Bathild of Francia

Auteur
Isabel Moreira is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Utah, co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World, and author of Heaven's Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity.

Texte du rabat

This book tells the remarkable life of Balthild of Francia (c. 633-80), a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon slave who became a queen of France. Described in contemporary sources as beautiful and intelligent, she rose to power though her marriage to the short-lived King Clovis II. As regent for her young son, she promoted social and political reforms in Francia that included the rescue and rehousing of Christian slaves who, like Balthild herself, had been caught up in the human-trafficking practices of the mid-seventh century.

Contenu

• Preface

• Acknowledgments

• Abbreviations

• Map

• Family Tree

• Chapter One: Finding her Story

• Chapter Two: Trafficked Slave

• Chapter Three: Marriage Makes a Queen

• Chapter Four: Regent, Reformer, and Rescuer of Slaves

• Chapter Five: Life and Death at the Convent of Chelles

• Chapter Six: Mother, Mutilator -- and Murderer?

• Chapter Seven: Abolitionist Icon

• Appendix: The Baldehildis Seal Matrix

• Bibliography

• Index