A few days later, someone came to the queen (probably well-coached in the role) and said: ‘O queen, if you have lost your children, the blame for this is Clovis’ alone! He is in love with one of your ladies-in-waiting, whose mother is an adept in magic, and she caused the death of your sons by sorcery. I am giving you this information as a warning to yourself, because you can’t hope for any better fate yourself than that met by your children.’
Then Fredegonda, pretending to be terrified by this, but really in a complete rage, had her men seize the girl that Clovis had been casting his eyes over, had her stripped and thrashed with canes, then had her long and beautiful hair cut off and fixed to a stake outside Clovis’ lodging. The girl’s mother was arrested, imprisoned and tortured so violently that she confessed that the charges against her were true.
Fredegonda hurried to Chilperic, and by a mixture of pleading and demanding, cajoling and shouting, she obtained the right of revenge on Clovis. The king was going hunting, and sent word to Clovis to join him. When the prince arrived, two of the king’s dukes, Didier and Bobon, acting on orders, grabbed him and disarmed him. He was stripped of his fine clothes and given coarse ones, put in chains and handed over to the queen.
The queen kept him in jail for three days, trying to see if she could not get out of him some kind of confession that would damn him. But the prince denied everything with great indignation, although he did name a great number of his close associates.
After three days, Fredegonda had him manacled and transported down the Marne to an estate at Nogent. He was to be well guarded there, and while he was imprisoned a knife was plunged into his heart and he was buried in the cell in which he had been kept. Meanwhile, messengers were sent to the king to announce that Clovis had committed suicide by stabbing himself, adding as confirmation that the knife was still in his chest. Taken in by this report, the king did not shed a single tear for the one he had delivered up to his death at the instigation of the queen. All those who had been attached to Clovis were now hunted out wherever they were. His mother, Audovera, at this time a nun in Le Mans, was snatched from her convent and murdered while begging for mercy. His sister, Childerinda, was taken to a convent by Fredegonda’s servants, and made to change her clothes, after which she was locked in and remains there to this day. All the property of Audovera and her daughter were confiscated for the use of Queen Fredegonda.
The woman who had confessed against Clovis under torture, was now condemned to be burned. The unfortunate woman protested her innocence and that of Clovis, saying that the supposed confession was a pack of lies. But she protested in vain: she was tied to a stake and burned alive.
Charlemagne
The Roman Empire was officially reconstituted (in theory, anyway) by a later Frankish king, Charles, known as ‘the Great,’ a man of whom even Gibbon approved, raising his eyebrows only at his vigorous sex-life. His biographer (and friend) Einhard mentions several wives and concubines (a man of some stamina, Charlemagne once had four at the same time), and Einhard occasionally remembers others as he writes. His picture of Charlemagne’s private life is revealing, especially when compared with that of the Roman emperors in Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars, which Einhard is imitating. Note those baths, again. Einhard wrote his Latin biography between 829 and 836.
Einhard
The Life of Charlemagne
XXII–XXV
Charlemagne was strong and tough in his body, and also tall (though not excessively – his height was the equivalent of seven times the measure of one of his feet). His head was rounded at the top, and his eyes were large and bright. His nose was slightly longer than the average and he had white hair, which suited him. His face was open and good-natured. Whether standing or sitting, he always had an air of authority and dignity because of these things. His neck was rather short and thick, and he had something of a pot-belly, but the rest of his body balanced out these features. His movements were all firm and manly. His voice was loud, but less so than you would expect from his size. He enjoyed good health, except for the last four years of his life when he often had fevers, and, at the end, he was lame in one foot. Even then he used to do what he wanted, whatever the doctors said, and he came to dislike them anyway, because they advised him to give up the roast meat which he was used to, and eat stewed food instead.
He exercised a great deal, riding or hunting, and there is hardly another nation on earth that can match the Franks in this. He took great delight in steam-baths at thermal springs, and he often used to swim, a sport in which no-one could beat him. For this reason it was at Aachen that he built his palace, and he stayed there right up to the end of his life. He used to invite not only his sons to bathe with him, but also his noblemen and his friends, and sometimes even a whole mob of attendants and bodyguards, so that sometimes a hundred men or more would be taking a bath together.
He wore national costume – of the Franks, that is. Next to his skin he wore a linen undershirt and underpants, then a tunic edged with silk, and then hose. On his feet he wore shoes and foot-cloths, and in the winter protected his chest and shoulders with an otterskin or ermine jacket. He wore a blue military cloak and always carried a sword at his side, with a gold or silver hilt and belt. Sometimes he would use a jewelled sword, but this was reserved for great feasts, or when legates from abroad were present. He disliked other national costumes, however fine, and would never wear them, except once in Rome, at the request of Pope Hadrian, and then again when asked by Hadrian’s sucessor, Leo, he put on a long tunic and a cloak in the Greek style, and Roman shoes. On feast-days he would appear dressed in cloth-of-gold, with jewelled shoes, a golden brooch pinning his cloak, and a diadem of gold and gems on his head. On other days, his clothes were hardly different from those of ordinary people.
He was not excessive in his eating and drinking habits, especially the latter, because he abominated drunkenness in any one, especially his friends or himself. However, he could not go for long times without food, and often said that fasting made him physically ill. He rarely held a large-scale feast, and then only on the major festivals; however, there would then be a very large number of men invited. His dinner on ordinary days consisted of four courses, quite apart from the roast, which his hunters brought in on a spit, and which was his favourite food …
He learned Latin grammar from the elderly Peter the Deacon, of Pisa, and for other disciplines his teacher was Alcuin Albinus, also a Deacon, a Saxon from Britain, and the most learned man anywhere. From him Charlemagne learned rhetoric and dialectic, and especially astrology, and devoted much time and effort to this. He studied computation, and with interest and care traced the courses of the stars. He also tried to learn to write, and used to keep writing-tablets and little notebooks under the pillows on his bed, so that he could practise forming letters in his spare time. However, although he tried hard, he had really come to it too late.
THE RULING CLASSES
Medieval history provides plenty of examples of misdeeds, chaos and political decay, as well as what nowadays would just be good tabloid newspaper copy. Members of the ruling class have always been capable of behaving badly, and sometimes they came to a spectacularly sticky end. Even royalty could prove to be degenerate. As far as the aristocracy goes, the most notorious noble of the Middle Ages was Gilles de Rais, who was associated in his earlier years with Joan of Arc, but who latterly came rather closer to the gargoyles than the saints. Nevertheless, he died penitent.
Charlemagne’s Grandchildren
One of the dottier Frankish customs was the division of property and land between all legitimate male heirs, a system which led inevitably either to murder or to complex internecine alliances and treaties. Charlemagne had left only one heir to his lands, but when he died, the empire really fell apart. After a very important battle (which is rarely mentioned in British textbooks), Europe was left with concepts like ‘France,’ ‘Germany’ and, even more unfortunately, ‘Alsace-Lorraine,’ a source of confusion ever since. These ex
tracts from a Latin contemporary report show two of his grandsons, Charles and Ludwig, kings of what became France and Germany, ganging up on the third, Lothar, who was the eldest, and hence (nominally) emperor. A fourth brother, Pepin the Elder, was already dead. The writer of the chronicle, Nithard was one of two illegitimate sons of abbot Angilbert of St-Riquier, born to Charlemagne’s daughter Bertha while Angilbert (a notable poet) was at Charlemagne’s court. The other was called, with a certain lack of imagination, Hartnid. Angilbert was a lay abbot of the monastery, but Nithard reports in the same chronicle how, twenty-seven years after his death, his tomb fell open in an earthquake and the body was found to be uncorrupted, a sure sign of sainthood, whatever his intramural activities at Charlemagne’s court had been. Nithard also wanted to be lay abbot of St-Riquier (contesting this plum appointment with another more clerical grandson of Charlemagne), but was killed not long after he finished (or rather, somewhat huffily gave up writing) his chronicle. He was commissioned to write the report by King Charles (later ‘the Bald’), to whose retinue he belonged.
Nithard
Histories
II, 10–III, 5 (for the year 841)
At daybreak Ludwig and Charles sent envoys to Lothar, and had them say to him that it was very painful to them that he had refused peace and demanded battle. Since he wanted it, though, and if there was no alternative, then so be it, but it must be done fairly. First of all they should fast and pray to God, and then they promised Lothar to let him come across to them and give him an opportunity to meet them in open battle without any deceit or cheating, after all obstacles had been removed from both sides. If he agreed to this, the envoys should declare this under oath. If not, then they asked him to agree the same terms for them, and declare that under oath. However, Lothar followed his usual custom and said that he would answer via his own envoys; but as soon as their envoys had left, Lothar set out to meet his ally, his nephew King Pepin the Younger of Aquitaine, and headed for Fontenoy-en-Puisaye to set up camp. However, his two brothers – hurrying after Lothar – set out on the same day, overtook him and set up their camp by a place called Thury. The next day both armies, ready for battle, moved a little way out of their camps, but first of all Ludwig and Charles sent envoys to Lothar asking him to think of his role as their brother, and to grant peace to God’s church and the Christian people by not taking away from the lands left to them by their father – with his agreement. They added that he could keep the land which their father had left to him, though he had done so only out of kindness, and not because Lothar deserved it. Furthermore they offered him as a gift everything of value in their camp (except horses and weapons). And if he did not agree to this, they would each give him a portion of their own lands. Failing that, the Frankish territories should be divided into equal parts, and he could choose to rule whichever he wanted. As usual, Lothar answered that he would send his own envoys with his decision, and this time he really did send Drogo, Hugo and Hegibert, who said that these proposals were new ones, and that therefore he needed time to consider them. In fact, however, Pepin had not yet arrived, and he wanted to use the delay to wait for him. Nevertheless, he did have their envoys Ricuin, Hirmenald and Friedrich assured under oath that nothing else prompted him to ask for this stay of battle but the desire to further the common good, both for his brothers and for the people as a whole, which is what justice between brothers and Christians demanded. Charles and Ludwig believed his oath, and returned to their camp, after an armistice had been sworn for this and the following day, and on to the second daylight hour of the third day, June 25. The next day they wanted to celebrate the feast of St John the Baptist, but by now Pepin had turned up to assist Lothar, who sent word to his brothers that they were well aware that the imperial title had been given to him in all solemnity, and that they should think about how he was to fulfil the heavy and important demands of this high office. He was, of course, still mindful of mutual benefits. However, when the envoys were asked whether Lothar was inclined to accept any of the proposals put to him, or whether he had empowered them to give a definite decision, they answered that they had been told nothing of that sort. With this, any hopes of justice and peace from Lothar seemed to vanish, so they sent word to him that if he could not come up with a better solution, then he should either agree to one of their proposals or understand that at the second hour of the next day – June 25 – they would come for him, to submit the matter to the judgement of Almighty God, something which he had forced them to do. In his usual manner, Lothar arrogantly rejected this, and replied that they would see later what he decided. (By the way, while I was writing this down – on October 18, 841 – at St Cloud on the Loire, there was an eclipse of the sun in Scorpio in the first daylight hour.) After this breakdown of negotiations, Charles and Ludwig set out with their armies at dawn, and with about a third of their troops occupied a hill near Lothar’s camp, where they waited for his arrival at the second daylight hour, according to the arrangement. And when both sides were there they joined in a fierce battle by the stream. Ludwig and Lothar met in violent combat at the place called Brittas, and Lothar was beaten off and fled. The part of Lothar’s forces that Charles faced, at a place called Fagit, also fled; that part, however, which had attacked our man Adelhard and the rest at Solennat – where I myself, with God’s help, gave no small amount of assistance – fought hard, so that the battle went on for a long time. However, eventually all of Lothar’s men fled the field …
Lothar reached Sens, which is what he had arranged with Pepin, but was uncertain as to what to do next, because Charles had sent part of his army across the Seine, then into and through a wood known locally as La Perche. Lothar was afraid that this could prove an obstacle for him or his allies, and so he decided on a pre-emptive strike, in the hope of wiping them out quickly, and bringing the rest down because of the shock. He was especially concerned to bring to heel the Breton Duke Nomenoi. But all his plans were in vain and he was unable to do any of this, because Charles’ army got away from him untouched, he gained no followers, and Duke Nomenoi ignored pointedly all of Lothar’s commands. In this condition, Lothar suddenly received the news that Ludwig and Charles were preparing a great army together. Seeing himself surrounded with difficulties on all sides he first made a great and unnecessary detour, then retreated from Tours and eventually reached his lands with an exhausted army. Pepin the Younger, who was regretting having joined forces with Lothar, returned to Aquitaine. Meanwhile Charles heard that Bishop Otgar of Mainz and others were preventing his brother Ludwig from crossing the Rhine, and moved quickly via Toul into Alsace. When Otgar heard of this, he and his supporters quickly left the Rhine and escaped wherever they could.
And so, on February 14, Ludwig and Charles arrived in Strasbourg, and swore the following oath of mutual non-aggression, Ludwig doing so in French and Charles in German. And before they did so, they addressed their respective armies in their own languages, Ludwig speaking in German, Charles in French. Ludwig, as the elder brother, spoke first, and said: ‘You all know how often Lothar, since the death of our father, has attacked me and my brother and has tried to destroy us utterly; since neither brotherly love, nor Christian morality, nor any appeals to reason proved the slightest use to make for a just peace between us, we were eventually forced by circumstances to leave the judgement to God, and agreed to accept whatever decision He made. As you know, we emerged victorious from the battle through God’s grace; Lothar was conquered and fled with his men as far away as he could. Now, through fraternal love and through mercy for his Christian people we did not follow them nor did we destroy them, but we have demanded, as we did before, that he should give us our rights. Instead of accepting God’s judgement, however, Lothar has not ceased to pursue me and my brother with force of arms as an enemy, and to destroy our people with fire, plundering and murder. Therefore we are compelled to join forces, and in case you had any doubts about our good faith and undying brotherly love, we have decided to swear this oath between us be
fore your eyes. We are not doing this out of any unjust desires, but to provide – if God grants us peace with your help – a treaty that will be for the common good. And in the unlikely event of my breaking the oath which I am about to swear towards my brother, then this would make you free from the oath that you have sworn to me.’ And after Charles had said the same words to his men in French, Ludwig, again as the elder, swore the actual oath first: ‘For the love of God and for the Christian people, and for our salvation from this day onwards, so long as God grants me strength, I shall support my brother Charles in all things, as one should as a brother, provided he does the same for me. And I shall enter into no agreements with Lothar that as far as I can see might hurt my brother Charles.’ And when Ludwig had finished, Charles swore the same oath in German for Ludwig’s army.
English Anarchy, 1137
Having too firm a ruler can be a problem; having a weak one is probably worse. Although there is not even a mention of the counter-claim to the throne by the Empress Matilda (who only seems to get a mention these days in novels by Ellis Peters), it is clear from this very famous extract from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle on the breakdown of law and order that Stephen was never really up to the job of being a medieval king.
The Dedalus Book of Medieval Literature Page 4