Audovera

Audovera
Painting of Audovera's repudiation by Albert Maignan.
Queen consort of Neustria
Tenure	561 – 567
Born	c. 533
Died	580 Le Mans
Spouse	Chilperic I
Issue	Theudebert of Soissons Merovech Clovis Childesinda Basina

Audovera (died 580) was the first wife or mistress of Chilperic I, king of Neustria. ^{[1] [2]}

They had five children.

• Theudebert, killed in battle in 575 by Guntram Boso during the interminable conflict between Chilperic and his brothers.
• Merovech of Soissons, married the widow Brunhilda, becoming his father's enemy. Killed by his servants on his own orders in 578.
• Clovis of Soissons, assassinated by Fredegund in 580. ^[3]
• Childesinda, mentioned but once in the Liber Historiae Francorum as the infant whose botched baptism led to Audovera's dismissal. Committed to the same nunnery as her mother.
• Basina, nun, banished to a convent in 580. ^[4] She later led a revolt in the abbey of Poitiers in 589. ^{[5] [3]}

Some time before 567, Audovera and Fredegund - then a servant of Audovera, but later to become another wife of Chilperic ^{[6] [7] [4]} - prepared for the baptism of Childesinda while Chilperic was away. Fredegund learnt that it was forbidden for a mother to receive her own child in her arms following a baptism, due to a canon law forbidding marriage between parents and godparents. ^[8] Fredegund arranged the events of the baptism such that Audovera unknowingly broke this taboo. ^{[9] [10]} On Chilperic's return, Fredegund informed him of what Audovera had done. Chilperic committed Audovera to a convent in a rage. Fredegund later had her murdered in 580 to coincide with the assassination of Clovis and the exile of Basina.

References

1. Léglu, Catherine (March 2017). "The Vida of Queen Fredegund in Tote listoire de France : Vernacular Translation and Genre in Thirteenth-Century French and Occitan Literature" . Nottingham French Studies. 56 (1): 98–112. doi:10.3366/nfs.2017.0170. ISSN   0029-4586.
2. Stafford, Pauline (January 1978). "Sons and Mothers: Family Politics in the Early Middle Ages" . Studies in Church History Subsidia. 1: 79–100. doi:10.1017/S014304590000034X. ISSN   0143-0459.
3. Singer, Rachel (May 2022). "Gregory's forgotten rebel: the portrayal of Basina by Gregory of Tours and its implications" . Early Medieval Europe. 30 (2): 185–208. doi:10.1111/emed.12534. ISSN   0963-9462.
4. Effros, Bonnie; Moreira, Isabel (2020-05-01). The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-023419-5.
5. Effros, Bonnie; Moreira, Isabel (2020-05-01). The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-023419-5.
6. Dailey, E. T. (2015-01-01), "7 Brunhild and Fredegund, ii: Queens, Politics, and the Writing of History", Queens, Consorts, Concubines: Gregory of Tours and Women of the Merovingian Elite, Brill, pp. 141–160, ISBN   978-90-04-29466-0 , retrieved 2024-01-31
7. Wemple, Suzanne Fonay (2015-12-16). Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 5 to 9. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN   978-1-5128-2133-8.
8. Jussen, Bernhard (2000). Spiritual Kinship as Social Practice: Godparenthood and Adoption in the Early Middle Ages. University of Delaware Press. ISBN   978-0-87413-632-6.
9. Wood, Ian N. (1998). Franks and Alamanni in the Merovingian Period: An Ethnographic Perspective. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN   978-0-85115-723-8.
10. Burgas, Gregory (2000). Legislating Against Reality : The Political Conflicts and Context of the Seventh-Century Merovingian Church Councils (Thesis). Portland State University Library. doi:10.15760/etd.3596.

• " A Popular History of France Vol 1, chapter VIII, the Merovingians" from Humanitiesweb, last accessed July 22, 2007