Theodomir Merovingian Dynasty

Personal and Family Information

Theodomir was born about 0360, the son of Richomer Merovingian Dynasty and Ascyla. The place is not known.

He died about 0428. The place is not known.

His wife is not known. They were married, but the date and place have not been found. Their only known child was Chlodio (c0380->0450).

Pedigree Chart (3 generations)

Events

Notes

Note 1

!StyleName: Merovingian Dynasty, Theodomir King of Rhenish Franks [-428] [~360 - ~428]

!Source: Theodomir https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9odomir

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Theodomir was king of the Franks , perhaps Rhenish 1 , 2 , 3 , at the beginning of the 5th century . He was the son of Richomer , a Frankish general in the service of Rome and consul in 384, and of Ascyla. He was slaughtered with his mother in 421 or 428.

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Biography

The only certainty about Theodomir comes from the account of Gregory of Tours who mentions that the consular tables speak of Theodomir, king of the Franks and son of Richomer and Ascyla, slaughtered by the Romans with his mother. The date of these events is not certain and the dates of 421 4 , 5 or 428 6 are put forward. Neither Godefroid Kurth nor Michel Rouche give a date 7 , 2 .

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It may seem curious that the son of a Frankish general in the service of Rome and regularly present at court should become King of the Franks. The situation is not, however, without precedent, as the case of Mallobaud , who thirty years earlier had been "Count of the Domestics" in the Roman army and "King of the Franks", is proof of this 8 , 9 .

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He was then slaughtered by the Romans with his mother in 421 or 428. In his Dictionnaire des Francs, les Temps mérovingiens , Pierre Riché thinks this: " He supported the cause of the usurpers Constantine III and Jovin ". According to him, Theodomir would have been executed by the Roman power in place for having supported the usurpers 4 . This is possible, but the usurpations of Constantine and Jovin date back to the years 407 to 411 and it is difficult to see why Honorius would have waited ten to twenty years to punish the seditious.

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Hypothesis on his descendants

According to some authors, Theodomir could be the father of Clodion the Hairy , but the question is still debated. In this case he would be the great-great-grandfather of Clovis .

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Around 580, Gregory of Tours states that Clodion reigned after Theodomir. This account only proves that Gregory of Tours did not know whether there was any relationship between Theodomir and Clodion. He wrote a century later and certainly had access to contemporary sources, but these documents did not inform him on the subject. We do not know whether the succession was immediate or whether several years passed between the two kings 6 .

Around 660, the Chronicle of Fredegar states that Clodion succeeded his father Theodomir. But most historians consider that this text is an interpolation of that of Gregory of Tours, which is the most probable. However, there remains a very slight possibility that the author of the Chronicle had access to sources distinct from those of Gregory of Tours, as shown by a few anecdotes that do not appear in the History of the Franks . This relationship between Theodomir and Clodion can be neither confirmed nor denied 6 .

Finally, in 727, the Liber Historiae Francorum relates that Clodion's father was a Frankish king named Pharamond , unknown to contemporary sources . This is the theory that prevailed during the Middle Ages and the Ancien Régime, but it has now been abandoned since the work of Godefroid Kurth . The Liber is also at fault, because it attributes two distinct fathers to Marcomir , father of Pharamond, and Sunnon, while Roman texts attest that they were brothers . 6

Without specifying whether Théodomir is Clodion's father, Godefroid Kurth considers Théodemir to be a Merovingian 7 . Finally, according to Christian Settipani, the onomastic elements that make up the first names of Ric ho mer and Théod e mer are found among the descendants of Clodion , which is not the case for the Marco mir -Sunno-Pharamond group 6 .