“The feud began with Galswintha, the cherished older sister of Queen Brunhilde. Galwintha was received by Chilperic, and united to him in marriage, and she had brought great treasures from the Visigoths. But because of his love of his former slave, Fredegund, there arose a great scandal. Galwintha complained to the king that she was continually enduring outrages and had no honor with him, she asked to leave the treasures which she had brought with her and be permitted to go free to her native land. But Chilperic calmed her with gentle words. The next day, Galswintha was found strangled and dead on the bed. The king had mourned her death a few days, but then promptly married Fredegund … Even now, decades later, you may be quite sure that the hatred which Queen Brunhild and Queen Fredegund have borne each other for many years, far from withering away, is as strong as ever. The feuds which have bound them together for so long are still maintained.”
–Gregory of Tours, 6th Century
For half a century after the collapse of the Roman Empire, the former Roman Gallic heartland was ruled not by warriors, barbarians, or kings, but by two queens: Brunhild and Fredegund. One was a princess from the Visigothic kingdom—Brunhild was a foreigner in a foreign land whose rise to power had to overcome the suspicion of men and the distrust of outsiders. The other was a slave of unknown origin, whose early life was shaped by cruelty, barbarism, and survival. Fredegund’s rise saw her go from chains to golden circlets.
Despite similar upheavals in their lives, these two queens were not united by shared hardship but by mutual hatred. Their feud burned longer than that of any other European monarch until the age of Charlemagne.
Before being married off to the Frankish warlords of the north, Brunhild was a modest princess of the Visigoths whose future did not appear especially bright. Those honors belonged to her older sister, Galswintha. The rival brothers, King Sigibert of Austrasia and King Chilperic of Neustria, quarreled over the hand of the beautiful princess Galswintha. When her hand was won by Chilperic, Brunhild was given to Sigibert as a consolation prize.
What should have been a complete victory for the young and ambitious Chilperic soon soured. Within Chilperic’s court lived a lowly servant of striking beauty, irresistible charisma, and political counsel that rivaled the most cunning tongues of any man. Though Chilperic was married to Galswintha in a holy union, his true loyalties lay at the feet of this former slave, Fredegund.
When Galswintha discovered the affair, her honor was shattered and she demanded to return home. The next morning, she was found strangled in her bed, and by the end of the week Fredegund stood at the altar and crowned the new Queen of Neustria. When Queen Brunhild, who had worked hard to earn the trust and respect of the Frankish nobles of Austrasia, learned what had happened to her beloved sister, she counseled her husband in matters of war and vengeance.
This war of justice ignited into an uncontrollable series of violence that soon left both brothers dead and the two kingdoms without their kings—save for the queens themselves. Fredegund, skilled in the ancient manuscripts of poison and intrigued maintained control with wit and political acumen. Brunhild, whose devotion and courage saw her manning full armor and personally leading her army from the front lines maintained control through her strong personal alliances like that of Gregory of Tours and the poet Fortunatus-- who admired the strength and tenacity of the warrior Queen.
Through bloodshed, poison, and plague, these two regents would rule a vast realm from the Atlantic to the Rhine. The generation of men after them tried their hardest to scrub the story of these two women away from all analects and records of history. Despite their brutish and harsh attempts, their efforts ultimately failed as the impacts of these two rivals became the a corner stone for the borders, laws, and religion of the new Post-Roman world.
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