|
||||||||||||
| Spouses | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Notes for 'Clotaire I' "Chlothar/Chlloderic" "the Old" "King of the Franks" | ||||||||||||
| [GREATx45 GRANDFATHER]+ [A] [K] King of Soissons 511-558 King of Austrasia 555-558 King of the Franks 558-561 Son of Clovis I, King of the Franks, he inherited Soissons on his death in 511. He, with his four brothers, attacked and defeated Burgundy under the kings Sigisbert and Godomar early in his reign. With his oldest brother Theuderic I, King of Metz, he attacked the Thuringian Franksunder King Hermanfrid, took the kingdom, and took his daughter Radegund. Next, with his brother Childebert I, King of Paris, Chlotar murdered his nephews who were under the care of Queen Clotilda his mother. WhenTheuderic died, the kingdom was up for grabs. Chlotar and Childebert each received only a small part, the most of it going to Theudebert, his son. In 555, Theudebald, who had succeeded his father Theudebert in Austrasia, died, and Austrasia passed to Chlotar. When Childebert died in 558, Parisfell to Chlotar as well, thus making him sole ruler of the Franks. When Chlotar died in 561, the kingdom was divided among his 4 living sons: Charibert (Paris), Guntram (Burgundy), Chilperic (Soissons), and Sigebert (Metz). The Merovingians were a dynasty of Frankish kings who ruled a frequently fluctuating area in parts of present-day France and Germany from the fifth to the eighth century. They were sometimes referred to as the "long-haired kings" (Latin reges criniti) by contemporaries, for their symbolically unshorn hair (traditionally the tribal leader of the Franks wore his hair long, while the warriors trimmed it short). The Merovingian dynasty owes its name to Merovech (sometimes Latinised as Meroveus or Merovius), leader of the Salian Franks from c.447 to 457, and emerges into wider history with the victories of his son Childeric I (reigned c.457 – 481) against the Visigoths, Saxons, and Alemanni. Childeric's son Clovis I went on to unite most of Gaul north of the Loire under his control around 486, when he defeated Syagrius, the Roman ruler in those parts. He won the Battle of Tolbiac against the Alemanni in 496, on which occasion he adopted his wife's Roman Catholic faith, and decisively defeated the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouillé in 507. After Clovis' death, his kingdom was partitioned among his four sons, according to Frankish custom. Over the next century, this tradition of partition would continue. Even when multiple Merovingian kings ruled, the kingdom — not unlike the late Roman Empire — was conceived of as a single entity ruled collectively by several kings (in their own realms) and the turn of events could result in the reunification of the whole kingdom under a single king. Leadership among the early Merovingians was based on mythical descent and alleged divine patronage, expressed in terms of continued military success. - [1] The Merovingian king was the master of the booty of war, both movable and in lands and their folk, and he was in charge of the redistribution of conquered wealth among the first of his followers. "When he died his property was divided equally among his heirs as though it were private property: the kingdom was a form of patrimony" (Rouche 1987 p 420). The kings appointed magnates to be comites, charging them with defence, administration, and the judgement of disputes. This happened against the backdrop of a newly isolated Europe without its Roman systems of taxation and bureaucracy, the Franks having taken over administration as they gradually penetrated into the thoroughly Romanised west and south of Gaul. The counts had to provide armies, enlisting their milites and endowing them with land in return. These armies were subject to the king's call for military support. There were annual national assemblies of the nobles of the realm and their armed retainers which decides major policies of warmaking. The army also acclaimed new kings by raising them on its shields in a continuance of ancient practice which made the king the leader of the warrior-band, not a head of state. Furthermore, the king was expected to support himself with the products of his private domain (royal demesne), which was called the fisc. Some scholars have attributed this to the Merovingians lacking a sense of res publica, but other historians have criticized this view as an oversimplification. This system developed in time into feudalism, and expectations of royal self-sufficiency lasted until the Hundred Years' War. Trade declined with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and agricultural estates were mostly self-sufficient. The remaining international trade was dominated by Middle Eastern merchants. Merovingian law was not universal law based on rational equity, generally applicable to all, as Roman law; it was applied to each man according to his origin: Ripuarian Franks were subject to their own Lex Ribuaria, codified at a late date (Beyerle and Buchner 1954), while the so-called Lex Salica (Salic Law) of the Salian clans, first tentatively codified in 511 (Rouche 1987 p 423) was invoked under medieval exigencies as late as the Valois era. In this the Franks lagged behind the Burgundians and the Visigoths, that they had no universal Roman-based law. In Merovingian times, law remained in the rote memorisation of rachimburgs, who memorised all the precedents on which it was based, for Merovingian law did not admit of the concept of creating new law, only of maintaining tradition. Nor did its Germanic traditions offer any code of civil law required of urbanised society, such as Justinian caused to be assembled and promulgated in the Byzantine Empire. The few surviving Merovingian edicts are almost entirely concerned with settling divisions of estates among heirs. - [1] The Merovingian kingdom, which included, from at latest 509, all the Franks and all of Gaul but Burgundy, from its first division in 511 was in an almost constant state of war, usually civil. The sons of Clovis maintained their fraternal bonds in wars with the Burgundians, but showed that dangerous vice of personal aggrandisement when their brothers died. Heirs were seized and executed and kingdoms annexed. - [1] Clotaire I (also Chlothar or Chloderic, sometimes called le Vieux or the Old) (497 – 561), a king of the Franks, was one of the four sons of Clovis. He was born about 497 in Soissons (now in Aisne département, Picardie, France). On the death of his father in 511, he received, as his share of the kingdom, the town of Soissons, which he made his capital; the cities of Laon, Noyon, Cambrai, and Maastricht; and the lower course of the Meuse River. But he was very ambitious, and sought to extend his domain. He was the chief instigator of the murder of his brother Chlodomer's children in 524, and his share of the spoils consisted of the cities of Tours and Poitiers. He took part in various expeditions against Burgundy and, after the destruction of that kingdom in 534, obtained Grenoble, Die, and some of the neighbouring cities. When the Ostrogoths ceded Provence to the Franks, he received the cities of Orange, Carpentras, and Gap. In 531, he marched against the Thuringii with his brother Theuderic I and in 542, with his brother Childebert I against the Visigoths of Spain. On the death of his great-nephew Theodebald in 555, Clotaire annexed his territories. On Childebert's death in 558 he became sole king of the Franks. He also ruled over the greater part of Germany, made expeditions into Saxony, and for some time exacted from the Saxons an annual tribute of 500 cows. The end of his reign was troubled by internal dissensions, his son Chram rising against him on several occasions. Following Chram into Brittany, where the rebel had taken refuge, Clotaire shut him up with his wife and children in a cottage, which he set on fire. Overwhelmed with remorse, he went to Tours to implore forgiveness at the tomb of St Martin, and died shortly afterwards. - [2] [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotaire_I | ||||||||||||
| Last Modified 25 Jun 2006 | Created 26 Nov 2008 using Reunion for Macintosh |