Childeric I
Childeric I (c.
437- c.
482) was the
Merovingian king of the
Salian Franks from
457 until his death.
He succeeded his father
Merovech (Latinised as Meroveus or Merovius) as king, traditionally in
457 or
458. With his Frankish warband he was established with his capital at
Tournai, on lands which he had received as a
foederatus of the
Romans, and for some time he kept the peace with his allies.
In about
463 in
Orléans, in conjunction with the Roman General
Aegidius, who was based in
Soissons, he defeated the
Visigoths, who hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the
Loire River. After the death of Aegidius, he first assisted
Comes ("count") Paul of
Angers, together with a mixed band of Gallo-Romans and Franks, in defeating the Goths and taking booty.
Odoacer 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, according to
Gregory of Tours, to stop a band of the
Alamanni who wished to invade
Italy.
These are all the facts known about him, and they are not secure. The stories of his expulsion by the Franks, whose women he was taking; of his eight-year stay in
Thuringia with King Basin 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 which he had broken with him; and of the arrival in Tournai of
Queen Basine, whom he married, are entirely
legendary and come from Gregory of Tours'
Libri Historiarum (Book ii.12).
He died in 481 and was buried in
Tournai, leaving a son
Clovis, afterwards king of the Franks.
Childeric's tomb was discovered in
1653 by a mason doing repairs in the church of
Saint-Brice in
Tournai where numerous precious objects were found, including a richly ornamented sword, a
torse-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
bees were also found. Archduke Leopold William, Spanish governor of the Netherlands, had the find published in Latin, and the treasure went first to the Habsburgs in Vienna, then as a gift to
Louis XIV, who was not impressed with them and stored them in the royal library, which became the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France during the
Revolution. 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.
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.
*
Northvegr webite: Gregory of Tours,
Historia Francorum*
"A note on Childeric's bees": the discovery of his tomb: follow the links for the engravings of Childeric's treasure and the two remaining gold bees.
