Charibert I.

Charibert I coin

Charibert I (* around 520; † 567 ) was a Frankish king from the Merovingian family . He ruled from 561 to 567.

Charibert was the third eldest son of King Chlothar I and Queen Ingund (e). Chlothar, one of the sons of the founder of the empire, Clovis I , had finally reunited the Frankish empire, which he had shared with three brothers in 511, after the death of his brothers under his rule. When Chlothar died in 561, the two eldest sons from his marriage to Ingund had already died; In addition to Charibert, there were two younger sons of Ingund, Guntram I. (Gunthchramn) and Sigibert I. , as well as their half-brother Chilperich I from the later marriage of Chlothar with Ingund's sister Arnegunde .

These four heirs divided the empire among themselves, with each receiving part of the imperial core between the Rhine and Loire and part of the conquests south of the Loire that had been added since Clovis's wars of expansion. Charibert as the oldest received the royal seat of Paris and the main part of the areas in the south, including Bordeaux , Limoges , Cahors , Poitiers and Albi , in the north among others Chartres , Rouen , Tours , Angers , Nantes .

Charibert had four wives. The first was Ingoberga , who apparently came from a noble family. With her he had a daughter, Bertha , whom he married to the pagan king Æthelberht (Aedilberct) of Kent . He later separated from Ingoberga and allied himself with Merofled, the daughter of a wool comber ( artifex lanarius ) from Ingoberga's servants, as well as with Theudogild, the daughter of a shepherd, and finally after 562 with Merofled's sister Marcoveifa. The chronology is not clearly clarified; It was evidently not a question of concubinates , but of real marriages, for the women were called queens. Marcoveifa had previously been a nun; therefore the couple was excommunicated by Bishop Germanus of Paris . This problem was solved with Marcoveifa's death.

At his untimely death in 567, Charibert left no son. Therefore his brothers Guntram I, Sigibert I and Chilperich I divided up his empire among themselves.

In addition to Bertha, Charibert had other children: Berthefled, probably a daughter of Merofled, who died after 589, a son of Theudogild who died immediately after giving birth, and a daughter of Theudogild, Chrodieldis, who did not live until Sainte-Croix in Poitiers went to the monastery, but later left and died after 590.

See also

• Frankish Empire
• Merovingian fratricidal war

Commons : Charibert I  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

• Eugen Ewig : Spätantikes und Franconian Gallien , Volume 1, Artemis, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-7608-4652-1 , pp. 135-143, 323-325
• Eugen Ewig: The naming of the oldest Franconian kings and the Merovingian royal family . In: Francia 18/1, 1991, pp. 21–69 (on Charibert: p. 56f .; with family tree p. 53 and detailed information on the prosopography of the royal family)

predecessor	Office	successor
Chlothar I.	King of the Franconian Empire / Part of Paris 561–567	End of the partial kingdom Division of the area: Austrasia - Sigibert I. Neustria - Chilperich I. Burgundy - Guntram I.