The Reign of Gundobad

Under Gundobad, the Burgundian kingdom reached its greatest height. Theoderic and Gundobad had prevented Clovis from conquering Provence and denied him access to the Mediterranean. Yet, the alliances shifted quickly in this era and, after fighting with Clovis in A.D. 500, Gundobad joined him to fight against the Visigoths at Poitiers in A.D. 507. Theoderic did not participate in this war, perhaps because of the complications inherent in siding with one relative against others.

On the field of Vouillé, near Poitiers, Alaric fell and Aquitaine was annexed to the dominion of the Franks in A.D. 507. The Franks and the Burgundians had also burned Toulouse, and Gundobad sacked Barcelona. Theodoric had warned Gundobad that an alliance with Clovis would be suicide, but the territorial gains had been apparently too attractive to turn down. Unfortunately, as the weaker partner in the Frankish-Burgundian alliance, they were the easier mark for Theodoric, who also made devastating forays into their lands. In the next few years, Theoderic conducted campaigns in Gaul in which he succeeded in rescuing Arles and in saving Narbonensis for the Visigothic kingdom. He also captured Provence from Burgundy and annexed it to Italy. From A.D. 507-509, the Burgundians lost all of their earlier gains.

Despite this territorial setback, Gundobad reigned for sixteen years as sole king of the Burgundians. Under him, the Burgundian kingdom was ruled on the administrative model of Rome even while the military maintained its Germanic characteristics.

Most of the Roman-barbarian kingdoms operated with two governmental constants. The first was the executive power in the form of the martial barbarian king and the second was a Roman bureaucracy with a strong emphasis on law. Gundobad sought advice from both Burgundian generals and Gallo-Roman aristocrats and each administrative district included a dualistic judicial system overseen by both a Burgundian comes who judged Germans and his Roman counterpart who judged Romans. This system is confirmed in the character of Gundobad’s greatest achievement, the Lex Gundobada, or Burgundian Code.


UP NEXT: The Burgundian Code - Outline

SOURCES:

Drew, Burgundian Code.
Wallace-Hadrill, Barbarian West.
Chronicle of 511 in Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Bury, Roman Empire.
Wolfram, Germanic Peoples.
Musset, Germanic Invasions.

The Burgundian Civil War

No matter how or why Clovis intervened in Burgundian politics--whether of his own initiative or by invitation from Godegisel--it is clear that he moved to attack Gundobad. For his part, Gundobad was forewarned of Clovis’ movements but unaware of his brother’s treachery, which was why he sent for Godegisel’s aid to ward off the Frank attack. Godegisel assured his brother that he would help.

The three kings met in battle near Dijon somewhere along the shores of the river Ouche. As planned, Godegisel united his forces with Clovis’ to crush the army of Gundobad. Gundobad, no doubt surprised by this betrayal, fled the field and followed the Rhone to the city of Avignon where he gathered reinforcements.

Marius of Avenches wrote of Godegisel's "deceitful machinations" and explained that, "after Gundobad fled, Godegisel obtained his brother’s kingdom for a little while..." Godegisel promised to hand part of his kingdom over to Clovis and went home to Vienne to celebrate his victory. Meanwhile, Clovis moved to attack Avignon and remove Gundobad. According to Gregory of Tours, Gundobad heard of these dire plans and, understandably worried, turned to his wise advisor Aridius who concocted a plan of action.

In short, Aridius pretended to play the part of a turncoat. Clovis’s army had surrounded the city, so Aridius approached the lines of Clovis’s army in the guise of a traitor. He won the confidence of Clovis, apparently because his reputation as a man of knowledge preceded him, and soon became a trusted advisor. Eventually, Aridius convinced Clovis that more profit was to be had from exacting tribute from Gundobad than from ravaging the surrounding lands while laying siege to a nearly impenetrable town. Clovis agreed to the plan to offer such a proposal to Gundobad and sent his army home. Gundobad agreed to Clovis’s proposal, paid tribute for the current year and promised to do so in the future.

Some scholars, setting the story of Aridius aside, believe Clovis had no desire to destroy Gundobad and was happy to only weaken him sufficiently. They trace this back to the influence of Clotilda and proposed that Clotilda acted as an ambassador between Clovis and Gundobad. Further, if Clotilda’s aim was to keep both of her uncles alive, then the fact that Clovis left five or six thousand men with Godegisel before leaving for home could be viewed as an attempt to equalize the forces of Gundobad and Godigisel to prevent more fighting.

Thus, from these circumstances, it could be construed that, because Clovis returned home without having completely vanquished his opponent, his people, unused to such “Frankish moderation,” could not conceive of such an outcome. As a result, they came to believe that what had really occurred was that their king, “in an excess of generous loyalty, had allowed himself to be tricked by the Burgundians.” Rather than Clovis showing mercy to a relative at the behest of his queen, he had been duped by a Gallo-Roman aristocrat.

After Gundobad recovered his strength, and apparently gained the benefit of Visigothic reinforcements, he cavalierly dismissed the need to continue his tribute to Clovis and attacked his brother Godegisel in Vienne, besieging the city. Godegisel, running short of provisions, ordered that the commoners be driven out of the city. Among these people was an engineer who, understandably angered over Godegisel’s callous act, told Gundobad of a way into the city via the aqueduct.

The engineer led some of Gundobad’s men along the aqueduct and they entered the city through an iron grate. Once in the city center, they blew a trumpet signal and Gundobad’s forces outside the city walls crashed the gates and entered the city. According to Gregory, the townspeople were cut to pieces during the melee.

Godegisel hid in an Arian church and was killed with his Arian bishop. Apparently there were still about five thousands Franks who had stayed with Godegisel and Gundobad ordered that they be left alive. His men disarmed them and Gundobad exiled them to Toulouse. All of the Burgundians and Gallo-Roman senators who had supported Godegisel were executed.

Marius of Avenches wrote of this:

[Gundobad] took the city, killed his brother, and condemned to death by many refined tortures a good number of magnates and Burgundians who had been in agreement with Godegisel. Gundobad recovered the kingdom he had lost along with that which his brother had held and ruled successfully down to the day of his death.

Gundobad's victory had wide consequences. The Visigoths received lands from the Burgundians in gratitude for their assistance and Gundobad rewarded Alaric II by ceding Avignon to him in A.D. 501. Gundobad became the sole political figure in the Burgundian kingdom. He had marriage ties to both the Franks and the Ostrogoths of Theodoric, with whom he helped prevent the expansion of Clovis into Provence.

From Clovis’s vantage point, his intervention in Burgundian affairs must have made him realize that he had dangerous neighbors to his south-east, both strong in their own right and allied by marriage and circumstance to the Goths. As Wallace-Hadrill noted, “The Merovingians were seldom astute in their handling of the Burgundians, but they had every excuse to go on trying.” And try they did.

UP NEXT: The Reign of Gundobad

SOURCES:
Marius of Avenches in Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks.
Avitus of Vienne.
Kurth, Saint Clotilda.
Wolfram, Germanic Peoples.
Dill, Roman Society.
Goffart, Barbarians and Romans.
Chronicle of 511 in Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings.

Clovis' Role in Stoking the Burgundian Civil War

Around A.D. 500, Gundobad and Godegisel ruled together in Burgundy, though Gundobad was probably the arch-king while Godegisel was his subordinate, probably ruling only the territory around Geneva more directly. The fate of their brother Godomar was not recorded. The cause of their rivalry is unknown, and it appears they had peacefully coexisted for some time.

That Godigisel was the aggressor in the event was evident. Perhaps sibling rivalry or Godigisel’s jealousy over the position and fame of his older brother, or resentment over the partitioning of the kingdom whereby Gundobad had received most of Chilperic I’s former lands, had prompted him to approach Clovis about an alliance against his brother. Clovis had been winning great victories against other barbarian tribes and Godegisel heard of these and sent ambassadors to him asking for aid in attacking Gundobad. In exchange, Godegisel offered tribute at a rate determined by Clovis.

Clovis accepted the offer, and there have been many theories as to why he did. Perhaps he did it simply based on loyalty to his wife’s former guardian. Godegisil had essentially been Clotilda’s foster father and may have been a Catholic himself (Godefroid Kurth, based on his reading of Pardessus, Diplomata, vol.I., observed, “We know at least that in conjunction with his wife Theodelinda, he built the monastery of St. Peter at Lyons.”).

Additionally, as Godigisel was less powerful than Gundobad, he was less of a threat to Clovis, who probably could not have easily passed up an opportunity to severely weaken, if not destroy, a dangerous rival. Some assumed that Clotilda, if forced to choose, probably would have sided with the uncle under whose care she had been given. Kurth, who wondered if, perhaps, Clotilda saw Clovis’s intervention as a chance to save Godigisel rather than to destroy Gundobad, wrote, "[b]ut, at the same time, while coming to the help of the one, she had no wish to make relentless war on the other.”

Similar to this, others have said that the simple fact of being related to the Burgundians was enough motivation for Clovis to get involved. J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (The Longhaired Kings) asserted that, “It was the fact of kinship, not of his wife’s Catholicism...Clovis marched into Burgundy at the invitation of one of his kinsmen by marriage, Godigisel, caring little where it might lead.”

Others contended that Clovis sought to kill Gundobad to avenge the murder of his wife’s parents, though he ultimately did not exact said revenge. And so we arrive at one of the great debates surrounding Clovis and the Burgundians. Was Clovis, and later his progeny, seeking revenge upon the Burgundians? Or was this a useful myth?

Edward James (The Franks) who theorized that though Clovis could have sought vengeance on behalf of his wife, “if he was a more cynical politician than Gregory allows,” then the story of Gundobad murdering Clotilda’s parents “served the Franks as useful propaganda for many years.” Katherine Scherman (The Birth of France) stated there was no direct evidence that Clotilda encouraged Clovis in his conquest of Burgundy because “the Christian bias of the chroniclers” saw the “motive of revenge” as “immoral.” Along the same line, Godefroid Kurth (Saint Clotilda) observed:

To a bloody-minded and barbarous people, in a state of spiritual infancy, how could Clotilda, the great and the good, lack any element necessary to their crude ideal; how could she be otherwise than vengeful, if vengeance were a point of honour, and if to forgive were weakness and cowardice? As surely as the mind of childhood has got its stereotyped king and queen and prince, ever crowned in high state and radiant with gold, so surely has the childlike multitude certain moulds into which every hero or saint must be pressed unless the public imagination is to be pained and shocked.

Some historians, such as Herwig Wolfram, at least partly attributed Clovis’s interest in the Burgundian civil war as a sort of thanks to his wife for helping to convert him, implying that Clovis thought it would be appropriate to fight Arians. Others have countered that, though the conversion of Clovis and his Franks helped him to consolidate power, there can be no doubt that had they been Arian, they would have still attacked the Burgundians and Visigoths because they were looking to expand no matter who was in their way.

Some believed that more earthly, and immediate, circumstances motivated Clovis. After Clovis had captured Soissons and all of her riches, he was aware that his warriors would expect continued success and booty. A civil war would have seemed a perfect opportunity to satisfy his warriors and this may point to the possibility that Clovis could have approached Godigisel about a joint attack on Gundobad.

UP NEXT: The Burgundian Civil War

SOURCES:
Wood, “Kings, Kingdoms and Consent"
Kurth, Saint Clotilda.
Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings.
James, The Franks.
Scherman, The Birth of France.
Wolfram, Germanic Peoples.
O’Sullivan and Burns, Medieval Europe.
Randers-Pehrson, Barbarians and Romans.

Doubting Gregory of Tours: "All that was best known of the life of Clotilda was that which never really occurred."

Gregory of Tours' account of the marriage of Clovis and Clotilda portrayed the Burgundian King Gundobad (and Clotilda's uncle) in an unflattering light. Yet, the truth may have been different than that put forth by the Merovingian propagandist and the debate regarding the credibility of Gregory's account has encompassed nearly as many years as did the duration of the short-lived second Burgundian Kingdom in Gaul!

Most historians from the time of Gibbon to the turn of the 20th century seem to have taken Gregory's stories at face value. However, some historians--like Godefroid Kurth, who was an early skeptic (relatively speaking) of the Gregory account--have questioned some of Gregory's tales. Kurth examined Gregory’s own sources and concluded that Gregory relied too much on legend, which he uncritically used to fill in gaps in his historical record. Another, later, historian--I.N. Wood--remarked that:

the account of fifth-century Gaul offered by Gregory in his Histories is intended, on the one hand, to denigrate the Arian Goths and Burgundians, and, on the other, to elevate the Franks and their king, the Catholic convert, Clovis.

J.M. Wallace-Hadrill unequivocally stated that Gregory’s hero is Clovis, and Gregory placed Clovis’ conversion too early to make it appear as if all of Clovis’ great deeds were done as a Catholic. (Wallace-Hadrill’s chapter, “The Work of Gregory of Tours in the Light of Modern Research,” in The Long-Haired Kings, is informative on the subject Gregory’s work, point of view and motivation). Ian Wood also urges us to take Gregory with a grain of salt:

Gregory’s account of Clovis seems to be more concerned to create the image of a catholic king against whom his successors could be assessed, than with any desire to provide an accurate account of the reign. In order to understand Clovis within the context of the late fifth and early sixth centuries it is necessary to emphasize the contemporary evidence, and to treat Gregory, as far as possible, as a secondary source.

Despite these warnings, many have continued to uncritically accept Gregory's account of Clotilda and the events surrounding her while she lived in Burgundy.

That Clovis probably married her in the early 490’s and that she was the niece of King Gundobad is accepted, but that is about it. Some historians have contended that the story, or legend, of Gundobad’s murder of Chilperic II and Clotilda’s subsequent desire for revenge grew up about a generation after the marriage of Clovis and Clotilda.

Skeptics of the widespread acceptance if Gregory's tale as historical fact have relied on a textual criticism of both Gregory and the Fredegarius account as well as other sources that mention Clotilda, especially the Saint’s Lives. They have contended, to quote Kurth, that the story of Gundobad murdering Chilperic II threw “a shadow over the character of Clotilda [ie; her later supposed desire for revenge upon her uncle, Gundobad], and a still darker shadow over the character of King Gundobad” and maintained that the “the very basis of [the story] is entirely fictitious.”

Some skeptics have held that Clotilda had no reason to avenge her father’s death by Gundobad because Gundobad didn’t commit the murders. They cited as proof a letter written by Bishop Avitus of Vienne to console Gundobad on the death of a daughter. Within this letter, Avitus wrote that, “[i]n the past, with ineffable tender-heartedness, you mourned the deaths of your brothers.” Accordingly, the brother mentioned was not Godegisil who later fought Gundobad and died, so it must have referred to Chilperic II. Another alternative may have been that the unnamed brother was the mysterious Godomar, who was barely mentioned in the sources and is but a name listed along with Gundobad and his Burgundian brothers.

Thus, skeptics contend, Avitus’ letter seems to absolve Gundobad of the murder of Chilperic II. Herwig Wolfram noted that, “It is likely that both Godomar and Chilperic II—the father of Clotild[a], the future wife of Clovis—died natural deaths around 490.” J.B. Bury also expressed doubts that Gundobad murdered his brother and explained that Gregory was engaged in a bit of medieval "retcon" (my term, not Prof. Bury's!).

Bury says that the legend of a vengeful Clotilda “originated sometime after the great war of A.D. 523 between the Burgundians and the Franks.” This is the year that Gundobad's son and heir Sigismund and his family perished at the hands of Clovis' and Clotilda' sons by being thrown down a well. As such, to explain the reason that two closely allied families would go to war, a story was invented by, as Bury put it, "popular imagination" to help explain why saintly Clotilda would allow her sons to kill their kinsmen. So the story of old wrongs was created and the connection is made by portraying the old wrong to have been nearly identical to the form of revenge perpetrated.

Because King Sigismund and his wife were killed and thrown in a well, the legend grew that the same happened to Chilperic. Because Sigismund’s two sons were killed, then two sons of Chilperic--sons who may have never actually existed--were said to have been killed by Gundobad. Bury contended that "we can thus safely conclude that the true Gundobad was not the sanguinary tyrant of later tradition, nor was Clotilda the bearer of tragedy and doom to the Burgundian house as she appears in the story."

Justine Davis Randers-Pehrson has explained some of the historiographical problems with Gregory's story of Clovis, in general. First is the chronological problem, “which is wellnigh hopeless.” It has been the subject of scholarly debate for decades. “What confidence can be placed in judgments that sometimes must be based on the tense of a verb in a manuscript corrupted by copyists whose knowledge of Latin was admittedly faulty?” The second problem is on the primary source, Gregory of Tours. He “was a honest man, but he was possessed with a burning desire to prove that Clovis, from a very early time in his extraordinary career, had been the champion of true Christianity.” She also noted that most agree Gregory placed Clovis’s conversion too early so that all of his campaigns would be deemed victories for the Church. The third problem is the anachronistic belief that Clovis sought to create a French nation. “In reality," Randers-Pehrson writes, "if we read closely, he was a greedy opportunist who seized upon whatever chances arose in the flux of any given critical situation.” The first two problems seem viable while the last may be a bit too cynical for most.

While Kurth relies heavily on Saints Lives to poke holes in Gregory's accounts, others are wary. In Forgetful of Their Sex, author Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg warned that, while hagiography often provided the only source of information for medieval women, it is important to note that most hagiographers were less historians than saint propagandists. This does not necessarily exclude Saints Lives as valuable historical sources, she continued, but historians must be aware of the motivation of the hagiographer. Schulenburg is far more accepting of Gregory's account, which she used to conclude that Clotilda was a woman who was active in determining her own destiny:

Considering that Gundobad had killed her parents and exiled her sister, and continued to espouse Arianism, Clotilda was no doubt anxious to escape from his court and to start a new life.

Ian Wood and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill were also wary of the accounts in the Saints Lives and, despite their misgivings about Gregory, were willing to accept much of his tale concerning Clotilda and her vengeance. In his description of Clotilda urging her sons to attack Gundobad’s as part of a “blood feud,” Wallace-Hadrill notes that, “Some historians look upon the story as essentially a myth. I do not know why.”

For his part, Kurth believed that both Fredegarus and the monk of St Denis, who wrote the Liber Historiae, were even less critical of their sources than Gregory. Kurth also offered a defense of the hagiographers when he wrote:

[O]n this occasion at least hagiography can defend the legitimacy of its traditions in the name of science, while on the other hand we have the amusing spectacle of rationalistic learning, engaged in angry argument against the conclusions of the critical methods. Can it be true that in the estimation of certain historians the legends which glorify the saints are the only ones to be struck out, while those that calumniate them are to be preserved with pious care?

Regardless of this lively ongoing debate, the political factors that influenced the marriage are obvious. There appear to have been two factions in the kingdom of Burgundy; one that favored an alliance with the Franks, led by Godegisel, and another that mistrusted such an alliance, led by Gundobad. Clotilda had been living at Geneva*, the capital of her uncle Godegisel, who made a secret pact with Clovis. Thus, that Clotilda was Catholic was known to Clovis beforehand and was probably considered to be a desirable condition.

“Pious intrigue” was probably partly influential in matching a Catholic princess with the king of the pagan Franks. Since the Burgundians were known Arians, as were all of the other barbarian tribes, was it a coincidence that Clovis chose a Catholic Burgundian princess from this particular tribe?

However, though the Burgundians were Arian, they also seemed more tolerant of their Catholic subjects than the Vandals and Visigoths, and some of Gundobad’s closest advisors, such as Patiens and Avitus, were Catholic bishops. Though he may have not yet been Christian himself, it is probable that Clovis realized the political benefits of having a Catholic wife, especially one related to, at the time, a strong Arian kingdom that was also sympathetic to Catholics. The Burgundians also realized the importance of political marriages, as when Gundobad married his son to Theoderic’s daughter. For Clovis though, a marriage to Clotilda was more important for the ties it would strengthen to the dominant Roman Catholic Church than with those of the Burgundian kingdom.

Whether Gregory’s or Fredegarius’s accounts of Clotilda’s flight from the Burgundian kingdom to meet her betrothed are believable or not, what has been generally accepted is that the marriage was arranged at Chalon-sur-Saone and that Clovis met her at Villery, south of Troyes, and accompanied her to Soissons for the wedding. As Kurth explained, a poem written describing the ceremony replaced the historical facts as the historical record.

In this way legend at an early date took the place of historical fact, and, during many centuries, all that was best known of the life of Clotilda was that which never really occurred.

* Though, as I've already noted, Gregory's story of Clotilda's engagement and betrothal to Clovis implies Clotilda is at Gundobad's court (which is in Lyons), not Geneva.

UP NEXT: Clotilda, Clovis and the Conversion

SOURCES:

Avitus of Vienne, Shanzer and Wood.
Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks.
Fredegarius, Chronicle of Fredegar.
Godefroid Kurth, Saint Clotilda.
I.N. Wood, “Continuity or calamity?: the constraints of literary models,” in Fifth-century Gaul: a crisis of identity?, ed. Drinkwater and Elton.
J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings.
Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms.
Kurth, “St. Clotilda,” in Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908 ed.
Justine Davis Randers-Pehrson, Barbarians and Romans.
J.B. Bury, Invasion of Europe.
Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society ca. 500-1100.
Herwig Wolfram, Germanic Peoples.

The Marriage of Clovis and Clotilda: The Story

According to Gregory of Tours, Clovis had envoys in Burgundy who reported back to him about the beautiful and intelligent princess Clotilda. He sent messengers to Gundobad and asked for her hand in marriage. Afraid to refuse the wishes of a powerful, neighboring king, Gundobad acceded and entrusted Clotilda to Clovis’ envoys. They took her back to Clovis, who was pleased by the sight of Clotilda and married her.

The Fredegarius account is more detailed, though not necessarily more accurate. According to this version of the story, Clotilda and her sister were doing charitable work and were secluded and hidden from Clovis’ men. Eventually, Clovis sent a trusted Roman retainer named Aurelian, disguised as a beggar, to find Clotilda. Once Aurelian found her, he gave her Clovis’ ring as a show of faith.

Clotilda was overjoyed and gave Aurelian her own ring to return to Clovis, telling him to have Clovis ask Gundobad for permission to marry her. She urged haste for fear that a counselor to her uncle, Aridius, would arrive from Constantinople and dissuade Gundobad from allowing the marriage. Gundobad, apparently afraid of Frankish power, agreed to the union and Clovis and Clotilda were formally betrothed at Chalon, in A.D. 493.

Clotilda began her journey to her new kingdom in a treasure-filled carriage guarded by Frank warriors. While traveling, she heard that Aridius had returned to Gundobad’s court. Fearing pursuit, she ordered the Franks to put her on horseback to speed her travel.

Meanwhile, according to this account, Aridius had warned Gundobad of the peril of a marriage between Clovis and Clotilda, claiming she might prevail upon him to avenge the death of her father and brothers, which had been ordered by Gundobad. Gundobad sent a party of Burgundian warriors to abduct Clotilda, but her foresight had saved her and she had already reached the border of the Frankish kingdom. Once safe, she ordered the surrounding countryside to be ravaged by her escort and then gave thanks to God because her revenge upon Gundobad had begun.

As an addendum, based on a close reading of Avitus of Vienne's Epistula 5, Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood theorize that:

[A]t some point, probably after his return to power in 500, [Gundobad] may have proposed a marriage between his own daughter and Clovis. Her death, however, which is recorded by Avitus, may well have led to the substitution of Gundobad’s niece, [Clotilda], the daughter of [Chilperic] , as a bride for the Frankish king.

UP NEXT: Doubting Gregory of Tours: "All that was best known of the life of Clotilda was that which never really occurred."

SOURCES:

Avitus of Vienne, Shanzer and Wood.
Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks.
Fredegarius, Chronicle of Fredegar.

Young Clotilda

Chilperic II’s daughter Clotilda was born at Lyons around A.D. 474. She had a younger sister named Sedeluba, or Chrona, and both were educated as Christians, probably under the guidance their mother, who was most likely Roman Catholic. The court of Chilperic II was probably frequented by many Catholic bishops and other luminaries, including Sidonius, who was a regular visitor, as well as the Catholic bishops Avitus of Vienne and Patiens of Lyons. The girls were also probably familiar with the saints of Lyons, such as the slave martyr Saint Blandina.

That Clotilda was surrounded by such religious personages as Avitus and Patiens lends credence to the theory that she was undoubtedly much influenced by them in the faith. Thus, it is widely accepted that Clotilda’s mother, and perhaps her father, were Catholic. Clotilda’s mother was mentioned by Sidonius who sang her praises (as mentioned previously) and compared her to Tanaquil and Agrippina. As Godefroid Kurth elaborates (Saint Clotilda, 20-21), “each of which recalls the influence exercised by a noble-hearted woman over her husband.” Kurth also explained that while Sidonius was “addicted to hyperbole,” the compliments he gave to the wife of Chilperic II were probably not those of a cloying sycophant. “Sidonius had no affection for the Burgundians, and did not owe allegiance to Chilperic.”

Chilperic II probably died around A.D. 490 and, according to Gregory of Tours, his daughters were supposedly sent to the court of Godegisil in Geneva when Gundobad took the throne at Lyons.* If this is so, it is likely that Chilperic II was the eldest, and when he died, Gundobad assumed the throne as the preeminent king among his remaining brothers.

The death of Chilperic II, as described by Gregory of Tours, has spawned a debate among historians that has filled volumes. According to Gregory, “Gundobad killed his brother Chilperic and drowned Chilperic’s wife after tying a stone round her neck. He drove Chilperic’s two daughters into exile: the elder, whose name was Chroma, became a religious, and the younger was called Clotild[a].” (Some believe that the sisters went to Geneva because Godegisil was Catholic, while Gundobad was an Arian). This is the first example of how Gregory is, as Edward James (The Origins of France, 23) puts it, "on the whole hostile to Gundobad."

In Geneva, we are told that Clotilda became a pious Christian and she and her sister performed charitable deeds. According to Fredegarius, Sedeluba founded the Church of St Victor in the outskirts of Geneva and disappeared from the pages of history. Clotilda was also pious--she was said to have washed the feet of the poor--however, unlike her sister, Clotilda had a still larger role to play in Merovingian history.

=========================

* While it's not impossible to imagine Clotilda shuttling between the courts of her uncles in Geneva and Lyons, as will be discussed in the future, Gregory's story of Clotilda's engagement and betrothal to Clovis implies Clotilda is at Gundobad's court (which is in Lyons), not Geneva.**

** Incidentally, I'm not even sure if "court" is the proper term for whatever you called the place from which the Burgundian (and other barbarian) kings managed their holdings.

UP NEXT: Marriage of Clovis and Clotilda

SOURCES:

Godefroid Kurth, Saint Clotilda, trans. V.M. Crawford with a preface by G. Tyrell (London: Duckworth & Co., 1898).
Avitus of Vienne, Shanzer and Wood.
Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks.
James, The Origins of France.
Fredegarius, Chronicle of Fredegar.

Gundobad - Burgundian King, Early Years

After the death of King Gundioc, Burgundy, according to Gregory of Tours, was divided among his four sons, with Chilperic II reigning at Lyons, Gundobad at Vienne, and Godegisil at Geneva while Godomar's capital is not known. Modern historians have come to believe that Gundobad divided the kingship, but not the physical kingdom, with his three brothers.

For instance, Herwig Wolfram (Germanic Peoples) noted that this was a uniquely Burgundian political system and that it was confirmed by the historical/legendary Niebelungenlied. On the other hand, other historians, such as Ian Wood, (“Kings, Kingdoms and Consent”) and P.S. Barnwell (Emperor, Prefects, & Kings), explain that, given that Lyons seems to have been the residence of the “primary” king, it would seem that Chilperic II may have been the eldest son of Gundioc. This is supported by the fact that it was Gundobad who went to Rome to make his name, a route that probably would not have been followed by the eldest son and heir but was commonly followed by second, or younger, sons. ( Further, to support the contention that Lyon was the "king's" seat, when Chilperic II died, Gundobad assumed his seat in Lyons and was then regarded as the primary king among the Burgundians).

It is believed that, under this system, while the younger sons were given territories with urban residences in Geneva, Vienne and Valence, they did not actually divide up the realm for a split rule. In short, while Gundobad’s brothers were also kings, he was high king. It is possible that instead of ruling, they administered specific regions and collected the tax revenue generated in the region they administered. This configuration may have been influenced by similar arrangements made by the Huns, who some scholars believe the Burgundians emulated.

Sidonius wrote two letters that shed light on some of the political machinations within Burgundy shortly after Julius Nepos took the throne. In the first, a letter to his uncle Appolinaris, he related how Appolinaris’s brother Thaumastus was worried for Appolinaris. As Sidonius wrote:

He is certain that the venomous tongues of certain villains have been secretly at work, whispering in the ear of the master of the soldiers, the ever-victorious Chilperic, that it was chiefly your doing that the town of Vaison was won over to the side of the new emperor.

That Chilperic II would be upset at any that supported the rival to his kinsman’s choice for emperor was understandable. Thus, if Chilperic II believed these rumors, Appolinaris had much to fear. More importantly, this could be taken as evidence that the relationship between Chilperic II and Gundobad was not one in which fratricide would be the ultimate outcome.

Sidonius assured Apollinaris that he would be his advocate and investigate the charges. In a subsequent letter to Thaumastus, Sidonius related that he had discovered who the rumor mongers were and bemoaned the fact that Apollinaris was in a dangerous situation. However, Sidonius also provided some hope to Thaumastus. In an allegorical passage, he praised Chilperic II’s wife:

But the chief consolation in our troubles is this: our Lucumo is restrained by his Tanaquil. With a timely and witty word, she rids her husband’s ears of the poisonous tales instilled there by whisperers. You should know that up till now it has been her doing that the mind of our common patron has not been poisoned against the well-being of our brothers by these younger Cibyrates; God willing, that will never happen while the present power rules a Lyonese Germania, and our present Agrippina exerts her moderating influence on her and our Germanicus.*

Sidonius held this unnamed queen in high regard. His account of her advising her husband is almost all that is known about Chilperic II’s wife.

The Burgundians were politically and militarily strong prior to the emergence of Euric at the head of the Visigoths. Yet, with his emergence and the nearly simultaneous establishment of another Gothic kingdom in Italy, they sought imperial assurances and support. In A.D. 474, the Burgundians and the Empire renewed their old treaties and the Burgundian kings were allowed to re-assume Roman military offices. Situated in Rome at the time, Gundobad most likely had a large part to play in these negotiations.

In the Auvergne, up until around A.D. 475, the Burgundians supported the efforts of the Gallic senators to oppose Euric. However, they were distracted by conflict with the Alamanni over the Langres, Besancon and the Jura, which they successfully gained (thus part of Lugdunensis I and all of Maxima Sequanorum fell into their hands). During this time, Euric persisted in his attempts to obtain the rich country of Auvergne, which held out for four years. Perhaps as a result of the relative inattention of the Burgundians, the Auvergne was eventually ceded to him as part of a peace agreement with Julius Nepos in A.D. 475.

The agreement greatly strengthened the Goths, who had already conquered Spain and the Aquitaine. The peace lasted for a year, then Euric seized Arles and Marseilles. Anthemius’s successor, Zeno, could not change the situation and conceded southern Provence to the Goths. The Burgundians, wary of their dangerous neighbor, also made peace with Euric.

From A.D. 474, when he left Rome, until A.D. 490, little, if anything, is known of Gundobad’s actions, though it is not too far of a stretch to assume that he took some part in the battles against the Goths and also in negotiations with both Rome and Constantinople. However, in A.D. 490, Gundobad took advantage of the conflict in Italy between Odovacar and Theoderic the Ostrogoth, and sent an army into northern Italy to pillage the countryside.

He may have done so in support of Odovacar, he may have been playing the vulture, or he may have been wary of being caught between two Goth kingdoms and hoped a preemptive strike would weaken Theoderic to prevent such a situation. He also may have had more legal matters in mind, too, as he would later claim that his actions had been to gain compensation at the expense of the Ligurians for the violation of a treaty on the part of one of their rulers. What is clear is that, by this time, it seems Gundobad was the preeminent king among the Burgundians.

Gundobad pillaged the countryside and took Ligurian captives and, his goal accomplished, returned to his lands before Theodoric could muster a force to confront him. Shortly thereafter, Theoderic sent an embassy to parley for the return of hostages. Bishop Epiphanius was head of this diplomatic group and was accompanied by Ennodius, who wrote:

Liguria had been devastated by the Burgundians; King Gundobad had carried thousands into captivity, and no husbandmen were left to till the soil and tend the vineyards. Theoderic was prepared to ransom the captives, and he charged Epiphanius with the office of persuading the Burgundian king to release them. The bishop, notwithstanding his infirm age, undertook the cold and difficult journey over the Alps in March (A.D. 494), and was received by Gundobad at Lyons. To the arguments and prayers of the envoy, Gundobad, who was an excellent speaker, replied with the frank and cynical assertion that war permits and justifies everything which is unlawful in peace. ‘War ignores the bridle of moderation which you, as a Christian luminary, teach. It is a fixed principle with belligerents that whatever is not lawful is lawful when they are fighting. The object of war is to cut up your opponent's strength at the roots.’ He went on to say that a peace had now been concluded — it had been sealed by the betrothal of a daughter of Theoderic to Gundobad's son Sigismund — and that if the bishop and his companions would return to their homes he would consider what it were best to do in the interests of his soul and his kingdom. Epiphanius had gained his cause. Gundobad set free all prisoners who were in his own hands, without charge, and those who were the slaves of private persons were ransomed. More than six thousand were restored to Italy.

Theoderic had to contend with four chief powers; the Visigoths, the Burgundians, the Franks, and the Vandals. As such, he used his female relatives as agents of political alliances. As alluded to in the above passage, Theoderic gave one daughter Ostrogotho-Areagni** to Gundobad’s son, Sigismund, and another, Thiudogotho to the Visigothic king Alaric II. He himself married Audofleda, sister of the Frankish king Clovis. There is no chronology of the marriages, though it is probable that the marriages of Theodoric and Clovis took place before those of Theodoric’s daughters. The marriage between Sigismund and Ostrogotho was probably formalized by A.D. 496 and occurred no later than A.D. 497.

With these marriages, Theoderic hoped that close family ties with other barbarian powers would both maintain peace in Western Europe and secure his own position in Italy. Gundobad also saw the diplomatic benefits of royal marriage and arranged for his niece, Clotilda, to marry the Frank king, Clovis.


* Lucumo/Tanaquil and Germanicus/Agrippina are allusions to Chilperic I and his wife. The first were a legendary king and queen of Rome and the second were involved in Roman politics and intrigue c. A.D. 20. The Cibyrates were two brothers who helped Verres, a governor of Sicily, plunder his province in 73-30 B.C. There is some confusion regarding this unnamed Queen, with some scholars confusing her with Gundobad's wife, Caratena.

** Theoderic additionally gave gifts to Gundobad, including a sun-dial, a water-clock, and a celestial globe.


UP NEXT: Clotilda

SOURCES:

Jordanes, Goths.
Bury, Roman Empire.
Wolfram, Germanic Peoples.
Bury, Invasion of Europe.
Chronica Gallica, DXI, ed. Th. Mommsen Chronica Minora I, MGH AA 9 (1892), 664-666, trans. A.C. Murray in Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Avitus of Vienne, Shanzer and Wood.
Barnwell, Emperor, Prefects, & Kings.
Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Heather, “The Huns”.
Michael Frassetto, ed., “Gundobad,” in Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC Clio, 2003).
Michael Frassetto, ed., “Gundobad,” in Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC Clio, 2003).
Ian Wood, “Kings, Kingdoms and Consent.”
Sidonius, in Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Dill, Roman Society.
Ennodius Opera, ed. Hartel, (1882), 276, 369, (Hist. Misc. 15.16) in Bury, Roman Empire.

Gundobad's Rise to Power - Roman Patrician

During the late 5th century, the Burgundians were threatened by the Visigothic king Euric, who had succeeded his brother Theodoric II as king of the Visigoths in A.D. 472 under suspicious circumstances. Euric made forays into Gaul and seized Bourges and Arles and rampaged along the Rhone valley. Fear of immediate, prolonged war with the Burgundians tempered his actions, but he left the land in tatters, facing imminent famine. (It was during this time that the archbishop Patiens gathered and dispersed food throughout the countryside at his own expense).

Around A.D. 470, the Burgundian king Gundioc died and was succeeded by his brother Chilperic I, who apparently took his duty as an imperial federate seriously, if actions are any indicator. Chilperic pushed the attacking Visigoths out of the lower Rhone Valley. This conflict devastated the surrounding countryside, and hit the Romans especially hard.

Gundobad was a son of Gundioc and had joined the imperial service as a protégé of his uncle, Ricimer, the Patrician of Rome. (See, for example, J.B. Bury, Invasion of Europe, p.164, for the explanation that Ricimer’s sister was wife to Gundioc, Gundobad’s father. Thus, Ricimer was Gundobad’s uncle). In A.D. 472, Italy was essentially divided into two kingdoms. One was ruled by the Western Emperor, Anthemius, in Rome, and the other was ruled by Ricimer in Milan. Ricimer, who also happened to be Anthemius’s son in law, raised Olybrius as Western Emperor, attacked Anthemius in Rome and was victorious. Anthemius disguised himself and hid in the church of St. Chrysogonus after his supporters surrendered to Ricimer. His disguise failed and he was discovered and killed by Ricimer and Gundobad.

Ricimer died six weeks after the death of Anthemius and Emperor Olybrius replaced him with Gundobad. Upon Olybrius’s own death in A.D. 473, Gundobad selected an unknown named Glycerius as his candidate for Emperor of the West. Glycerius, perhaps in a show of gratitude, also appointed one of the Gundobad’s kinsmen, either Chilperic I (Gundobad’s uncle) or Chilperic II (Gundobad’s brother), as master of soldiers in Gaul, based in Lyons, in A.D. 474. The confusion over which Chilperic was so rewarded is an ongoing debate.

Many historians believe that this title was conferred upon Chilperic I, Gundobad’s uncle and brother to Gundioc, as a reward for defending against the Visigoths in the Rhone valley around A.D. 470. However, some, like Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood (Avitus of Vienne, 209) point out that it is also unclear which Chilperic, either Gundobad’s uncle or his brother, was named Magister Utriusque Militiae and Patricius in A.D. 474 and then continued to rule in Lyons and Geneva.

It is my belief that since Gundioc and Chilperic I assumed leadership of the Burgundians shortly after Chalons (A.D. 451), it seems plausible that the title of MVM was probably given to Gundobad’s brother Chilperic II, who would have been close in age to his brother and more militarily active than a relatively old uncle, and thus a more likely candidate to mount a defense against Euric’s Visigoths. We'll probably never know for sure.

Emperor Leo had disagreed with Gundobad’s imperial selection and sent Julius Nepos to Rome to take the throne by force. Gundobad did not wait for Julius Nepos and instead departed for the realm of the Burgundians, perhaps to solidify his claims of inheritance against those of his brothers. Thus, with no real opposition, Nepos arrived in Italy, unseated Glycerius and was proclaimed Emperor at Rome on June 24, 474.

Gundobad’s activities in Rome as both magister militum and patricius exposed him to the Roman court. He was probably well educated, perhaps more than any other of his contemporaries, and he, again, more than any other barbarian king, was familiar with imperial politics and the workings of Rome. This familiarity proved valuable in his later career as king of a nation of Burgundians and Romans.

UP NEXT: Gundobad - Burgundian King

SOURCES:

Jordanes, Goths.
Bury, Roman Empire.
Wolfram, Germanic Peoples.
Bury, Invasion of Europe.
Chronica Gallica, DXI, ed. Th. Mommsen Chronica Minora I, MGH AA 9 (1892), 664-666, trans. A.C. Murray in Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Avitus of Vienne, Shanzer and Wood.
Barnwell, Emperor, Prefects, & Kings.
Murray, Merovingian Gaul.
Heather, “The Huns”.
Michael Frassetto, ed., “Gundobad,” in Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC Clio, 2003).