530. AUSTRIA AND NEUSTRIA
Four years afterwards the brothers of Theuderich conquered the kingdom of Burgundy, and annexed it to their territory. About the same time, the Franks living eastward of the Rhine entered into a union with their more powerful brethren. Since both the Alemanni and the Bavarians were already tributary to the latter, the dominion of the united Franks now extended from the Atlantic nearly to the river Elbe, and from the mouth of the Rhine to the Mediterranean, with Friesland and the kingdom of the Saxons between it and the North Sea. To all lying east of the Rhine, the name of Austria (East-kingdom) or Austrasia was given, while Neustria (New-kingdom) was applied to all west of the Rhine. These designations were used in the historical chronicles for some centuries afterwards.
While Theuderich lived, his brothers observed a tolerably peaceful conduct towards one another, but his death was followed by a season of war and murder. History gives us no record of another dynasty so steeped in crime as that of the Merovingians: within the compass of a few years we find a father murdering his son, a brother his brother and a wife her husband. We can only account for the fact that the whole land was not constantly convulsed by civil war, by supposing that the people retained enough of power in their national assemblies, to refuse taking part in the fratricidal quarrels. It is not necessary, therefore, to recount all the details of the bloody family history. Their effect upon the people must have been in the highest degree demoralizing, yet the latter possessed enough of prudence—or perhaps of a clannish spirit, in the midst of a much larger Roman and Gallic population—to hold the Frank kingdom together, while its rulers were doing their best to split it to pieces.
The result of all the quarrelling and murdering was, that in 558 Clotar, the youngest son of Chlodwig, became the sole monarch. After forty-seven years of divided rule, the kingly power was again in a single hand, and there seemed to be a chance for peace and progress. But Clotar died within three years, and, like his father, left four sons to divide his power. The first thing they did was to fight; then, being perhaps rather equally matched, they agreed to portion the kingdom. Charibert reigned in Paris, Guntram in Orleans, Chilperic in Soissons, and Sigbert in Metz. The boundaries between their territories are uncertain; we only know that all of "Austria," or Germany east of the Rhine, fell to Sigbert's share.
565.
About this time the Avars, coming from Hungary, had invaded Thuringia, and were inciting the people to rebellion against the Franks. Sigbert immediately marched against them, drove them back, and established his authority over the Thuringians. On returning home he found that his brother Chilperic had taken possession of his capital and many smaller towns. Chilperic was forced to retreat, lost his own kingdom in turn, and only received it again through the generosity of Sigbert—the first and only instance of such a virtue in the Merovingian line of kings. Sigbert seems to have inherited the abilities, without the vices, of his grandfather Chlodwig. When the Avars made a second invasion into Germany, he was not only defeated but taken prisoner by them. Nevertheless, he immediately acquired such influence over their Khan, or chieftain, that he persuaded the latter to set him free, to make a treaty of peace and friendship, and to return with his Avars to Hungary.
In the year 568 Charibert died in Paris, leaving no heirs. A new strife instantly broke out among the three remaining brothers; but it was for a time suspended, owing to the approach of a common danger. The Longobards, now masters of Northern Italy, crossed the Alps and began to overrun Switzerland, which the Franks possessed, through their victories over the Burgundians and the Alemanni. Sigbert and Guntram united their forces, and repelled the invasion with much slaughter.
Then broke out in France a series of family wars, darker and bloodier than any which had gone before. The strife between the sons of Clotar and their children and grandchildren desolated France for forty years, and became all the more terrible because the women of the family entered into it with the men. All these Christian kings, like their father, were polygamists: each had several wives; yet they are described by the priestly chroniclers of their times as men who went about doing good, and whose lives were "acceptable to God"! Sigbert was the only exception: he had but one wife, Brunhilde, the daughter of a king of the Visigoths, a stately, handsome, intelligent woman, but proud and ambitious.
570. FAMILY WARS IN FRANCE.
Either the power and popularity, or the rich marriage-portion, which Sigbert acquired with Brunhilde, induced his brother, Chilperic, to ask the hand of her sister, the Princess Galsunta of Spain. It was granted to him on condition that he would put away all his wives and live with her alone. He accepted the condition, and was married to Galsunta. One of the women sent away was Fredegunde, who soon found means to recover her former influence over Chilperic's mind. It was not long before Galsunta was found dead in her bed, and within a week Fredegunde, the murderess, became queen in her stead. Brunhilde called upon Sigbert to revenge her sister's death, and then began that terrible history of crime and hatred, which was celebrated, centuries afterwards, in the famous Nibelungenlied, or Lay of the Nibelungs.
In the year 575, Sigbert gained a complete victory over Chilperic, and was lifted upon a shield by the warriors of the latter, who hailed him as their king. In that instant he was stabbed in the back, and died upon the field of his triumph. Chilperic resumed his sway, and soon took Brunhilde prisoner, while her young son, Childebert, escaped to Germany. But his own son, Merwig, espoused Brunhilde's cause, secretly released her from prison, and then married her. A war next arose between father and son, in which the former was successful. He cut off Merwig's long hair, and shut him up in a monastery; but, for some unexplained reason, he allowed Brunhilde to go free. In the meantime Fredegunde had borne three sons, who all died soon after their birth. She accused her own step-son of having caused their deaths by witchcraft, and he and his mother, one of Chilperic's former wives, were put to death.
Both Chilperic and his brother Guntram, who reigned at Orleans, were without male heirs. At this juncture, the German chiefs and nobles demanded to have Childebert, the young son of Sigbert and Brunhilde, who had taken refuge among them, recognized as the heir to the Frankish throne. Chilperic consented, on condition that Childebert, with such forces as he could command, would march with him against Guntram, who had despoiled him of a great deal of his territory. The treaty was made, in spite of the opposition of Brunhilde, whose sister's murder was not yet avenged, and the civil wars were renewed. Both sides gained or lost alternately, without any decided result, until the assassination of Chilperic, by an unknown hand, in 584. A few months before his death, Fredegunde had borne him another son, Clotar, who lived, and was at once presented by his mother as Childebert's rival to the throne.
597.
The struggle between the two widowed queens, Brunhilde and Fredegunde, was for a while delayed by the appearance of a new claimant, Gundobald, who had been a fugitive in Constantinople for many years, and declared that he was Chilperic's brother. He obtained the support of many Austrasian (German) princes, and was for a time so successful that Fredegunde was forced to take refuge with Guntram, at Orleans. The latter also summoned Childebert to his capital, and persuaded him to make a truce with Fredegunde and her adherents, in order that both might act against their common rival. Gundobald and his followers were soon destroyed: Guntram died in 593, and Childebert was at once accepted as his successor. His kingdom included that of Charibert, whose capital was Paris, and that of his father, Sigbert, embracing all Frankish Germany. But the nobles and people, accustomed to conspiracy, treachery and crime, could no longer be depended upon, as formerly. They were beginning to return to their former system of living upon war and pillage, instead of the honest arts of peace.
Fredegunde still held the kingdom of Chilperic for her son Clotar. After strengthening herself by secret intrigues with the Frank nobles, she raised an army, put herself at its head, and marched against Childebert, who was defeated and soon afterwards poisoned, after having reigned only three years. His realm was divided between his two young sons, one receiving Burgundy and the other Germany, under the guardianship of their grandmother Brunhilde. Fredegunde followed up her success, took Paris and Orleans from the heirs of Childebert, and died in 597, leaving her son Clotar, then in his fourteenth year, as king of more than half of France. He was crowned as Clotar II.