Childeric I

Childeric I
Copy of the signet ring of Childeric (original stolen in 1831). Inscription CHILDIRICI REGIS ("of king Childeric").[1] The original was found in his tomb at Tournai (Monnaie de Paris).
King of the Salian Franks
Reign	c. 457–481
Successor	Clovis I
Died	c. 481
Burial	Tournai (present-day Belgium)
Spouse	Basina of Thuringia
Issue	Clovis I Audofleda Lanthilde Albofledis
Dynasty	Merovingian
Father	Merovech

Childeric I (died about 481/482 AD) was a 5th-century Frankish leader in what is now northern France, during the period when this part of Roman Gaul became permanently disconnected from the central Roman government in 461, and the last emperor based in Italy was dethroned in 476. He is the ancestor of the early medieval Merovingian dynasty, and father of Clovis I, who would go on to acquire effective control over all or most of the small Frankish kingdoms of the time, and unite a significant part of Gaul under Frankish rule.

Childeric was described as a king (Latin: rex), both on his Roman-style seal ring, which was buried with him in Tournai, and in fragmentary later records of his life, but the correct interpretation of the term rex in northern Gaul in this period is a subject of scholarly uncertainty. He and the Frankish forces loyal to him seem to have coordinated with the Roman forces during a period when Roman chains of command were no longer stable. According to a common, but not universally accepted interpretation of a letter written by Saint Remigius, Childeric, or at least the ancestors (parentes) of Clovis, even held an official position within the Roman administration of northern Gaul. The family background of Childeric is uncertain but he was reputed to be a descendant of Chlodio, and as a leader of Frankish troops based within the Roman emperor he may, like several Gaulish military leaders in his generation, have served when younger under the powerful Roman military leader and statesman Aëtius, who died in 454.

The only definitely near-contemporary source to mention the 6th-century History of the Franks of Gregory of Tours, who mentions him twice, once concerning a legend about him spending time in exile, and once in a compressed account of conflicts mainly near the river Loire, which at the time represented a zone of confrontation against the expanding power of the Visigoths in what is now southwestern France. Both of these passages associate Childeric with the Gallo-Roman general Aegidius. Two later works which drew upon Gregory also mention Childeric, the Chronicle of Fredegar, and the Liber Historiae Francorum. They are considered less reliable overall for this period. However they added information which may reflect other sources which the authors had available.

Another brief mention of Childeric which which may derive from near-contemporary material is the medieval biography of Saint Genevieve, the Vita Genovefae. It mentions that Childeric had a great love for the saint.

Ancestry

Gregory of Tours, whose 6th-century History of the Franks is one of the only near-contemporary sources to mention Childeric, names the father of Childeric as Merovech. The Merovingian dynasty was named after Merovech but no information about his life has survived. Gregory mentioned that some people in his time said that Merovech was descended from Chlodio, who took control of some Roman populated areas including Cambrai in the early 5th century.^[2]

Later medieval sources do not always agree about Childeric's ancestry, and some are elaborate and unreliable. The Fredegar chronicle (III.10) says that Merovech was born after a sea beast attacked the wife of Chlodio while she was swimming, making it uncertain whether Chlodio or the monster was the father.

In modern times it has been suggested for example that Childeric descended from Merovech on his mother's side.^[3]

Connection to Roman military

Although there are very few records of Childeric, several associate him with his contemporary, the Gallo-Roman noble Aegidius, who was assigned as Roman military commander for Gaul (Latin: magister militum per gallias) around 457, when Majorian replaced Avitus as emperor.^[4]

Further back in time, some historians such as Guy Halsall have speculated that Childeric was probably old enough to have begun a Roman military career in the service of Flavius Aetius (d. 434), who defeated Attila in Gaul in 451. Halsall notes that Childeric's military career appears to have played out far from the Frankish homelands, in areas where he was fighting for Roman interests.^[5]

Aetius died in 454, and was himself strongly associated with the Huns of Attila both as an ally, and later as an enemy. Among those who served under Aëtius were the emperor Majorian, the king-maker Ricimer who had Majorian enthroned in 457, and Aegidius himself, who rejected the legitimacy of the new emperor in Rome after the murder of Majorian in 461—effectively separating northern Gaul from Italian control.

Exile legend

The first and by far the largest of the two parts of Childeric's life which Gregory (II.12) reports is the story of his exile and marraige. He says that as king he was excessively wanton and began to dishonour the daughters of his fellow Franks. They ejected him from his position and wanted to kill him, and so he escaped to "Thuringia" (a term which sometimes seems to represent the Tongeren region in this part of Gregory's work). He left an ally among the Franks to try to calm them and prepare the situation for his return. He and his friend agreed that he would receive a secret signal when the time was right, and Childeric went to stay with king Basinus and Basina his wife. According to Gregory, it was eight years before Childeric received this signal to return.^[6] When he left Thuringia, Basina left her husband to come with Childeric. Gregory narrates: "I know your worth," said she, "and that you are very strong, and therefore I have come to Hve with you. For let me tell you that if I had known of anyone more worthy than you in parts beyond the sea I should certainly have sought to live with him." ^[6]

The Chronicle of Fredegar names the faithful friend of Childeric as "Wiomad", and says that he was a Frank who had once rescued Childeric by flight when he and his mother were being led away captive by the Huns. The Liber Historiae Francorum calls him Viomad. They tell stories about Wiomad deliberately advising Aegidius to make bad decisions which made him unpopular, so that Childeric could return.

Modern scholars are sceptical of Gregory's report that while Childeric was gone, the Franks elected the Roman Aegidius, described as the commander of the Roman troops, as their "king", in the place of Childeric, but several have speculated that the story may have reflected a memory of something real. For example, the story explains the origins of the mother of Clovis, who appeared in later genealogies.

Guy Halsall proposes that the 8 year period may reflect the span of time when Aegidius led the Roman forces of northern Gaul, from 457 until his death in 465.^[7] He also suggested that the story might be connected to the refusal of Aegidius to accept Severus as emperor after the murder of Majorian in 461, putting his Roman position in doubt. Halsall proposed that "to legitimise his position", Aegius may have taken the Frankish title instead.^[8]

Ulrich Nonn (map p. 37, and pp. 99–100), following his teacher Eugen Ewig, believes that the exile story reflects a real sequence of events whereby Childeric was a leader of "Salian" or "Belgian" Franks based in the Romanized areas conquered by Chlodio. He believes they not constituted a Roman allied force under the lordship of Aegidius, which he was temporarily able to take over when Chlodio and his imperial patron died.

The Battle of Orleans (463)

In a passage normally considered to have come from a lost collection of annals, Gregory (II.18-19) gave a sequence of events which are very difficult to interpret. Modern scholars consider it to be "only loosely connected to together, and ambiguous in terms of chronology and cause and effect".^[9]

In the first part, Childeric is said to have been in battle at Orleans. This is generally equated to the Battle of Orléans (463), which other sources (Hydatius, Marius of Avranches, and the Gallic Chronicle of 511) all report as a battle where Frederic, the brother of the Visigothic king Theoderic II, was killed fighting Aegidius and the Franks, although none of these sources mention Childeric. It then lists several other events including the death of Aegidius which is known from other sources to have happened about 465.^[10] The passage begins as follows:^[11]

II.18. Igitur Childericus Aurilianis pugnas egit,	Now Childeric fought battles at Orleans,
Adovacrius vero cum Saxonibus Andecavo venit.	while Adovacrius came with the Saxons to Angers.
Magna tunc lues populum devastavit.	At that time a great plague devastated the people.
Mortuus est autem Egidius et reliquit filium Syagrium nomine.	Aegidius died and left a son named Syagrius.

This battle of Orleans was part of the Gothic war against Aegidius, in which the Visigoths are believed to have attacked Aegidius in northern Gaul as allies of the Roman king-maker Ricimer and his puppet emperor Libius Severus, who granted the Visigoths the coastal region of Narbonne.

Further fighting near the Loire (c. 469)

In the next part of the passage, after the death of Aegidius, Childeric and a Roman named Count Paul, who is unknown from any other record, led Roman and Frankish forces in the Loire region against both the Saxons in Angers, who had been mentioned already, just before the death of Aegidius, and the Visigoths, who were not yet mentioned in this passage. Although modern scholars tend to interpret the passage to mean that Count Paul and Childeric were on the same side, both the Chronicle of Fredegar and the Liber Historiae Francorum interpreted Gregory to mean that Childeric killed Count Paul, and as historian Edward James has pointed out "there were at least two factions among the Romans, and Paul's Romans were not necessarily Aegidius's Romans, nor, indeed, was Childeric ever necessary an ally of Aegidius".^[12]

These events are normally dated to the period around 469 during the Gothic revolt of Euric, when the Visigoths attempted to expand their territory into northern Gaul, but this time without a Roman alliance. John of Antioch (fragment Mariev 229) reported that "the Gothic people who were living in western Gaul and who were of old named after Alaric", began hostilities at the same time as the Theodemir in Pannonia, and the Tzani in Trapezus. According to the 6th-century writer Jordanes the emperor Anthemius called upon a force from Britain led by Riothamus to help, and the passage of Gregory notes that "the Britons were driven out of the territory of the Bituriges [around Bourges] by the Goths, many having been killed near the village of Déols.^[13]

Next, Gregory mentions that Count Paul attacked the Goths together with Romans and Franks, and took booty, presumably indicating a victory against the Goths who had fought the Britons. Next in the listing of events given by Gregory: Adovacrius came to Angers, and King Childeric arrived on the following day; Count Paul having been killed, he [Childeric] took possession of the city. After these events, war was waged between the Saxons and the Romans. But the Saxons turned their backs in flight, and, as the Romans pursued them, left many of their own men behind to the sword. Their islands were captured by the Franks and destroyed, with a large number of people killed.^[11]

The Saxons were under a leader named "Adovacrius", sometimes given by modern authors in an Anglo-Saxon spelling form, Eadwacer, or in a spelling the same as used for his contemporary the future King of Italy Odoacer, with whom he is sometimes equated. The origin of both the "Saxons" is however unclear. They may have come from Britain, and may have been coordinating with the Goths who were also mentioned in the same passage. Concerning their island bases Halsall has noted that "whether these are in the Loire, such as were used by the Vikings later on, or off the coast of Gaul is also unclear".^[14]

Alliance with Odoacer

In the same short passage mentioning Angers, Gregory of Tours (II.19) then reports that Odovacrius (with spelling variants Odovacrus and Adovachrius in different manuscripts), entered into an alliance with Childeric, and they subdued the Alamanni, who had overrun part of Italy. Earlier in the passage Adovacrius (with variants Adovagrius and Odovacrio), had led the Saxon forces in Angers. Many scholars see this a record of an alliance between Childeric and Odoacer who became ruler of Italy after 476, but this has been controversial partly because of the mention of "Adovacrius" leading Saxons in the same passage, who Gregory may have seen as the same person.

For example, the PLRE interpretation equates both Adovacrius and Odovacrius in this text with Odoacer who "may have gone to Gaul to seek his fortune after the death of Attila and the break-up of the Hun empire" and he "apparently became leader of a group of Saxons in Gaul".^[15] In 1986 Krautschick noted that Gregory of Tours never says that this Adovacrius was himself a Saxon.^[16] Furthermore he felt that this name was not common enough to make it likely that there were two at the same time. He proposed that in 463 Odoacar would have been old enough to lead a warband, and if he had fought for Attila on the Catalaunian Plains in 451, he may have made his way from there to the Saxons. Alternatively, as the son of a high-ranking Hunnic dignitary, he could have begun working with the Saxons as part of a commission under Attila, who lived until 453.^[17]

Other historians there must be an error. Some believe that Adovacrius and Odovacrius must be different people, and some argue that neither of the mentions in this passage is the king of Italy. Bachrach for example interprets these Alemanni to be a mistaken reference to the Alans, a people established in the Loire region in this period, despite the mention of Italy.

In 1946, Reynolds and Lopez interpreted the passage as showing that Gregory must "have had reason to fuse" the Saxon leader and the later King of Italy, and they argued that this was likely to be correct. Odoacer the king of Italy grew up among the allies of Attila, and the period of the battles on the Loire was between the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451, when the Huns and their allies were defeated by their former ally Aëtius in Gaul, and the 470s when Odoacer took up service in the Roman military in Italy.^[18]

In 1988 James noted that many scholars assumed that the Alamanni mentioned in this passage must in fact be Alans, who had a settlement in the Loire region, "on the grounds that Childeric could hardly have been fighting in Italy". However, as most scholars presumed Adovacrius and Odovacrius to be the same person, and the second one is "almost certainly" the ruler of Italy, he argued that the passage shows that Childeric was playing a political role within what was left of the Roman empire.^[12]

In contrast, 2003 MacGeorge argued on the grounds of spelling variations that Gregory was not deliberately meaning to imply that he was referring to one person. She noted that in "virtually all the manuscripts the name in chapter 18 is Adovacrius (or Adovagrius) and in chapter 19 Odovacrius" saying it is "interesting" that he divided the material into two chapters, and arguing that while II.18 and II.19 were linked by Gregory, this is only "because they referred to conflicts in the same region, and because both mentioned Childeric".^[19]

In 2004 Matthias Springer noted that Odoacer the future king of Italy is often understood to have had an ancestral connection to the early Thuringians, and these in turn were not yet clearly distinguished from the Saxons to their north. He believed that this could explain the connection between the young Odoacer and a group of Saxons.^[20]

In 2007 Halsall wrote that many scholars "almost certainly incorrectly" equate Adovacrius and Odoacer.^[14]

Political status of Childeric after the death of Aegidius (465)

After the death of Aegidius in 465 it is even more unclear how political power in Northern Gaul was divided between various figures such as Childeric, or how many leaders there were. There was clearly more than one Roman (civitas) (city district) which was ruled by a king—Gregory mentioned several Frankish kings of cities such as Ragnachar in Cambrai. Also, apart from Syagrius the son of Aegidius who ruled as "king of Romans" in Soissons two letters from contemporary Romans mention a Roman named Arbogast, based in Trier, who is referred to in one letter with the Roman title of comes (count), even though the other letter mentions that Roman law is no longer in effect around Trier.^[21] Childeric on the other hand was not associated with a specific city in contemporary documents, even though archaeological evidence shows that he was buried in Tournai.

Some historians such as Edward James have proposed that Childeric may have had a Roman leadership role over a larger area, and might even have been seen as a Roman office-holder in the way that the Burgundian kings were even after the dethroning of the last Western emperor by Odoacer in Italy in 476. James argued that this is shown by Childeric's alliance with Odoacer, who continued to rule as a Roman patrician in Italy, recognizing the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople.^[22]

James also noted that a letter by Saint Remigius to Clovis stated that his ancestors had administered the Roman province of Belgica Secunda which included Tournai, Cambrai, Reims, and Soissons.^[22]

The biography of Saint Genevieve mentions Childeric twice as an important person in the context of the Paris region. Childeric's grave also shows the insignia of a Roman military commander, and so when Gregory mentions that Childeric worked with Odoacer against Allamanni who were threatening a part of Italy, James takes the possibility seriously.^[22]

Marriage, children, and death

Gregory of Tours, in his History of the Franks, mentions several siblings of Clovis within his narrative, apparently thus children of Childeric:

1. Clovis I (died 511), whose mother was Basina.
2. Audofleda, Queen of the Ostrogoths, wife of Theodoric the Great. Gregory III.31 also mentions their daughter Amalasuntha.
3. Lanthechild. Gregory II.31 mentions she had been an Arian but converted to Catholicism with Clovis.
4. Albofleda (died approximately 500). Gregory II.31 mentions that she died soon after being baptized with Clovis.

Childeric is generally considered to have died in 481 or 482 based on Gregory's report (II.43) that his son Clovis had ruled 30 years when he died about 511.^[23]

Tomb

Childeric's tomb was discovered in 1653^[24] not far from the 12th-century church of Saint-Brice in Tournai, now in Belgium.^[25] Numerous precious objects were found, including jewels of gold and garnet cloisonné, gold coins, a gold bull's head, and a ring with the king's name inscribed. Also present were some 300 golden winged insects (usually viewed as bees or cicadas), which had been placed on the king's cloak.^[24] Archduke Leopold William, governor of the Southern Netherlands (today's Belgium), had the find published in Latin. The treasure went first to the Habsburgs in Vienna, then as a gift to King Louis XIV, who was not impressed with the treasure and stored it in the royal library, which became the Bibliothèque Nationale de France during the Revolution.

On the night of 5–6 November 1831, the treasure of Childeric was among 80 kg of treasure stolen from the Library and melted down for the gold. A few pieces were retrieved from where they had been hidden in the Seine, including two of the bees. The record of the treasure, however, now exists only in the fine engravings made at the time of its discovery and in some reproductions made for the Habsburgs.^[26]

References

Bibliography

• Cameron, Alan (1988). "Flavius: a Nicety of Protocol". Latomus. 47 (1): 26–33. JSTOR 41540754.
• Collins, Roger (1999). Early Medieval Europe: 300–1000 (Second ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-21886-9.
• Halsall, Guy (2007). Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376-568. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-43543-7.
• Heather, Peter (2006). The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532541-6.
• James, Edward (1988). The Franks. Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-17936-4.
• Krautschick, Stefan (1986), "Zwei Aspekte des Jahres 476", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 35 (3): 344–371, JSTOR 4435971
• MacGeorge, Penny (2002). Late Roman Warlords. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-25244-2.
• Martindale, John R., ed. (1980). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: Volume II, AD 395–527. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-20159-4.
• Murray, Alexander Callandar (2000). From Romans to Merovingian Gaul. Higher Education University of Toronto Press.
• Nonn, Ulrich (2010). Die Franken. Kohlhammer Verlag. ISBN 978-3-17-017814-4.
• Perin, Patrick. "Empreintes inédites de l'annaeau sigillaire de Childéric Ier". Antiquités nationales 39, 2008.
• Renard, Étienne (2014), "Le sang de Mérovée. 'Préhistoire' de la dynastie et du royaume mérovingiens", Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, 92–94: 999–1039
• Springer, Matthias (2004). Die Sachsen (in German). Kohlhammer Verlag. ISBN 978-3-17-023227-3.
• Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. (1982). The Long-Haired Kings. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-6500-7.
• Wickham, Chris (2009). The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400–1000. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-311742-1.
• Wood, Ian (1994). The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-582-49372-8.

External links

• Livius.org on Childeric
• Photo: Merovingian sword and scabbard mounts from the tomb of King Childeric featuring silver-gilt and cloisonné garnets
• "A note on Childeric's bees": the discovery of his tomb: follow the links for the engravings of Childeric's treasure and the two remaining gold bees.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Childeric" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 137.