Childeric I

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Childeric I

of Childeric I. Inscription CHILDERICI REGIS ("of Childeric the king"). Found in his tomb at Tournai

Tournai

Monnaie de Paris

File:Monnaie_de_Paris.jpgFile:Monnaie_de_Paris_facade.jpgThe Monnaie de Paris or, more administratively speaking, the "Direction of Coins and Medals", is an administration of the French government charged with issuing coins as well as producing medals and other similar items....
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Childeric I (c. 440– c. 481) was the Merovingian king of the Salian Franks

Salian Franks

File:Seal_of_Childeric_I_Tournai tomb.jpgThe Salian Franks or Salii were a subgroup of the early Franks who originally had been living north of the limes in the coastal area above the Rhine River in the northern Netherlands, where today there still is a region called Salland....
from 457 until his death, and the father of Clovis

Clovis I

Clovis was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Franks under one king. He succeeded his father Childeric I in 481 as King of the Salian Franks, one of the Frankish tribes who were then occupying the area west of the lower Rhine, with their centre around Tournai and Cambrai along the modern frontier between France and Belgium, in an...
.

He succeeded his father Merovech

Merovech

Merovech is the legendary founder of the Merovingian dynasty of the Salian Franks, which later became the dominant Franks tribe. He allegedly lived in the first half of the fifth century....
(Latinised as Meroveus or Merovius) as king, traditionally in 457 or 458. With his Frankish warband he was established with his capital at Tournai

Tournai

Tournai is a Walloon Region city and Municipalities in Belgium of Belgium located 85 kilometres southwest of Brussels, on the river Scheldt, in the province of Hainaut ....
, on lands which he had received as a foederatus
Foederati

Foederatus is a Latin term whose definition and usage drifted in the time between the early Roman Republic and the end of the Western Roman Empire....
of the Romans

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, and for some time he kept the peace with his allies.

In about 463 in Orléans

Orléans

Orl?ans is a city in north-central France, about 130 km southwest of Paris. It is the capital of the Loiret Departments of France and of the Centre R?gion in France....
, in conjunction with the Roman General Aegidius

Aegidius

Aegidius was a Gallo-Roman promoted as magister militum in Gaul under Flavius A?tius around 450. He was an ardent supporter of Majorian, whom he helped to gain power....
, who was based in Soissons

Soissons

Soissons is a Communes of the Aisne department in the Aisne Departments of France in Picardie in northern France, located on the Aisne River, about 100 kilometres northeast of Paris....
, he defeated the Visigoths, who hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the Loire River

Loire River

The Loire is the longest river in France. With a length of , it drains an area of , which represents more than a fifth of France's land area....
.

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of Childeric I. Inscription CHILDERICI REGIS ("of Childeric the king"). Found in his tomb at Tournai

Tournai

Monnaie de Paris

Salian Franks

Clovis I

Merovech

Tournai

Roman Empire

Orléans

Aegidius

Soissons

Loire River

The Loire is the longest river in France. With a length of , it drains an area of , which represents more than a fifth of France's land area....
. After the death of Aegidius, he first assisted Comes ("count") Paul of Angers

Angers

Angers is a city in the Maine-et-Loire Departments of France in northwestern France about south-west of Paris. Angers is located in the French region known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou, and its inhabitants are called Angevins....
, together with a mixed band of Gallo-Romans and Franks, in defeating the Goths and taking booty. Odoacer

Odoacer

Odoacer , also known as Odovacar , was a Germanic general and the first non-Roman King of Italy after 476. He deposed the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, that year, but continued to rule first as a nominal client of Julius Nepos and, after Nepos' death in AD 480, as a client of the Eastern Roman Emperor....
reached Angers but Childeric arrived the next day and a battle ensued. Count Paul was killed and Childeric took the city. Childeric, having delivered Angers, followed a Saxon warband to the islands on the Atlantic mouth of the Loire, and massacred them there. In a change of alliances, he also joined forces with Odoacer

Odoacer

Gregory of Tours

Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman History and Bishops of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather....
, to stop a band of the Alamanni

Alamanni

The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic languagess located around the upper Main river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211?17 and claimed thereby to be their defeater....
who wished to invade Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
.

The stories of his expulsion by the Franks, whose women he was taking; of his eight-year stay in Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is located in central Germany. It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen States of Germany ....
with King Basin

Bisinus

Bisinus, Basinus, Besinus, or Bisin was the Rulers of Thuringia .According to Gregory of Tours, he supplied refuge from Childeric I, the Frankish king who was exiled by his own people....
and his wife Basina; of his return when a faithful servant advised him that he could safely do so by sending to him half of a piece of gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
which he had broken with him; and of the arrival in Tournai of Queen Basina

Basina, Queen of Thuringia

Basina was queen of Thuringia in the middle of the fifth century. She left her husband king Bisinus and went to Roman Gaul. She herself took the initiative to ask for the hand of Childeric I, king of the Franks, and married him....
, whom he married, come from Gregory of Tours' Libri Historiarum (Book ii.12).

He died in 481 and was buried in Tournai

Tournai

Tournai is a Walloon Region city and Municipalities in Belgium of Belgium located 85 kilometres southwest of Brussels, on the river Scheldt, in the province of Hainaut ....
, leaving a son Clovis

Clovis I

Tomb

Childeric's tomb was discovered in 1653 (May 27) by a mason doing repairs in the church of Saint-Brice in Tournai

Tournai

Tournai is a Walloon Region city and Municipalities in Belgium of Belgium located 85 kilometres southwest of Brussels, on the river Scheldt, in the province of Hainaut ....
, a city in modern Belgium, where numerous precious objects were found, including a richly ornamented sword, a torse

Torse

In heraldry, the torse or wreath, is a twisted roll of fabric wound around the top of the helm and crest to hold the mantling in place.Like the mantle, the protective cloth covering worn over a knight's helmet, the torse is represented in two colours, generally the same pair of colours used on the mantle....
-like bracelet, jewels of gold and cloisonné enamel with garnets, gold coins, a gold bull's head and a ring with the inscription CHILDERICI REGIS ("of Childeric the king"), which identified the tomb. Some 300 golden bee

Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants. Bees are a monophyly lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila....
s were also found. Archduke Leopold William

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria , was a military commander, Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1647 to 1656, and a patron of the arts....
, governor of the Southern Netherlands (today's Belgium), had the find published in Latin, and the treasure went first to the Habsburgs in Vienna, then as a gift to Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV ruled as List of French monarchs and of King of Navarre. He ascended the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister , the Italians Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661....
, who was not impressed with them and stored them in the royal library, which became the Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Bibliothèque nationale de France

The Biblioth?que nationale de France is the National library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France....
during the Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
. Napoleon was more impressed with Childeric's bees when he was looking for a heraldic symbol to trump the Bourbon fleur-de-lys. He settled on Childeric's bees as symbols of the French Empire

First French Empire

The Empire of the French , also known as the Greater French Empire or First French Empire, but more commonly known as the Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France in France....
.

On the night of November 5–6, 1831, the treasure of Childeric was among 80 kilos of treasure stolen from the Library and melted down for the gold. A few pieces were retrieved where they had been hidden in the Seine, including two of the bees. The record of the treasure, however, now exists only in the fine engravings made at the time of its discovery, and in some reproductions made for the Habsburgs.

External links

Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum
: the discovery of his tomb: follow the links for the engravings of Childeric's treasure and the two remaining gold bees.