Gregory of Tours
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Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours during the Merovingian period and is known as the "father of French history".
St. Gregory of Tours, 19th century statue by Jean Marcellin, in the Louvre in Paris, France
Realms of Merovingian Gaul at the death of Clovis (511 AD)
Frontispiece of Historia Francorum
St Gregory and King Chilperic I, from the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V, 14th-century illumination
Fredegund
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Fredegund or Fredegunda was the queen consort of Chilperic I, the Merovingian Frankish king of Neustria. Fredegund served as regent during the minority of her son Chlothar II from 584 until 597.
Gregory of Tours
…showing the strongest military force. Book Four ends with the killing of Sigbert in 575, leaving Chilperic as the dominant king. Gregory of Tours blames Fredegund, the wife of Chilperic, for the assassination. Fredegund, he says, had long held a grudge against Sigibert and his wife Brunhilda. Book Five begins the…
Fredegund as depicted in her funerary effigy at the Basilica of Saint-Denis
Fredegund and Rigunth, steel engraving from Mme de Witt, Vieilles histoires de la patrie, 1887