Fredegund (or Fredegunda) (Latin: Fredegundis; French: Frédégonde) (died 597) was the Queen consort of Chilperic I, the Merovingian Frankish king of Soissons.
All her wealth and power came to her through her association with Chilperic. Originally a servant of Chilperic's first wife Audovera, Fredegund won Chilperic's affection and persuaded him to put Audovera in a convent and divorce her. But Chilperic then put Fredegund aside and married Galswintha. Galswintha died the same year, probably strangled by Fredegund[1] (c. 568), who succeeded Galswintha as queen. But Galswintha's sister, Brunhilda, in revenge against Chilperic, began a feud which lasted more than 40 years.
Fredegund is said to have ordered the assassination of Sigebert I in 575 and also to have made attempts on the lives of Sigebert's son Childebert II, her brother-in-law Guntram, king of Burgundy, and Brunhilda.[2]
After the mysterious assassination of Chilperic (584), Fredegund seized his riches and took refuge in the cathedral at Paris. Both she and her surviving son, Clothar II, were protected by Guntram until he died in 592.
Gregory of Tours depicts her as ruthlessly murderous and sadistically cruel; in his account, Fredegund perhaps has few rivals in monstrousness. Although she did not live to see it, her son's execution of Brunhilda bore the mark of Fredegund's hatred: Clothar II had the old queen, now in her sixties, stretched in agony upon the rack for three entire days, then watched her meet her death chained between four horses that were goaded to the four points of the compass, tearing her body asunder.
Fredegund died c. 8 December 597 in Paris. The tomb of Frédégonde is a mosaic figure of marble and copper, situated in Saint Denis Basilica, having come from the abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Fredegund has been proposed as one of many sources for the folk tale alternatively known as Cinderella, Aschenputtel, Cenerentola or Cendrillon. In Cinderella: A Casebook, folklorist Alan Dundes cites the following excerpt from Gregory's History of the Franks:
She was jealous of her own daughter, Rigunth, who continually declared that she should be mistress[3] in her place. Fredegund waited her opportunity and under the pretense of magnanimity took her to the treasure-room and showed her the King's jewels in a large chest. Feigning fatigue, she exclaimed "I am weary; put thou in thy hand, and take out what thou mayest find." The mother thereupon forced down the lid on her neck and would have killed her had not the servants finally rushed to her aid.
When Rigunth was sent off to her Visigothic fiancé in Spain, Reccared, son of Liuvigild, her entourage was so laden with rich gifts that the Frankish nobles objected, that the royal fisc had been depleted. Fredegunda asserted that all the gifts had come out of property amassed by her husband's generosity. On the long journey, Rigunth's retainers repeatedly robbed and abandoned her, and by the time she reach Toulouse there was little left.[4] When Chilperic died (584), Desiderius of Aquitaine went to Toulouse to secure the remaining treasure.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Fredegond". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.