Clotilde

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Clotilde

Saint Clotilde (475 – 545), also known as Clotilda or simply Clotild, was the daughter of Chilperic II of Burgundy

Chilperic II of Burgundy

Chilperic II was the King of Burgundy from 473 until his death, though initially co-ruler with his father from 463. He began his reign in 473 after the partition of Burgundy with his brothers Godegisel, Godomar, and Gundobad; he ruled from Valence and his brothers ruled respectively from Geneva, Vienne, and Lyon....
and Caretena, and wife of the Frankish king Clovis I

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...
. Venerated as a Saint

Saint

A saint in Christianity is a human being who has been called to holiness. The term is used differently by various denominations, with some, such as the Anglicans, Methodists, and Lutherans distinguishing between Saints and saints....
by Roman Catholics, she was instrumental to her husband's famous conversion to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
and, in her later years, was known for her almsgiving and penitential works of mercy.

On the death of Gundioc, king of the Burgundians, in 473, his sons Gundobad

Gundobad

Gundobad, Patrician of the Western Roman Empire also became King of Burgundy , after his father Gundioc of Burgundy, though he had to fight off three brothers to seize his title....
, Godegisel and Chilperic divided his heritage between them; Chilperic apparently reigning at Lyon, Gundobald at Vienne and Godegesil at Geneva.

According to Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours

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Saint Clotilde (475 – 545), also known as Clotilda or simply Clotild, was the daughter of Chilperic II of Burgundy

Chilperic II of Burgundy

Clovis I

Saint

Christianity

Gundobad

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....
, Chilperic was slain by Gundobad, his wife drowned, and of his two daughters, Chrona took the veil and Clotilde was exiled. This account, however, seems to have been a later invention, since an epitaph discovered at Lyons speaks of a Burgundian queen who died in 506. This was most probably the mother of Clotilde.

In 493 Clotilde married Clovis, King of the Franks

List of Frankish Kings

The Franks were originally led by Dux and Rex . The Salian Franks Merovingian dynasty rose to dominance among the Franks and conquered most of Roman Gaul....
, who had just conquered northern Gaul. She was brought up in the Catholic faith and did not rest until her husband had abjured paganism and embraced the Catholic faith in 496. With him she built at Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
the church of the Holy Apostles, afterwards known as Sainte Geneviève. After the death of Clovis in 511 she retired to the abbey of St Martin at Tours.

In 523 she incited her sons against her cousin Sigismund

Sigismund of Burgundy

File:Herma of Saint Sigismund in Plock Cathedral.PNGSigismund was king of the Burgundians from 516 to his death. He was the son of king Gundobad, whom he succeeded in 516....
, the son of Gundobad

Gundobad

Gundobad, Patrician of the Western Roman Empire also became King of Burgundy , after his father Gundioc of Burgundy, though he had to fight off three brothers to seize his title....
and provoked the Burgundian war. In the following year she tried in vain to protect the rights of her grandsons, the children of Clodomer, against the claims of her sons Childebert I

Childebert I

Childebert I was the Frankish King of the Franks, a Merovingian dynast, one of the four sons of Clovis I who shared the kingdom of the Franks upon their father's death in 511....
and Clotaire I

Clotaire I

Chlothar I , called the Old , King of the Franks, was one of the four sons of Clovis I. He was born about 497 in Soissons .On the death of his father in 511, he received, as his share of the kingdom, the town of Soissons, which he made his capital; the cities of Laon, Noyon, Cambrai, and Maastricht; and the lower course of the Meuse...
, and was equally unsuccessful in her efforts to prevent the civil discords between her children. She died in 544 or 545, and was buried at her husband's side in the church of the Holy Apostles.