' victory at Embrun. These attacks had lasting political consequences, souring the previously cordial Lombard- Frankish relations and opening the door to an alliance between the Empire and the Franks against the Lombards, a coalition agreed to by Guntram in about 571.Jarnut 1995, p. 35 Alboin is generally thought not to have been behind this invasion, but an alternative interpretation of the transalpine raids presented by Gian Piero Bognetti is that Alboin may actually have been involved in the offensive on Guntram as part of an alliance with the Frankish king of Austrasia, Sigebert I. This view is met with scepticism by scholars such as Chris Wickham.
|
|
Gundoin supposedly murdered Pepin's father Ansegisel and then Pepin, when he was of age, tracked down and killed Gundoin, and seized power in Austrasia. – according to the Annales, which is also the earliest source for the Merovingian "decline", and it offers a basis upon which the Carolingian's eventual ascendance to the throne is legitimate. Upon thus rightly conquering Gundoin, Pepin is then primed to act, as the king Theuderic III, according to the Annales, had become oppressive and unjust, forcing Pepin to invade and defeat him in the great Battle of Tertry in 687. Thereafter, we are told, Pepin held the reins of the kingdom even though he oversaw the succession of Theuderic's sons.
|
|
His son and successor, Theudebald, was unable to retain them and on his death all of his vast kingdom passed to Chlothar, under whom, with the death of Childebert in 558, the entire Frankish realm was reunited under the rule of one king. The division of Gaul on Chlothar I's death (561). Though more geographically unified realms were created out of the second fourfold division of Francia, the complex division of Provence created many problems for the rulers of Burgundy and Austrasia. In 561 Chlothar died and his realm was divided, in a replay of the events of fifty years prior, between his four sons, with the chief cities remaining the same.
|
|
Indeed, it is in the 640s that "Neustria" first appears in writing, its late appearance relative to "Austrasia" probably due to the fact that Neustrians (who formed the bulk of the authors of the time) called their region simply "Francia". Burgundia too defined itself in opposition to Neustria at about this time. However, it was the Austrasians, who had been seen as a distinct people within the realm since the time of Gregory of Tours, who were to make the most strident moves for independence. The young Sigebert was dominated during his minority by the mayor, Grimoald the Elder, who convinced the childless king to adopt his own Merovingian-named son Childebert as his son and heir.
|
|
The new king, hated by Neustria because he was allied with the Franks of Austrasia, repulsed them at Refrancore, near Asti. Grimoald, who in 663 had also defeated an attempt to reconquer Italy by the Byzantine Emperor Constans II, exercised his sovereign powers with a fullness never attained by his predecessors. He entrusted the Duchy of Benevento to his son Romuald, and assured the loyalty of the duchies of Spoleto and Friuli, by appointing their dukes. He favoured the integration of the different components of the kingdom, presenting an image modeled on that of his predecessor Rotari—wise legislator in adding new laws to the Edict, patron (building a church in Pavia dedicated to Saint Ambrose), and valiant warrior.
|
|
The earliest Frankish kings established the forest as their privileged hunting grounds, and Clothaire the Great built the first royal residence there in the 7th century, and there he died of a fever.Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum i, book IV. The small palace, fitted cozily among the trees, was named Cusia and for some time thereafter the forest itself went by the name Forêt de Cuise that is memorialized in the village of Cuise-la-Motte that lies to the east of the forest boundaries. A battle between the Merovingian-era kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria took place in the forest in the year 715. Most French monarchs enjoyed extravagant hunts at Compiègne.
|
|
The reverse of the object is flat and smooth, without the depression for wax which would be found on a consular diptych, which would be used as a writing tablet. Nevertheless, it is streaked with lines engraved later over older ink inscriptions – it includes a list of names (prayers for the dead), among whom can be seen the kings of Austrasia and other names, mostly Latin ones. Onomastics shows that the list comes from Auvergne and not from Provence as has been thought from the location of the object in the modern era. The inscriptions also date to the 7th century (maybe around 613) and show that the work was brought to Gaul early in its life.
|
|
While the Book of the History of the Franks is the only source to describe the circumstances of Dagobert's exile, the Life of Wilfrid is the only one to describe his return. This biography of the English bishop Wilfrid was composed in the first decades of the eighth century by Stephen of Ripon. According to Stephen, Dagobert was exiled to Ireland "in his youth" and when his friends and relatives later learned that he was still living they asked Wilfrid to bring him to England and from there send him on to Austrasia. The Life of Wilfrid does not specify who was responsible for recalling Dagobert, only that it was "friends" (amici) and "relatives" (proximi).
|
|
Map of Phoenician (in yellow) and Greek colonies (in red) around 8th to 6th century BC Map showing the southward migration of the Han Chinese (in blue) The German term Landnahme ("land-taking") is sometimes used in historiography for a migration event associated with a founding legend, e.g. of the conquest of Canaan in the Hebrew Bible, the Indo-Aryan migration and expansion within India alluded to in the Rigveda, the invasion traditions in the Irish Mythological Cycle, accounting for how the Gaels came to Ireland the arrival of the Franks in Austrasia during the Migration period, the Anglo- Saxon invasion of Britain, the settlement of Iceland in the Viking Age, the Slavic migrations, the Hungarian conquest , etc.
|
|
The diocese specially honours the following: St. Sylvanus (Silvain), a native of Ahun, martyr; St. Adorator disciple of St. Ambrose, suffered martyrdom at Lubersac; St. Victorianus, an Irish hermit; St. Vaast, a native of the diocese who became Bishop of Arras and baptized king Clovis (5th–6th century); St. Psalmodius, a native of Britain, died a hermit at Eymoutiers; St. Yrieix, d. in 591, chancellor to Theudebert II King of Austrasia and founder of the monastery of Attanum (the towns of Saint-Yrieix are named after him); St. Etienne de Muret (1046–1126), who founded the famous Benedictine abbey of Grandmont. Birgitt Legrand (2006), Die Klosteranlagen der Grammontenser - Studien zur französischen Ordensbaukunst des 12. und 13.
|
|
Rupert of Salzburg with salt barrel, mediæval depiction From the 6th century onwards, the northern areas of the later archbishopric were resettled by Germanic Bavarii tribes, who established themselves among the remaining Romance population, while Slavic tribes moved into the southern Pongau and Lungau parts. About 696 Saint Rupert, then Bishop of Worms in Frankish Austrasia and later called the apostle of Bavaria and Carinthia, came to the region from the Bavarian town Regensburg and laid the foundations for the re-establishment of the Salzburg diocese. After erecting a church at nearby Seekirchen he discovered the ruins of Iuvavum overgrown with brambles and remnants of the Romance population, who had maintained Christian traditions. The former theory that he arrived already in c.
|
|
His reign was long by contemporary standards, but saw the continuing erosion of royal power to the French nobility and the church against a backdrop of feuding among the Merovingians. The Edict of Paris in 614, concerned with several aspects of appointments to offices and the administration of the kingdom, has been interpreted in different ways by modern historians. In 617 he made the mayor of the Palace a role held for life, an important step in the progress of this office from being first the manager of the royal household to the effective head of government, and eventually the monarch, under Pepin the Short in 751. Chlothar was forced to cede rule over Austrasia to his young son Dagobert I in 623.
|
|
In the Divisio Regnorum of 806, Charlemagne had slated Charles the Younger as his successor as emperor and chief king, ruling over the Frankish heartland of Neustria and Austrasia, while giving Pepin the Iron Crown of Lombardy, which Charlemagne possessed by conquest. To Louis's kingdom of Aquitaine, he added Septimania, Provence, and part of Burgundy. However, Charlemagne's other legitimate sons died – Pepin in 810 and Charles in 811 – and Louis was crowned co-emperor with an already ailing Charlemagne in Aachen in 813. On his father's death in 814, he inherited the entire Carolingian Empire and all its possessions (with the sole exception of the kingdom of Italy; although within Louis's empire, in 813 Charlemagne had ordered that Bernard, Pepin's son be made and called king).
|
|
The first possibly non-Latinized occurrences are Eristail (in 919) and Harstail (1197).Maurits Gysseling, Herstal in the Toponymical Dictionary of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Northern France and West Germany (before 1226). Monument to Charlemagne, Liège, Louis Jéhotte, sculptor, 1867 Pippin of Herstal (ca 635–714), Mayor of the Palace and de facto ruler of Austrasia and Neustria and founder of the family that established the Carolingian dynasty, probably chose this location as his main residence because of its proximity to the major cities of Tongeren, Maastricht, and Liège. Pippin was the father of Charles Martel, victor of the decisive Battle of Tours that stopped the Arab-Muslim advance into northwestern Europe, and great grandfather of Charlemagne, also supposedly born in Herstal.
|
|
Eventually, the Franks who had settled more to the south of this area in northern Gaul started adopting the Vulgar Latin of the local population. This Vulgar Latin language acquired the name of the people who came to speak it (Frankish or Français); north of the French-Dutch language boundary, the language was no longer referred to as "Frankish" (if it ever was referred to as such) but rather came to be referred to as "Diets", i.e. the "people's language". Urban T. Holmes has proposed that a Germanic language continued to be spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Neustria as late as the 850s, and that it completely disappeared as a spoken language from these regions only during the 10th century.
|
|
The outcome of this battle itself was inconclusive, but as a consequence of this battle the Huns and their allies left the area of Gallia Belgica where they had plundered nearly all major cities, except Paris. After the Western Roman Empire had already collapsed in Galla Belgica for some time the Gallo- Roman "Kingdom of Soissons" (457-486) managed to maintain control over the area around Soissons. The Franks however emerged victorious and Belgica Secunda in the 5th century became the center of Clovis' Merovingian kingdom. During the 8th century in the Carolingian Empire the former area of Gallia Belgica was split into Neustria (roughly Belgica Secunda, main cities Paris, Reims) and Austrasia (roughly Belgica Prima and Germania Inferior, main cities Trier, Metz, Cologne).
|
|
It was by utilizing the organization of the military in an effective manner that contributed to the success of the Carolingians in their grand strategy. This strategy consisted of strictly adhering to the reconstruction of the regnum Francorum under their authority. Bernard Bachrach gives three principles for Carolingian long-term strategy that spanned generations of Carolingian rulers: > The first principle… was to move cautiously outward from the Carolingian > base in Austrasia. Its second principle was to engage in a single region at > a time until the conquest had been accomplished. The third principle was to > avoid becoming involved beyond the frontiers of the regnum Francorum or to > do so when absolutely necessary and then not for the purpose of > conquest”.
|
|
The last 19 chapters, numbered 35 through 53 in Bruno Krusch's edition, present an independent account of events in the Frankish lands in the 7th and early 8th centuries. The work begins with Chlothar II (584–629), who started his reign as an infant King of Neustria, one of the smallest territories of Francia. He was under the regency of his mother, Fredegund, and in an uneasy alliance with Chlothar's uncle Guntram, King of Burgundy (d. 592). Chlothar assumed full power over Neustria upon the death of his mother in 597 and continued his mother's feud with Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia with equal viciousness and bloodshed, finally achieving her execution in an especially brutal manner in 613 and uniting Francia under his rule.
|
|
The Vita was originally thought to have been written in the eleventh century, but this was later disproven with the discovery of a version dating from the eighth century. Bruno Krush argues that the work is written around the same time that the events it describes take place, and there is wide agreement that it was written before 670, and after 663. The time range is determined using a combination of Latin style, references by contemporary works, the accuracy of the events (indicating a close proximity to their occurrence), and references in the text to known events. The Vita is one of just a few sources dating from seventh century France, and one of only three from Austrasia (all of which deal with Gertrude).
|
|
Two Bishops figured prominently in political affairs: Syagrius of Autun, bishop during the second half of the 6th century, a contemporary of Germanus, bishop of Paris, who was a native of Autun; and Leodegar (St. Léger), bishop from 663 to 680, who came into conflict with Ebroin, Mayor of the Palace of Neustria, and was put to death by order of Theoderic III. The Abbey of St. Martin was founded in 602 by Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia, and it was there that her remains were interred – the deposed monarch having been repeatedly racked for three days, torn apart by four horses, and then burnt on a pyre. By the mid-tenth century, however, the abbey was no longer in operation.
|
|
The death of Praejectus was linked to that of Saint Leger (Leodegarius). St. Leger was an opponent of Ebroin, mayor of the palace of Neustria on two occasions; firstly from 658 to his deposition in 673 and secondly from 675 to his death in 680 or 681. In a violent and despotic career, he strove to impose the authority of Neustria, which was under his control, over Burgundy and Austrasia. Ebroin’s supporters, which included Praejectus, St. Reol of Rheims, St. Agilbert of Paris, and St. Ouen of Rouen, held a council of bishops that sat in judgment on Leger, at Marly, near Paris. Praejectus’ murderer may have been a supporter of Leger, who was later murdered on October 2, 679.
|
|
The southern or "Haspengouw" part of Belgian Limburg remained more heavily Romanised, but eventually also became a core land of the Franks. The two east-west Roman routes through Tongeren, mentioned above, became a front line of defense for a while, and are sometimes referred to as the Limes Belgicus. Gregory of Tours reports that it was from the area of Toxandria bordering Tongeren that Chlodio, in the 5th century, launched the Franks into military campaigns of conquest in northern Gaul, soon to become France or "Francia", the country of the Franks. In Merovingian times, Belgian Limburg was part of Austrasia, and in particular it appears that parts of the Haspengouw were under the control of the Pippinid family, and later their Carolingian descendants.
|
|
Born in Leinster, Deicolus and his brother, Gall, studied at Bangor Abbey in County Down. He was selected to be one of the twelve followers to accompany St. Columbanus on his missionary journey. After a short stay in Great Britain in 576 he journeyed to Gaul and laboured with St. Columbanus in Austrasia and Burgundy. When St. Columbanus was expelled by Theuderic II, in 610, St. Deicolus, then eighty years of age, determined to follow his master, but was forced, after a short time, to give up the journey, and remained behind alone, establishing a hermitage at a nearby church dedicated to St Martin in a place called Lutre, or Lure, in the Diocese of Besançon, to which he had been directed by a swineherd.
|
|
W. and Norton Company, 2008), 166. Odo engaged them but was defeated by the Umayyads near Bordeaux. Following the defeat, Odo re-organised his scattered forces, and ran north to warn Charles Martel, Mayor of the palaces of Neustria and Austrasia, of the impending threat and to appeal for assistance in fighting the Arab-Berber advance, which he received in exchange for accepting formal Frankish overlordship. The duke, aged almost 80, joined Charles Martel's troops and was to form the Frankish army's left flank, while the Umayyads and the multinational army commanded by Charles built up their forces somewhere between Vienne and Clain to the north of Poitiers in preparation for the so- called Battle of Tours (732, or possibly 733).
|
|
At the age of 3 he was, together with his father Pepin the Short and his elder brother Charlemagne, anointed King of the Franks and titled "Patrician of the Romans" by Pope Stephen II, who had left Rome to beg the Frankish King for assistance against the Lombards.Chamberlin, Russell, The Emperor Charlemagne, p.44 Carloman and Charlemagne each inherited a half of the Kingdom of the Franks upon Pepin's death. His share was based in the centre of the Frankish Kingdom, with his capital at Soissons, and consisted of the Parisian basin, the Massif Central, the Languedoc, Provence, Burgundy, southern Austrasia, Alsace and Alemannia; the regions were poorly integrated and surrounded by those bequeathed to Charlemagne, and, although Carloman's territories were easier to defend than those of Charlemagne, they were also poorer in income.
|
|
Rado (or Radon), a brother of Audoin/Ouen and son of Saint Authaire (Audecharius), was the mayor of the palace of Burgundy from 613 to 617. He, along with Warnachar, Pepin of Landen, and Saint Arnulf, abandoned the cause of the queen Brunhilda and the young king Sigebert II and joined with Clotaire II, promising not to rise in defence of the queen-regent and recognising Clotaire as rightful regent and guardian of Sigebert. He was confirmed in his mayoralty by Clotaire, who also confirmed Warnachar as mayor of Austrasia. Rado (who, like Audoin, spent much of his career as court referendary), was the founder in about 630 of the monastery at Reuil-en-Brie,Barbara H. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early 1999:62 and notes.
|
|
Pippin II then became overall mayor of the royal palace under Theuderic II, becoming mayor of Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy. His son Drogo, from his wife Plectrude, was also imbued with power when he married Berchar's widow Adaltrude (potentially maneuvered by Ansfled) and was made Duke of Champagne. Pippin was politically dominating and had the power to elect the next two Merovingian kings after Theuderic II died in 691; he installed King Clovis IV (691-695), Childebert III (695-711) and Dagobert III (711-715). Pippin moved to secure further power by consolidating his position in Neustria, installing several bishops like Gripho, Bishop of Rouen and Bainus at the Abbey of Saint Wandrille in 701, which was later owned along with Fleury Abbey (founded by Pippin in 703).
|
|
Recent historians like Paul Fouracre have criticised Ganshof's review for being too simplistic, and in reality, even though these systems of vassalage did exist between lord and populace, they were not as standardised as older historiography has suggested. For example, Fouracre has drawn particular attention to the incentives that drew lords and warriors into the Carolingian armies, arguing that the primary draw was 'booty' and treasure gained from conquest rather than 'feudal' obligation. Although Charles' reign is no longer considered transitional in its feudal developments, it is seen as a transitional period in the spread of the existing system of vassals and precaria land rights. Due to Charles' continued military and missionary work, the political systems that existed in the heartlands, Austrasia and Neustria, officially began to spread to the periphery.
|
|
The Franconian stem duchy, part of former Frankish Austrasia, was seized by King Otto I of Germany after the unsuccessful revolt of the Conradine duke Eberhard had shattered at the 939 Battle of Andernach. With the advancement of Count Conrad the Red, Rhenish Franconia became the heartland of the Imperial Salian dynasty, which provided four emperors in the 11th and 12th centuries: Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V. It contained the ancient cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms, the latter two being the administrative centres of countships within the hands of the Salian descendants of Conrad the Red. These counts were sometimes referred to informally, on account of the great power in the region, as dukes of Franconia. Emperor Conrad II was actually the last to bear the ducal title.
|
|
He reversed his allegiance later, due to the character of Chilperic, if we may give him the benefit of the doubt in light of St. Gregory's commendation, and Chilperic retreated. He thereafter remained an ally of Sigebert, his wife, and his sons until his death. When Sigebert was assassinated later in 575, Chilperic invaded the kingdom, but Gontrand sent his general Mummolus, who was always Gontrand's greatest weapon, for he was the greatest general in Gaul at the time, to remove him. Mummolus defeated Chilperic's general Desiderius and the Neustrian's forces retreated from Austrasia. In 577, Chlothar and Clodomir, his two surviving children, died of dysentery and he adopted as his son and heir Childebert II, his nephew, Sigebert's son, whose kingdom he had saved two years prior.
|
|
The kingdom of West Francia went to Louis's younger half-brother Charles the Bald, and between their realms a kingdom of Middle Francia, incorporating Italy, was given to their elder brother, the Emperor Lothair I. While Eastern Francia contained about a third of the traditional Frankish heartland of Austrasia, the rest consisted mostly of lands annexed to the Frankish empire between the fifth and the eighth century.Goldberg 1999, 41. These included the duchies of Alamannia, Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia, as well as the northern and eastern marches with the Danes and Slavs. The contemporary chronicler Regino of Prüm wrote that the "different people" (diversae nationes populorum) of East Francia, mostly Germanic- and Slavic- speaking, could be "distinguished from each other by race, customs, language and laws" (genere moribus lingua legibus).
|
|
When Pepin died in 714, however, the Frankish realm plunged into civil war and the dukes of the outlying provinces became de facto independent. Pepin's appointed successor, Theudoald, under his widow, Plectrude, initially opposed an attempt by the king, Dagobert III, to appoint Ragenfrid as mayor of the palace in all the realms, but soon there was a third candidate for the mayoralty of Austrasia in Pepin's illegitimate adult son, Charles Martel. After the defeat of Plectrude and Theudoald by the king (now Chilperic II) and Ragenfrid, Charles briefly raised a king of his own, Chlothar IV, in opposition to Chilperic. Finally, at a battle near Soisson, Charles definitively defeated his rivals and forced them into hiding, eventually accepting the king back on the condition that he receive his father's positions (718).
|
|
About 570, Sigebert, King of Austrasia, created a see at Arisitum for a bishop named Monderic, taking fifteen parishes to create a territory for him. Monderic had originally been consecrated as a coadjutor for Bishop Tetricus of Langres, who had suffered a stroke. The understanding, however, was that he would serve as Archpriest of Tonnerre in the diocese of Langres, until Bishop Tetricus died. But in the war between King Guntram and King Sigibert, Monderic had given gifts and furnished supplies for Sigibert, and so he was sent into exile super ripam Rhodani in turri quadam arcta atque detecta, ('by the bank of the Rhone in a certain small tower that had lost its roof') in which he was held for two years cum grandi cruciatu ('with great discomfort').
|
|
His reign found him mostly occupied with a successful civil war against his half-brother, Chilperic. When Clotaire I died in 561, his kingdom was divided, in accordance with Frankish custom, among his four sons: Sigebert became king of the northeastern portion, known as Austrasia, with its capital at Rheims, to which he added further territory on the death of his brother, Charibert, in 567 or 568; Charibert himself had received the kingdom centred on Paris; Guntram received the Kingdom of Burgundy with its capital at Orléans; and the youngest son, the aforementioned Chilperic, received Soissons, which became Neustria when he received his share of Charibert's kingdom. Incursions by the Avars, a fierce nomadic tribe related to the Huns, caused Sigebert to move his capital from Rheims to Metz. He repelled their attacks twice, in 562 and c. 568.
|
|
The most popular theory about the origins of the legendary Brunhild is that she originates from two historical figures of the Merovingian dynasty: Brunhilda of Austrasia, a Visigothic princess who married the Frankish king Sigebert I, and Fredegund, who was married to Sigebert's brother Chilperic I. Frankish historian Gregory of Tours blames Fredegund for Sigebert's murder in 575, after which Fredegund and Brunhild carried on a feud that lasted until 613, when Chilperic's son Chlothar II captured and killed her. If this theory is correct, then Brunhild has essentially taken the role of Fredegund in the Nibelungen story while maintaining Brunhilda of Austrasia's name. A less widely accepted theory locates the origins of the Brunhild figure in the story of the Ostrogothic general Uraias. Uraias's wife insulted the wife of the Ostrogothic king Witiges, and the king's wife then had Witiges murder Uraias.
|
|
He took the royal name of Chilperic, though due to his monastic upbringing, he was a very different man from Chilperic I. First, it appears he was supposed to be but a tool in the hands of Ragenfrid, the mayor of the palace of Neustria, acclaimed in 714 in opposition to Theudoald, Pepin of Heristal's designated heir. Chilperic, however, was his own man: both a fighter and a leader, always at the forefront in battle at the head of his troops. In 716, he and Ragenfrid together led an army into Austrasia, then being warred over by Plectrude, on behalf of her grandson Theudoald, and Charles Martel, the son of Pepin of Heristal. The Neustrians allied with another invading force under Radbod, King of the Frisians and met Charles in battle near Cologne, then held by Plectrude.
|
|
When Guntram died in 592, Burgundy went to Childebert in its entirety, but he died in 595. His two sons divided the kingdom, with the elder Theudebert II taking Austrasia plus Childebert's portion of Aquitaine, while his younger brother Theuderic II inherited Burgundy and Guntram's Aquitaine. United, the brothers sought to remove their father's cousin Chlothar II from power and they did succeed in conquering most of his kingdom, reducing him to only a few cities, but they failed to capture him. In 599 they routed his forces at Dormelles and seized the Dentelin, but they then fell foul of each other and the remainder of their time on the thrones was spent in infighting, often incited by their grandmother Brunhilda, who, angered over her expulsion from Theudebert's court, convinced Theuderic to unseat him and kill him.
|
|
Brunehilde who took refuge for a time in Burgundy during the uprising of the powerful leaders of Austrasia, left the name of «La Reine» ["the Queen"] to an intersection of Varennes- Saint-Sauveur on Highway D 996 in the direction of Louhans. Gaby Basset, French actress, wife of Jean Gabin; she appeared in 70 films between 1930 and 1967. Bernard Bourgeois, philosopher, expert in Kant and Hegel ; elected 2 December 2002 to the philosophy section of the Academy of moral and political sciences, to the chair of d'Olivier Lacombe. René Beaumont, UMP senator, president of the general counsel of Saône-et-Loire from 1985 to 2004, deputy of Saône-et-Loire (proportional ballot) from 1986 to 1988 then deputy of the 6th district (Louhans) from 1988 to 1997, defeated in 1997 by Arnaud Montebourg, member of PS (Socialist Party).
|
|
The Council of Cannstatt, also referred to as the blood court at Cannstatt (Blutgericht zu Cannstatt), was a council meeting at Cannstatt, now a part of Stuttgart, in 746 that took place as a result of an invitation by the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, Carloman, the eldest son of Charles Martel, of all nobles of the Alemanni. According to the annals of Metz, the annales Petaviani and an account by Childebrand, Carloman arrested several thousand noblemen who attended accusing them of taking part in the uprising of Theudebald, Duke of Alamannia and Odilo, Duke of Bavaria, and summarily executed them all for high treason. The number of deaths is a matter of debate. The action eliminated virtually the entire tribal leadership of the Alemanni and ended the independence of the duchy of Alamannia, after which it was ruled by Frankish dukes.
|
|
Adalrich abandoned Leodegar and went over to Ebroin, the mayor of the palace of Neustria, sometime before 677, when he appears as an ally of Theuderic, who granted him the monastery of Bèze.According to its chronicler Johannes of Bèze, the monastery of Fons Besua had been founded on a royal grant of land from Dagobert I (628) by Amalgar: see Waldalenus Taking advantage of the assassination of Hector of Provence in 679 to bid for power in Provence, he marched on Lyon but failed to take it and, returning to Alsace, switched his support to the Austrasians once more, only to find himself dispossessed of his lands in Alsace by King Theuderic III, an ally (and puppet) of Ebroin's who had opposed Dagobert in Austrasia since 675, who gave them to the Abbey of Bèze that year (679).
|
|
754) was the eldest son of Charles Martel, majordomo or mayor of the palace and duke of the Franks, and his wife Chrotrud of Treves. On Charles's death (741), Carloman and his brother Pepin the Short succeeded to their father's legal positions, Carloman in Austrasia, and Pepin in Neustria. He was a member of the family later called the Carolingians and it can be argued that he was instrumental in consolidating their power at the expense of the ruling Merovingian kings of the Franks. He withdrew from public life in 747 to take up the monastic habit, "the first of a new type of saintly king," according to Norman Cantor, "more interested in religious devotion than royal power, who frequently appeared in the following three centuries and who was an indication of the growing impact of Christian piety on Germanic society".
|
|
The city became the prey of the Franks under Thierry II (Theodoric), King of Austrasia in 612. The Council of Chalon-sur-Saône in 650 was the last to indicate the Episcopal participation of the Provence dioceses. In Avignon there would be no bishop for 205 years with the last known holder being Agricola. In 734 it fell into the hands of the Saracens, and it was destroyed in 737 by the Franks under Charles Martel for having sided with the Saracens against him. A centralized government was put in place and, in 879, the bishop of Avignon, Ratfred, with other Provençal colleagues, went to the Synod of Mantaille in Viennois where Boso was elected King of Provence after the death of Louis the Stammerer. The Rhône could again be crossed since in 890 part of the ancient bridge of Avignon was restored at the pier No. 14 near Villeneuve.
|
|
The Frankish colonisation () refers to the colonisation of regions in present- day Germany (mainly in the Rhine-Main-Danube region) by the Franks from the 5th to the 8th centuries. It marked the end of the Migration Period in this region, because it resulted in the establishment of largely stable political and social systems. The beginning of this colonisation and associated land appropriation came as the Merovingian king, Clovis I, defeated the Alemanni around 496 A. D. at the Battle of Zülpich. Linked to this colonisation was an extension of Frankish rule towards the east; Francia was now divided into Neustria (part of West Francia, an area largely coextensive with present-day France), Austrasia (part of East Francia, largely coextensive with the present-day Germany, but minus Saxony, Bavaria/Austria and thus Alsace- Lorraine) and Burgundy, which, however, constantly strove to preserve its independence.
|
|
But in the war between King Guntram and King Sigibert, Monderic had given gifts and furnished supplies for Sigibert, and so he was sent into exile super ripam Rhodani in turri quadam arcta atque detecta, ('by the bank of the Rhone in a certain small tower that had lost its roof') in which he was held for two years cum grandi cruciatu ('with great discomfort'). Archbishop Nicetius, who was the bishop of Lyon and Metropolitan of the diocese of Langres, intervened on his behalf and sheltered him in Lyon for two months. Unable to get his original place restored, Monderic fled to King Sigibert. About 570, Sigebert, King of Austrasia, created a see at Arisitum for Munderic, taking fifteen parishes and the village of Arisitum, which had once belonged to the Goths but at the time was in the diocese Bishop Dalmatius of Rodez.
|
|
Virtually no information survives concerning the acts of Arnoald prior to his becoming Bishop of Metz or during his occupation of the episcopal seat. From Paul the Deacon we learn that he was Roman and of senatorial extraction suggesting that he came from one of the families in southern Gaul whose members had held senatorial rank during the empire. The Commemoratio Genealogiae Domni Karoli Glorissimi Imperatoris, clearly incorrect in some respects (see below), suggests strongly that Arnoald was one of the Ferreoli, a family dating from the 4th century who were based in the Midi but appear to have switched their loyalties from the Visigothic Kingdom to the Frankish Kingdom of Austrasia with its capital at Metz during the two decades following the Battle of Vouillé in 507. Modern arguments have been made that this relationship was invented by contemporaries to give the Carolingians a Roman pedigree.
|
|
Ancient arms of Lyons. The birth of heraldry and the formation of the first coats of arms as a distinctive mark of individuals (noble or not) and the organizations of cities or corporations only dates from the 12th century, but one can find, however, traces of a symbol of the city's arms called De geules au chef de Bourgogne, that is, a red shield surmounted by a haorizontal band with the diagonal striped colors of the Kingdom of Burgundy, which were gold and blue starting in the fifth century.Histoire du blason de Lyon sur @Lyon et Guichet du Savoir, Blason de Lyon. Essentially, during this era, Lyons made up part of the Kingdom of Burgundy born in the aftermath of the fall of the Western Roman Empire and which made up the three great French kingdoms with Austrasia and Neustria, where the Merovingians ruled.
|
|
The Res gestae saxonicae are significant historical accounts of the times of Otto the Great and Henry the Fowler, modelled on the works of the Roman historian Sallust and the deuterocanonical Books of the Maccabees. Widukind wrote as a Saxon, proud of his people and history, beginning his narration not with the Roman Empire but with a brief synopsis derived from the orally-transmitted history of the Saxons and their struggles with the Franks, with a terseness that makes his work difficult to interpret. Widukind of Corvey starts with the wars between Theuderich I, King of Austrasia, and the Thuringii, in which the Saxons played a large part. An allusion to the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity under Charlemagne brings him to the early Saxon dukes and details of the reign of Henry the Fowler, whose campaigns are referred to in some detail.
|
|
Lambert was from a noble family of Maastricht, the supposed son of Apre, lord of Liège, and his wife Herisplende, both from noble families. The child was baptized by his godfather, the local bishop, Remaclus, and educated by Landoald, archpriest of the city. Lambert was also related to the seneschal Hugobert, father of Plectrude, Pepin of Herstal's lawful wife and thus an in-law of hereditary mayors of the palace who controlled the Merovingian kings of Austrasia. Lambert appears to have frequented the Merovingian court of King Childeric II, and was a protégé of his uncle, Theodard, who succeeded Remaclus as bishop of Maastricht. He is described by early biographers as “a prudent young man of pleasing looks, courteous and well-behaved in his speech and manners, well-built, strong, a good fighter, clear-headed, affectionate, pure and humble, and fond of reading.” When Theodard was murdered soon after 669, the councillors of Childeric made Lambert bishop of Maastricht.
|
|
The Scandinavian Peninsula is sometimes also excluded, as even though it is technically part of "mainland Europe", the de facto connections to the rest of the continent are across the Baltic Sea or North Sea (rather than via the lengthy land route that involves travelling to the north of the peninsula where it meets Finland, and then south through north-east Europe). The old notion of Europe as a cultural and European unification term was centred on core Europe (Kerneuropa), the continental territory of the historical Carolingian Empire, corresponding to modern France, Italy, Germany (or German- speaking Europe) and the Benelux states (historical Austrasia). Extent of Carolingian Europe This historical core of "Carolingian Europe" was consciously invoked in the 1950s as the historical ethno-cultural basis for the prospective European integration (see also Multi-speed Europe). The "core Europe" of the Inner Six signatories of the Treaty of Paris (1951) (shown in blue; the French Fourth Republic shown with Algeria).
|
|
Scaldis (the Scheldt) and Antverpia, Abraham Janssens, 1609, oil on panel, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp Early recorded versions of the name include Ando Verpia on Roman coins found in the city centre,Brabo Antwerpen 1 (centrum) / Antwerpen Germanic Andhunerbo from around the time Austrasia became a separate kingdom (that is, about 567 CE), and (possibly originally Celtic) Andoverpis in Dado's Life of St. Eligius (Vita Eligii) from about 700 CE. The form Antverpia is New Latin. German Wiktionary. Retrieved 5 June 2020 A Germanic (Frankish or Frisian) origin could contain prefix anda ("against") and a noun derived from the verb werpen ("to throw") and denote, for example: land thrown up at the riverbank; an alluvial deposit; a mound (like a terp) thrown up (as a defence) against (something or someone); or a wharf."Antwerp" Encyclopædia Britannica If Andoverpis is Celtic in origin, it could mean "those who live on both banks".
|
|
Division after the treaty of Prüm (855) Upon the death of Lothair I in 855, his realm of Middle Francia was partitioned between his sons by the Treaty of Prüm: Louis II of Italy († 875), the eldest son, received the imperial crown and Italy Charles of Provence († 863) became King of Provence (Lower Burgundy and Provence proper), later partitioned by Louis II and Lothair II Lothair II († 869) received Austrasia (the central part still controlled by his father after Verdun), Frisia and Upper Burgundy – this realm came to be named Lotharii Regnum (Lotharingia) East Francia and West Francia remained as before: Louis the German († 876) ruled East Francia Charles the Bald († 877) ruled West Francia Lothair II ceded the southeastern parts of Upper Burgundy to his brothers, whereas Charles of Provence received the bishoprics of Belley and Tarentaise in 859, and Louis II of Italy the bishoprics of Geneva, Lausanne and Sion a year later.
|
|
Instead he had put Sigebert under the tutelage of Adalgisel as mayor of the palace and the Bishop of Cologne Saint Cunibert as regent, while keeping Pepin in Neustria as hostage. In 634 Dagobert's second son, Clovis II, was born, and the king forced the nobles to accept him as the next king of Neustria and Burgundy, setting up a new division of the empire.Emile de Bonnechose, History of France, translated by William Robson, G. Routledge & Co, London, 1853, page 38 On the death of Dagobert in 639, the two Frankish kingdoms became independent once again under Sigebert III and Clovis II. Both kingdoms were under child-kings – Sigebert was around eleven years old and Clovis was five – and were ruled by the respective regents. It was under Seigbert's reign that the mayor of the palace began to play the most important role in the political life of Austrasia, and he has been described as the first roi fainéant—do-nothing king—of the Merovingian dynasty.
|
|
In his realm, Carloman strengthened his authority in part via his support of the Anglo-Saxon missionary Winfrid (later Saint Boniface), the so-called "Apostle of the Germans," whom he charged with restructuring the church in Austrasia. This was in part the continuation of a policy begun under his grandfather, Pepin of Herstal, and continued under his father, Charles Martel, who erected four dioceses in Bavaria (Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising, and Passau) and gave them Boniface as archbishop and metropolitan over all Germany east of the Rhine, with his seat at Mainz. Boniface had been under Charles Martel's protection from 723 on; indeed the saint himself explained to his old friend, Daniel of Winchester, that without it he could neither administer his church, defend his clergy, nor prevent idolatry. Carloman was instrumental in convening the ' in 742, the first major synod of the Catholic Church to be held in the eastern regions of the Frankish kingdom.
|
|
Neither did Franconia retain its cultural or linguistic identity; the Franconian dialects are now arrayed along the dialect continuum known as the "Rhenish fan", split into High Franconian, Central Franconian and Low Franconian branches and their sub-dialects. ; Lotharingia (until 959) : As a central component of the Frankish kingdom and with an essentially Frankish tribal identity, Lotharingia was split off Austrasia as part of Middle Francia in 843, and organized as a Duchy in 903. It kept changing position between the Eastern and the Western Kingdom until 939, when it was firmly incorporated into the Eastern Kingdom. In 959 the Duchy was divided into Lower Lotharingia (which in turn fragmented further into the counties and duchies of the Netherlands (present day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) only to be reunited by the Dukes of Burgundy) and Upper Lotharingia (parts of which developed into the French territory called Lorraine). Lower Lorraine remained a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire until 1190, when it passed to the Dukes of Brabant.
|
|
The Franks in the western part of Francia (Neustria and western Austrasia) gradually adopted Gallo-Romance by the beginning of the OHG period, with the linguistic boundary later stabilised approximately along the course of the Meuse and Moselle in the east, and the northern boundary probably a little further south than the current boundary between French and Flemish. North of this line, the Franks retained their language, but it was not affected by the Second Sound Shift, which thus separated their Low Franconian variety (the ancestor of Dutch) from the more easterly Franconian dialects which formed part of Old High German. The Saxons and the Frisians along the shores of North Sea were likewise not affected by the Second Sound Shift and a bundle of isoglosses in a similar location to the modern Benrath line marked the Northern limit of the sound shift and separated the dialect of the Franks from Old Saxon. In the south, the Lombards, who had settled in Northern Italy, maintained their dialect until their conquest by Charlemagne in 774.
|
|
The legacy of the battle was the further diminution of royal authority, for once again a Merovingian had been definitively defeated in battle; the supremacy of Austrasia over the rest of the realm, characterised by later conquests to the east and the Aachen-centred Carolingian Empire; the undisputed right to rule of the Arnulfing clan, Pepin even taking the title of dux et princeps Francorum; and, finally, the personal gains to Pepin, who "reigned," as one chronicle put it, thereafter over all the Franks for 27 more years. Pepin spent the remainder of the seventh century and the early years of the eighth-century reestablishing Frankish supremacy in Germany, during which time he forced the Frisians, Saxons, Alemanni, Suebians, Thuringians, and Bavari peoples to acknowledge their subordination to the Franks. From the battle of Tertry forward, a mayor from Pepin's clan remained the senior figure within Francia. Under Pepin's heir—his illlegitimate son Charles Martel—the Franks would achieve their most important victory in checking the Muslim advance into central Europe.
|
|
The Church severely discouraged and prohibited consanguineous marriages, a marriage pattern that has constituted a means to maintain clans (and thus their power) throughout history. The church also forbade marriages in which the bride did not clearly agree to the union. After the Fall of Rome, manorialism also helped to weaken the ties of kinship and thus the power of clans; as early as the 9th century in Austrasia, families that worked on manors were small, consisting of parents and children and occasionally a grandparent. The Church and state had become allies in erasing the solidarity and thus the political power of the clans; the Church sought to replace traditional religion, whose vehicle was the kin group, and substituting the authority of the elders of the kin group with that of a religious elder; at the same time, the king's rule was undermined by revolts on the part of the most powerful kin groups, clans or sections, whose conspiracies and murders threatened the power of the state and also the demand of manorial lords for obedient, compliant workers.
|
|
The one inland city continuing under Byzantine control was Perugia, which provided a repeatedly threatened overland link between Rome and Ravenna. In 578 and again in 580, the Senate, in some of its last recorded acts, had to ask for the support of Tiberius II Constantine (reigned 578–582) against the approaching Dukes, Faroald I of Spoleto and Zotto of Benevento. Maurice (reigned 582–602) added a new factor in the continuing conflict by creating an alliance with Childebert II of Austrasia (reigned 575–595). The armies of the Frankish King invaded the Lombard territories in 584, 585, 588 and 590. Rome had suffered badly from a disastrous flood of the Tiber in 589, followed by a plague in 590. The latter is notable for the legend of the angel seen, while the newly elected Pope Gregory I (term 590–604) was passing in procession by Hadrian's Tomb, to hover over the building and to sheathe his flaming sword as a sign that the pestilence was about to cease.
|
|
The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754, a Latin contemporary source which describes the battle in greater detail than any other Latin or Arabic source, states that "the people of Austrasia [the Frankish forces], greater in number of soldiers and formidably armed, killed the king, Abd ar-Rahman", which agrees with many Arab and Muslim historians. However, virtually all Western sources disagree, estimating the Franks as numbering 30,000, less than half the Muslim force. Some modern historians, using estimates of what the land was able to support and what Martel could have raised from his realm and supported during the campaign, believe the total Muslim force, counting the outlying raiding parties, which rejoined the main body before Tours, outnumbered the Franks. Drawing on non-contemporary Muslim sources, Creasy describes the Umayyad forces as 80,000 strong or more. Writing in 1999, Paul K. Davis estimates the Umayyad forces at 80,000 and the Franks at about 30,000, while noting that modern historians have estimated the strength of the Umayyad army at Tours at between 20,000–80,000.
|
|