(584-629). The son of Chilperic I and Fredegunde, Clotar II reunified the Merovingian kingdoms in 613 and passed on the kingdom intact to his son Dagobert I. It was during Clotar’s reign that the Frankish aristocracy emerged as a major partner with the monarchy in the administration of the kingdom.
Clotar II succeeded to the kingship at the age of four months, upon the assassination of his father. Fredegunde held together a reduced kingdom for him until he came of age.
After 600, he repeatedly tried and failed to take over Austrasia and Burgundy. But in 612, as Brunhilde fell from power, the magnates of those regions accepted Clotar as king, and he ordered the execution of Brunhilde after her capture (613). Immediately afterward, in October 614, Clotar held a great council of lay and ecclesiastical leaders at Paris; the edict issued in this assembly confirmed the power that local nobles had acquired over the appointment of both bishops and secular officials. Under Clotar II, Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy each usually had its own administration under a mayor of the palace. Clotar recognized the Austrasian desire for autonomy by associating his son Dagobert I with him as subking there in 622.
Steven Fanning
[See also: AUSTRASIA; BRUNHILDE; FREDEGUNDE; MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY]
Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., trans. The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with Its Continuations. London: Nelson, 1960.
James, Edward. The Franks. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.
Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History. London: Methuen, 1962, pp. 206-31.
Wood, Ian. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450-751. London: Longman, 1994.
World History
