Plectrude (Latin : Plectrudis; German : Plektrud, Plechtrudis) [1] (died 718) was the consort of Pepin of Herstal, the mayor of the palace and duke of the Franks, from about 670. She was the daughter of Hugobert, seneschal of Clovis IV, and Irmina of Oeren. She was the regent of Neustria during the minority of her grandson Theudoald from 714 until 718.
Plectrude was described as politically active and influential upon her husband and his reign. She brought a large amount of property to the Arnulfing house. [2] Plectrude was the daughter of Hugobert, seneschal of Clovis IV, and lady Irmina of Oeren. While there is no hard evidence for the identification of Irmina as her mother, it is highly probable as both women held land which was inherited from the same source. [3] Irmina came from one of the most powerful families in the Merovingian kingdom. [4] After the death of Hugobert in 697, Irmina gave the monk Willibrord the land on which to build the Abbey of Echternach. Much of Pepin's wealth came from his marriage to Plectrude. [3] During the reign of Pepin, she appears as his joint signatory in every legal instrument issued by him that is still preserved, which was unusual for this time period. She had two sons by Pepin, Drogo and Grimoald.
Both her sons died before Pepin, Drogo died in 707 and Grimoald was murdered in 714. [5] She ensured Pepin II's assent that Theudoald, Grimoald's son, would be his main heir. When Pepin died soon thereafter at the end of 714, she took power in Neustria as regent of the under-age Theudoald. This appointment of a child as mayor of the palace was unprecedented. [3]
To ensure her reign, she imprisoned Charles Martel, Pepin II's son with his second wife Alpaida, in Cologne. Charles is often said to have been illegitimate, but this is considered by many today an anachronistic interpretation of his status. Charles' contemporaries most likely did not consider him illegitimate, as he was born while his mother Alpaida was married to Pepin the Frank, and noblemen practiced polygamy in this period. [6] [7] [8]
In 715, the Neustrian nobility rebelled against her in alliance with Radbod of Friesland and defeated her in the Battle of Compiègne, which took place on September 26, 715, causing her to take refuge in Cologne. Cologne was the homeland of her family clan and where she kept Pepin's money.
In 716, Chilperic II, the king of the Franks, and Ragenfrid, the mayor of the palace, led an army into Austrasia, near Cologne, where Plectrude had gone. They defeated her and freed Charles Martel. Plectrude acknowledged Chilperic as king, gave over the Austrasian treasury, and abandoned her grandson's claim to the mayoralty. [9] The king and his mayor then turned to besiege their other rival in the city and claimed it. The treasury shortly after received recognition by the king and mayor. The juncture of these events favored Charles. In 717, he chased the king and the mayor to Paris before turning back to deal with Plectrude in Cologne. He then took the city and dispersed her supporters.
Plectrude entered a convent, and died shortly after in the same year in Cologne, where she was buried in the monastery of St. Maria im Kapitol which she had founded. Her grandson Theudoald lived under his uncle's protection until Martel's death in 741.
Her sons by Pepin were:
Using the translation done by and provided by Paul Fouracre and Richard A.Gerberding in Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640-720, of the Annales Mettenses Priores (The Earlier Annals of Metz), Plectrude is described as “keeping Charles(Martel) from the legitimate governance of his father’s authority,” as well as having “decided to rule with feminine cunning more cruelly than was necessary,” and is blamed for the Neustrians rising up against her and her grandson. [10]
They further discuss whether the Annals, possibly written at Chelles during a time when a sister of Charlemagne was abbess was written by a woman or not. They conclude that if the Source was written by a woman, it was likely “a misogynistic one,” due to the language used to describe Plectrude(as quoted above). [11]
Paul Fouracre further expands on this imagery of Plectrude in The Age of Charles Martel, writing that this phrasing used against Plectrude might be a result of the anonymous writer’s allegiance to Charles Martel, emphasizing that he was “the only surviving heir worthy of great power,” by depicting Plectrude as “unfit to rule,” and asserting that she “plotted to keep him down in favour of her grandson, Theudoald, a mere child.” [12]
It seems to Fouracre then that the author of this Source framed Charles Martel as “the Franks’ saviour” at the expense of Plectrude’s legacy. [13]
In depicting Plectrude as having made(and failed) at an attempt to hold Pippin II’s inheritance for her grandson at Charles Martel’s expense, the Annals have secured her legacy as a “pushy stepmother(s) rather than kindly mother(s)” [14]
Rosamond McKitterick disagrees with Fouracre and Gerberding’s assessment that the author of the Earlier Annals of Metz could not be a woman due to the use of language against Plectrude, arguing instead that the Annals “is more concerned with division and succession” and the purpose of the author was legitimizing the Carolinian family’s claim to the Francia kingdom. [15] To her, because the Annals were more focused on justifying the Carolingian family’s new dynasty, and Plectrude, as Charles Martel’s stepmother was intervening in his right to his father’s inheritance, hence why the hostility in wording used referring to Plectrude. [16]
The following is an excerpt from the Earlier Annals of Metz(or Annales Mettenses Priores) as translated by Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerbderding in Late Merovingan France: History and Hagiography, 640-720.
"Plectrud desired to promote her grandson, Theudoald, she was keeping Charles from the legitimate governance of his father's authority and she herself, with the infant, in a womanly plan, presumed to control the reins of so great a kingdom. Because she had decided to rule with feminine cunning more cruelly than was necessary, she quickly turned the wrath of the Neustrian Franks." [17]
Plectrude is also mentioned in the "Fourth Book of the Chronicles of Fredegar with its Continuations." This source is more favorable to Plectrude, referring to her as "the fine woman," and stating that she "governed the kingdom wisely." [18]
Charles Martel, Martel being a sobriquet in Old French for "The Hammer", was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle".
The Merovingian dynasty was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gallo-Romans under their rule. They conquered most of Gaul, defeating the Visigoths (507) and the Burgundians (534), and also extended their rule into Raetia (537). In Germania, the Alemanni, Bavarii and Saxons accepted their lordship. The Merovingian realm was the largest and most powerful of the states of western Europe following the breakup of the empire of Theodoric the Great.
Year 714 (DCCXIV) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 714 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Pepin II, commonly known as Pepin of Herstal, was a Frankish statesman and military leader who de facto ruled Francia as the Mayor of the Palace from 680 until his death. He took the title Duke and Prince of the Franks upon his conquest of all the Frankish realms.
Austrasia was the northeastern kingdom within the core of the Frankish empire during the Early Middle Ages, centring on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers. It included the original Frankish-ruled territories within what had been the northernmost part of Roman Gaul, and cities such as Cologne, Trier and Metz. It also stretched beyond the old Roman borders on the Rhine into Frankish areas which had never been formally under Roman rule. It came into being as a part of the Frankish Empire founded by Clovis I (481–511). At the same time, the initial powerbase of Clovis himself was the more Romanized part of northern Gaul, lying southwest of Austrasia, which came to be known as Neustria.
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious till the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants. His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Chilperic II was King of the Franks from 715 until his death.
Dagobert II was a Merovingian king of the Franks, ruling in Austrasia from 675 or 676 until his death. He is one of the more obscure Merovingians. He has been considered a martyr since at least the ninth century.
Theuderic III was King of the Franks in the 7th century. He ruled Neustria and Burgundy on two occasions, as well as Austrasia from 679 until his death in 691.
Gertrude of Nivelles, OSB was a seventh-century abbess who, with her mother Itta, founded the Abbey of Nivelles, now in Belgium. She is venerated in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions.
Liber Historiae Francorum is a chronicle written anonymously during the 8th century. The first sections served as a secondary source for early Franks in the time of Marcomer, giving a short breviarum of events until the time of the late Merovingians. The subsequent sections of the chronicle are important primary sources for the contemporaneous history. They provide an account of the Pippinid family in Austrasia before they became the most famous Carolingians.
Drogo was a Frankish nobleman, the eldest son of Pippin of Heristal and Plectrudis. He was the duke of Champagne from the early 690s.
Theudoald was the Frankish mayor of the palace, briefly unopposed in 714 after the death of his grandfather, Pepin of Herstal. In 715, the nobility acclaimed Ragenfrid mayor of Neustria and Charles Martel mayor of Austrasia.
Wulfoald was the mayor of the palace of Austrasia from 656 or 661 to his death, as well as mayor of the palace of Neustria and Burgundy from 673 to 675.
Ragenfrid was the mayor of the palace of Neustria and Burgundy from 715, when he filled the vacuum in Neustria caused by the death of Pepin of Heristal, until 718, when Charles Martel finally established himself over the whole Frankish kingdom.
The Battle of Cologne was fought near the city of Köln in the year 716 AD. The battle is known chiefly as the first battle of Charles Martel's command and is the only defeat of his life.
The Annals of Metz are a set of Latin Carolingian annals covering the period of Frankish history from the victory of Pepin II in the Battle of Tertry (687) to the time of writing. Sections covering events after 806 are not original writings but were borrowed from other texts and appended to the original annals in the 9th and 12th centuries.
Irmina of Oeren was a saint, founder and abbess of a convent in Oeren, near Trier (Trèves), and co-founder of a convent in Echternach. Hagiographer Basil Watkins states that Irmina's 12th century biography is "unreliable" and it is likely that "legends about her family tree spiralled out of control", but she came from one of the most powerful families in the Merovingian kingdom. She might have been Saint Primina, the daughter of Dagobert I and sister of Saint Modesta. She might have been the daughter of Dagobert II and sister of Saint Adela of Pfalze. Historian Ian Wood stated that Irmina is "traditionally, and probably correctly, identified as Plectrude's mother".
Anstrud was a medieval Frankish noblewoman of the late Merovingian/early Carolingian period. Anstrud was the daughter of Waratto, Mayor of the Palace of Neustria and Burgundy, and Ansflede.
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