Sigebert I was a Frankish king of Austrasia from the death of his father in 561 to his own death. He was the third surviving son out of four of Clotaire I and Ingund. His reign found him mostly occupied with a successful civil war against his half-brother, Chilperic.
The assassination of Sigebert by Jean Fouquet, from the fifteenth century Grandes Chroniques de France.
The Franks were a western European people during the Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages. They began as a Germanic people who lived near the Lower Rhine, on the northern continental frontier of the empire. They subsequently expanded their power and influence during the Middle Ages, until much of the population of western Europe, particularly in and near France, were commonly described as Franks, for example in the context of their joint efforts during the Crusades starting in the 11th century. This expansion came about because the romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire first became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine, and then subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire.
Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty
A 19th century depiction of different Franks (AD 400–600)
Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana, showing Francia at the top
A 6th–7th century necklace of glass and ceramic beads with a central amethyst bead. Similar necklaces have been found in the graves of Frankish women in the Rhineland.
