Burgundy War

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The Burgundian War of 523-524 was a military conflict between the Franks on the one hand and the Burgundians on the other. Its causes lay on the one hand in the Franconian striving for expansion, on the other hand in internal family disputes in the Burgundian royal house.

Chrodechild (around 474-544), who came from the Burgundian Empire, was the second wife of the Frankish king Clovis I and mother of his successors Chlodomer , Childebert I and Chlothar I. She had to experience as a young unmarried woman, like her father, the Burgundy king Chilperich II , was killed by his brother Gundobad in a fratricidal war for rule in Burgundy.

In the year 523, when Gundobad's son Sigismund had his son Sigerich killed as a rebel and the alliance between the Burgundians and the Ostrogoths fell into a crisis, Chrodechild saw the time to seek vengeance, just as her sons saw an opportunity to meet hers Expand your sphere of influence.

The three younger sons of Clovis - their older half-brother Theuderic I stayed away, probably because he was married to a daughter of Sigismund - marched into the Kingdom of Burgundy, defeated the king and seized his territory. With the captured king and his family, the brothers returned to the Franconian Empire and left a garrison on site.

Sigismund's brother Godomar II returned to Burgundy at the head of an army that his ally and relative, the Ostrogoth king Theodoric the Great , had sent back to Burgundy, where he succeeded in destroying the Frankish garrison.

Chlodomer , who had returned to his residence in Orléans , had Sigismund and his two sons Gisald and Gondebaud killed on May 1, 524. Then he embarked on a second campaign against the Burgundians and their allies. The invaders were defeated by Godomar in the Battle of Vézeronce on June 25th of the same year in which Chlodomer was killed. The Franks then withdrew from Burgundy and temporarily gave up the fight.

Later

After Theodoric's death in 526, the Burgundians lost the Battle of Autun against the Franks in 532 and had to give up their political independence.

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  • Gregory of Tours : Historia Francorum . Book III, Sections VI and XI. Translation into French: Robert Latouche: Les classiques de l'histoire de France au Moyen Âge , Volume 27, pp. 146–147 and 152.
  • The article was created as a translation from fr: Guerre de Bourgondie , where references to individual details are given in Gregory von Tours, also with critical comments.