19. The Murder of Sigebert, Vitry-en-Artois, France 575
From the Grandes Chroniques de France, Jean Fouquet’s illustration of a couple of important moments in this Merovingian family. Reading from left to right, we see, within the castle, Clothair dividing up the kingdom among his four sons, thereby assuring decades of war; next, on the right, someplace within that tent, Sigebert is assassinated, after his victory over his brother Chilperic, by assassins sent by Chilperic’s current wife, Fredegunde, who had become his wife after having his first wife, Galswintha, murdered; Galswintha’s sister was Brunhilda, the wife of Sigebert, and she took this amiss and made her husband go to war. Though really he would have anyway on account of the Merovingian divide-up-the-kingdom-amongst-all-the-sons custom.
We go back to the early years of our 1000 year mandate, to discuss some of the Merovingians! Lots of people murdered each other and got murdered; here, we’re covering Sigebert, who was assassinated by his sister in law. Also, we include Sigebert’s wife Brunhilda, who managed to do lots of damage before her eventual execution. And Michelle gets to explain why the Nibelungenlied really has not got much to do with this couple. She read the whole damn thing, too. Bless her heart. (Also Anne’s right-left dyslexia causes her to tell you that east is west; but no; Austrasia is the eastern piece of Merovingia. You should let her drive you around. That’s exciting.)
