#merovingians

[medievalistsnet]

New Medieval Books: Merovingian Worlds

[saintpuffy]

[nanshe-of-nina]

Medieval Women Week || free day! ↬ Saint Radegund

Long before she founded her convent in Poitiers, Radegund expected to live out her days as a queen. She was born into the royal house of the Kingdom of Thuringia, in what is today central Germany. The precise year of her birth, as with so many events in her life, cannot be determined with certainty, but it fell in either the late 510s or, more likely, the early 520s. While she was still very young, Radegund lost both of her parents. Yet this tragedy was soon eclipsed by the downfall of her dynasty, and the slaughter of most members of her family, following an invasion by the Franks in 531. King Chlothar I took Radegund as his captive and later made her his bride. For several years, the young Radegund reigned as queen alongside the very man who had butchered many of her relatives, until Chlothar went one step further and caused her surviving brother to be killed. Following this unforgivable crime, Radegund took religious vows and, after living for a few years in a villa, she founded her grand convent in Poitiers during the 550s. There she remained, in pious devotion and ascetic self- denial, until her death in 587 (outliving Chlothar by more than a quarter century). In what might be considered her greatest single achievement, she obtained from the imperial court in Constantinople what were thought to be fragments of the ‘True Cross’, the wood used to crucify Jesus on the hill of Golgotha in Jerusalem. Facing down opposition from her local bishop, Radegund managed to have the relic placed within her convent, which subsequently acquired the name of ‘Holy Cross.’ — Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen by E.T. Dailey

[littlehistorian]

The marriage of Clovis (481-511) King of the Franks with Clothilde in 493. French School.

[illustratus]

The Sons of Clovis II, also called "Les Énervés de Jumièges"

by Évariste Vital Luminais

[dreamconsumer]

St. Clotilda. Unknown artist.

[isadomna]

Brunhild could not help but be unmoored; her rival had been the one constant in the ever-shifting political waters. Fredegund’s actions had informed her own for the past thirty years. She had grown so used to trying to anticipate Fredegund’s next plot; it would have felt strange to drift to sleep without that worry. Brunhild also felt her age. Nearly every royal, bishop and duke she had worked with or against was gone, replaced by their own children, or by a new family altogether. Brunhild’s political activities in the aftermath of Fredegund’s death were strangely civil. She launched no attacks on Neustria, not even to take back the recently conquered territories. It is unclear whether that was due to bad advice by her military advisers or if Brunhild herself decided to allow Neustria to mourn its queen in peace. But Brunhild could afford to be magnanimous.

Shelley Puhak, The Dark Queens: A gripping tale of power, ambition and murderous rivalry in early medieval

[laceandsteelgirl]

are you team…

brunhild

fredegund

I’m bald/I am googling them now

Voting ended onMay 11, 2025