Sichildis

Sichildis , also Sichilde , Sichilda or Sigihild , (* around 590 ; † September 28, 629 in Clichy ) was a queen of the Franks under the rule of the Merovingians .

Life

The origin of Sichildis existed since the Middle Ages prompted speculation - so went scholars such as Jacques de Guyse believe that they the family of salfränkischen Ardennes counts with Chlodio came from a common ancestor; However, this assumption has been refuted by modern source research and will therefore not be pursued further.

Sichildis was born around the year 590 and had at least two siblings, Gomatrud and Brodulf . At the age of 15, the Frankish King Chlothar II took her to one of his concubines - presumably as part of a peaceful marriage that was often used during the Merovingian rule .

Finally around 614 she gave birth to Chlothar II., The son Charibert II. After the death of Chlothar's second wife, Bertetrud, she was raised to his wife and queen of the Franks in 618 .

Sichildis exercised no small influence on royal politics in the following years; scholars see it as the driving force behind Chlothar's order to his eldest son and later successor, Dagobert I , to take the sister of his stepmother, Gomatrud, as his wife.

In 626 , Chlothar accused Sichildis of adultery with a young nobleman from the Pagus Étampes, Boso. It can no longer be determined whether she had actually committed the crime or was only the victim of a reputation-damaging campaign by her political opponents - in the end, Chlothar II initiated the murder of Bosos by one of his closest confidants, the Dux of Neustroburgund, Arnebert .

Sichildis himself died on September 28, 629, in all probability in the royal palatinate in Clichy and found her final resting place in the Abbey of Saint-Vincent-Sainte-Croix ; Whether she died of natural causes or was murdered at the behest of her royal husband remains unclear based on the incomplete sources.

Mother of Charibert II.

The two main sources for the history of the Frankish empire in the 7th century provide contradicting information about who the mother of Charibert II, sub-king in Aquitaine , was. The Chronicle of Fredegar states that Charibert came from the second marriage of Chlothar to Bertetrud - the authors of the Gesta Dagoberti , the life story of Dagobert II in the Liber Historiae Francorum , on the other hand, explicitly name Sichildis as Charibert's mother. Due to the fact that Dagobert II immediately after the death of his father expelled his wife Gomatrud, the sister of his stepmother Sichildis, and also had her brother Brodulf murdered, as he vehemently defended Charibert II's claims to the Frankish throne, the research goes on almost unanimously that Charibert was actually the biological son of Sichildis.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martina Hartmann: Departure into the Middle Ages. The time of the Merovingians. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-896-78484-6 , p. 72.

Source editions

• Bruno Krusch (Ed.): Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii Scholastici libri IV. Cum Continuationibus. In: Bruno Krusch (ed.): Fredegarii et aliorum chronica. Vitae sanctorum (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores. 2: Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum. Vol. 2, ISSN  0343-7574 ). Hahn, Hannover 1888, pp. 147 , 148. ( Digitized )
• Bruno Krusch (Ed.): Gesta Dagoberti I. Regis francorum. In: Bruno Krusch (ed.): Fredegarii et aliorum chronica. Vitae sanctorum (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores. 2: Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum. Appendix Tomus II. Gesta Dagoberti I. regis, ISSN  0343-7574 ). Hahn, Hannover 1888, pp. 402 , 404 , 406 . ( Digitized version )

literature

• Eugen Ewig : The Merovingians and the Franconian Empire. 4th supplemented edition, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-017044-9 , pp. 146-149.
• Patrick J. Geary: The Merovingians. Europe before Charlemagne. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-49426-9 , pp. 158, 186-187.
• Martina Hartmann : Departure into the Middle Ages. The time of the Merovingians. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-896-78484-6 , p. 72f.