< Back

Chlodomer

Character

King of Orléans (511–524 AD)

Historical Accuracy

Gregory of Tours is the source for both the Sigismund drowning and Chlodomer's own death and beheading at Vézeronce, and the fate of his sons — two murdered by their uncles in 524, the third (Clodoald) surviving as a monk and later venerated as Saint Cloud — is well attested in the same source. The historical 'shorn or killed' ultimatum his brothers issued over the boys' hair is a real, sourced detail, not a series invention, and its close echo in the novels' own hair/Otherworld-tie magic system is a deliberate, historically grounded piece of fictional elaboration.

Historical Significance

Sources: - Gregory of Tours. Modern: Ian Wood on the reges criniti convention.

Chlodomer's short, violent reign — bracketed by his ordered drowning of the Burgundian king Sigismund and his own death and beheading at the Battle of Vézeronce — is one of the starkest early examples of the cycle of vengeance and fratricidal violence that would recur throughout Merovingian royal history, foreshadowed almost immediately by the murder of his own young sons.

Historical Era

511-524 AD

Book I (his fate echoes later in the hair/Otherworld magic system used in Book VI and Book VII)

Timeline: - 511 receives Orléans; 523 Sigismund drowned; 524 killed at Vézeronce, sons murdered. Witch's Rebirth Canon: - The historical 'shorn or killed' ultimatum over his sons' hair closely echoes the series' own hair/Otherworld-tie magic system (Book VI, Book VII).

511-524 AD

Birth: - c. 495 AD. Death: - 524 AD, killed at Battle of Vézeronce, beheaded per Gregory of Tours. Parents: - Father: Clovis I. Mother: Clotilde. Children: - Three sons; two murdered in 524 by his brothers, the third (Clodoald) became a monk, later Saint Cloud. Enemies: - Sigismund of Burgundy, drowned on Chlodomer's orders (523); Godomar, who killed Chlodomer at Vézeronce (524).

chlodomer