Drafty (hah) Excerpt

Usually, I am un-prone, in writing this blog - or, more often, composing it, compiling links and commenting just briefly - to excerpting my own work. But, as it cools down (and as I remind myself I *am* an author, at all), this little moment caught me and dragged me backward ... to my work ... to the way the end of summer feels ... to characters who still keep me curious.

To summer in Ravanna, in the wee hours of the sixth century.


***


Zeniv was too hot.

The heat was so that even the touch of clothing was importunate, every sensation a molestation; odd dreams plagued and would not release her—temptations of floating in water, or hanging weightless in the open vacuum of the sky, without so much as slippers nor linens, naked as the day of her birth. Lying with the wind, moving, moving.

The swamp, the whole city, smelt of the still greenness of water, and every shimmering, muggy breath of summer seemed almost a swallow; the atmosphere touchable, rather than empty air.

And she dreamt of empty air. Her mind swirled constantly with ineffable thoughts of somehow reaching a state of touching nothing. No ground to carry her, no clothes to enclose her, no heat—no heat—no heat.

The city roiled as it cooked, Arians and Catholics finding fault in the Jews for poor weather, for dwindling stores, for slackening winds and slowing trade.

Why it should be the Jews’ fault was unclear to Zeniv; made no clearer in the conversations around her. She was privy to much of religion; but little of politics. And Christians' concern with Jews, that must be politics, or perhaps the religion percolating around her was distilled somehow. Not thick and mixed, like the water—the air—all around.

Took the water, though, to mix up the atmosphere, to roil, to topple the carefully distilled beaker that was the Court.

Deep in the morning before the longest day of summer, the loss of a ship, down with which the fortunes of a dozen Ostrogoths’ families sank.


***


I have to write the pogrom. One of the first pogroms in Christian history. It's been lurking at me for the longest time.

It touches me like a dank, smelly, humid miasma.

My Research is Showing - Excerpt

There are times you just have to write the scene that follows your research. It may not be an action scene; it may not quite be a character scene. And yet, it still propels things.

Re-reading a certain passage, I found myself wanting to share. Those who've read much of my curmudgeonliness know I'm not big on excerpt-ery, but I like this scene - precisely because of the research that (ahem) bore it.

Image: Wikipedia of course

It was a whole child, four-limbed, red, wrinkled, endearingly ugly. No deformities seemed present, and the mouth and ears and eyes were clear. Its cleft was clean and correct, its anus a perfect, pale pore. Zeniv placed the baby on a stone bench, and it protested lustily, screeching at the cold and indignity. She placed soft towels beneath the child and with two fingers pulled first at the child’s right arm, then its left, its right leg, then its left. The right side felt stronger; a good sign. Left-sidedness was suspect. When she held her finger before the face of the babe, its quaking arms gravitated inward toward it, but were unskilled yet to grab her fingertip. When she gently put the finger on its chin, its eyes widened a moment, and then closed. It was aware. It seemed to be healthy.

The placenta still hung off to one side, and Zeniv reached for the knife in a sinus of her apron, and cut the cord and placed the afterbirth in a bowl. She turned the babe onto her side and brought this near, squeezing the blood from her wound into the bowl as well. The child was a squalling protest, but so tiny she was easy to hold.

Twisting long fingers nimbly as she could while one hand held the infant safe, she looped a thread of wool around the stump, and tied as close as she could to the belly, pressing the protrusion back into what would become her navel.

Then to clean the child. Natron, the magic powder that preserved the dead in Egypt, was the same magic that brought the royal infant into the world. With this and the towel under the child, Zeniv softly chafed the body, the arms, the legs. In the crevices, she dipped a finger in olive oil and then in the powder, and cleaned where skin met skin. In its still-protesting mouth, she slipped the slightest bit of it across those all but translucent, toothless gums.

The baby gleamed. She was red—flesh and more flesh, from the inside of the mouth to the feet, still wrinkled and compressed from the long stay in the womb.

Last, and softest, clean, warm water. She held the infant to soak several moments, and with free fingers sloshed water over the shoulders, cradled its head and baptized the child with warm, soft water. All protesting abated; the water felt good to the child.

Still it was not complete. One last once-over, with close attention to cleaning out the openings, making sure breathing and elimination should be free. The infant princess wailed as if she were becoming tired, her arms finding direction as if to push Zeniv away. And yet they seemed also to begin to cling to her.

She put olive oil over the little swollen eyes, which closed readily enough and seemed almost ready to be peaceful, to rest. Her body moved only to emit its tiny, wheezing breaths as Zeniv completed the first ablutions with a wad of wool dipped in the olive oil, which she wrapped with a bandage around the belly to cover the baby’s navel.

Finally, the wheezing softening and the eyes closed and tight as beans, she swaddled the child and turned, at last to look to its mother.


***


I feel like it is a lot of detail, but also that it is a brief enough expositive scene it doesn't burden the flow overall. This is close to the top of a new chapter, and so is the pause before more action--action which becomes, essentially, the first pogrom in the history of Christendom. It needs to be this quiet, and it needs to be this brief before the heat, literally, builds outside the palace. (The main sentence that is probably too much scholarship is the one about Natron.)

Of course I would be extremely grateful if anyone has feedback or reactions.

Unrecognition

This is one of those things I read, and cannot remember when I wrote it, cannot recall why, or what inspired it. But I love it ...

The only sensation in her was of absorption. The heat; the hard, sure heat under her. The leather of her new red shoes, leather tanned soft as fruit skin, holding her foot, wrapped all the way around it, to her ankle, where it was loose and gentle. The sound of the grasses, whispering. Soft as voices, safer than words, asking nothing of her but to hear them.

Soft as fruit skin? Where I came up with that, I have no idea; still I can feel it.

I hated my own red leather shoes. Is it that, that has me writing about a queer little girl, loving nothing more ... ?

Author's Notes - This Is the End

The final entries in the gloss:  starting points, sites of conquest, and money money money money.



TOXANDRIA
The realm of Childeric I, foederatus and King of the Franks (childerici regis).  Located within the area referred to by Rome as belgica, modern Belgium, it was ceded to the Franks by the Roman emperor Julian in 358 CE

Childeric held Arras, Boulougne (Bononia), and Tournai, the city representing here Clovis’ first capital.  The domain was not the backwater I have presented it as being; Childeric appears to have been extremely wealthy and perhaps not only in thanks to his position as an ally of the Empire.  Trade and travel throve here, and the art and fine craftsmanship of both Roman and Frankish entrepreneurs were all to be found within the area.


VINDINIUM
The city now known as Le Mans, mentioned by Gregory of Tours as having been ruled by Rigomer.  It did indeed have an amphitheater, which is still visible today; but the thermae, or baths, were demolished in the Imperial Crisis of the third century CE.  The city’s walls may be among the most complete surviving Gallo-Roman town fortifications.


VOUILLE'
The Battle of Vouille’, 507, was one of the greatest gains of actual territory in Clovis’ career, after Soissons.  With this fight, he subdued the Visigoths and likely completed an estrangement from Theodoric and the Ostragoths, and amassed Aquitainia and the major southern expanses of the sum of his consolidated territories, roughing out the outlines of what eventually we came to know as France.


WERGILD
Reparation money exacted for the murder of a member of one’s community:  the literal cost of taking someone’s life, or irrevocably compromising it.  Wergild might also be assigned for crimes other than murder, as in the rape of Tetrada, or for the death of livestock or catastrophic loss of property.  Interestingly, the wergild for a woman of childbearing age was extremely high; though women might not have held a position the modern mind would think of as powerful, their value to a community was undeniable, and their treatment was not strictly that of chattel.

The system of wergild valuation was formalized, and laws in existence at the time, as well as the lex salica set down in the final year of Clovis’ life and reign, address specific situations/personages in some detail.  The concept originally saved those in government—and many families—from having to deal with the alternative of blood-for-blood, thereby acting to control feuds and civil strife.  Where we might find the literal pricing of a person’s value … “barbaric” … the function of these laws was actually meant to reduce violence and provide deterrent to crime.  The hierarchy of wergild values provides an anthropological window into the society as a whole, and once again underscores the ultimate values in the Frankish system:  freedom and family.

Tetrada’s wergild would be thrice that of a male under twelve or over forty, or anyone else not a soldier in his prime.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

As we near the end of the Author's Notes series, it's interesting to observe how the glossary sort of fell out in an order that lent itself to this format in terms of theme and content.  Today's subjects:  places, places, and more places!



THURINGIA
One of the territories known to have been gained by Clovis, but not always firmly under his control, Thuringia was the font of allies and family for the king.  It was his close relation to the people of this region which both justified his claim upon it, and horrified because of the manner of his staking that claim.  Basina, Clovis’ mother, was a Thuringian queen before she scandalized the Franks by leaving her husband Bisinus (who had provided refuge for the exiled Frankish king) to marry Childeric.  Thuringian land occupied the eastern borders of those domains making up a part of Clovis’ story, situated north of Odovakar’s realm.



TOLBIAC
The Battle of Tolbiac, 496—site of Clovis’ conversion (most widely reported/accepted date).  Called Zulpich in many sources.  The “place-name problem” often prevalent for a British writer was a lesser issue for European/Roman geography in Late Antiquity.  For no reason better than accessibility for the unfamiliar reader, I’ve chosen Latinized forms of both personal and place names almost universally.


TONGEREN
Tongeren is one of the oldest cities in Belgium, predating even the advent of Julius Caesar.  The city was a Roman administrative center, and housed one of the first Catholic dioceses in the area, but was likely sacked in 451 by the Huns.  Chararic’s placement at Tongeren is a fiction, but the area is a likely one for someone associated with Clovis as early as the victory at Soissons, and places him in proximity with the smaller world of Clovis’ Belgic origins, as well as in a believable kin-geography.


TOURNAI
Clovis’ first capital, and the main of three cities held by Childeric in the province of belgica secunda, Tournai is also one of the oldest towns in Belgium.  Tournai lay east and slightly south of Bononia, with Arras between the two, farther to the south.  Tournai was and is situated on the Scheldt river, a conduit for trade and sustenance dating at least to the Roman period.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today, a look at princes and non-primogenitive inheritance.


SUCCESSION
Much has been made, over the centuries, of Salic Law, not least Title LIX, Concerning Private Property, which addressed the prohibition of feminine inheritance:  of Salic land no portion of the inheritance shall come to a woman: but the whole inheritance of the land shall come to the male sex.  Looming far larger at the time of the Merovingian dynasty, however, was the division of inheritance—a habit, at the royal level, which led to the perceived degeneration of Clovis’ descendants and their power.

Clovis’ decision to divide his kingdom in the manner of a patrimony, rather than to enact the now-familiar practice of primogeniture, has fascinated and frustrated historians and scholars for generations.  However, at the time, such an action was commonplace and unexceptional—and, of course, led to the notorious wars and factions so much a part of the dynastic history of the time.  The problem is another more applied by modern perspective than one which would have been recognized at the time.  As the sun comes up in the east, so the tradition was the tradition, and if it contained inconveniences, and even the seeds of strife, that was not the matter for a father (nor even a king) to presume to rectify.  Primogeniture was not merely foreign, it would have been inconceivable, in the sense of not occurring to those with estates.  If it obviously became conceivable to those inheriting, then the actions were as they were, and were as much accepted consequences as the tradition itself was accepted.


THEODORIC
454-526; King of the Ostrogoths (488-526), ruler of Italy (493-526), and regent of the Visigoths (511-526).  The name means king of the people (theud), and may be tied to a form of rulership referred to in ancient Germanic nations as Thiudans, a spiritual level of authority in contrast with reiks, the military or blood ruler.  This name, of course, unites those aspects.
Theodoric made much of his (possibly fictional) descent from the venerated Amal line, and varied his approach to Clovis and others with their value or threat to his position.  His queen, Audofleda, was Clovis’ sister; though the alliance forged by this marriage was not made of stern stuff.  Theodoric and Clovis, though they never warred directly, remained wary and at times antagonistic regardless of the relation.


THEUDERIC
484-533/534(?); inherited Austrasia, Rheims, and Metz.  First son of Clovis, whose mother was unrecorded but seems likely to have been a concubine/friedelehe.  Little is recorded of him before his father’s death, and there is no indication whatever that he was in any way  unhealthy.  His “palsy” in this story serves both as story arc for his character and also as the physical manifestation of unspoken conflict between Clovis and himself.  Much of what I have created for Theuderic’s character is utter fiction.
Early in his own reign, Theuderic sent his son Theudebert to battle the Scandinavian King Chlochilaich (better known, from the poem Beowulf, as Hygelac) who had invaded his realm. Theudebert defeated and killed Chlochilaich.  See the note on Theodoric for etymology of the name.    (Variations:  Thierry, Deitrich)



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today's edition will cover everything from Romanization to the archaic name Romans used to designate the Franks:


ROMANIZATION
Though there are historians and students whose misgivings regarding the Franks’ Romanitas may validly put it in question, the overwhelming slant of early sources and commentary on Clovis and his world in general indicates a high level of Roman assimilation among the Franks generally, especially at the level of government and nobility.  Of all the barbarian peoples, the Franks appear to have been singular in both their approach to Rome itself, but in their assimilation of culture, belief, social structure—and the preservation of their own extremely-difficult-to-define, from a modern perspective, identity (*).  There is reason to wonder  why Clotilde is said to have converted Clovis from Roman gods, but source material displays a strong identification of the Frankish people with the Roman—and Greek—culture, even in the absence of overall conformist points of reference, law, and hierarchy.  This is to say, the Franks appear to have appropriated Roman history and culture, recognizing it as prestigious, but maintained at the same time a strong cohesion at the same time.  Thus, Clovis was a “long-haired king”, a Frank, an independent entity capable of destroying Rome in the person of Syagrius—and also fully capable of recognizing that power might be had in Roman forms, and that, for instance, Catholics represented a strong force with which it was worthwhile to align himself.  His inheritance of Roman administrative and cultural structures was no more antithetical to his identity than his adoption of the Christian faith was entirely a betrayal of it.  The Franks being a pragmatic people, and Clovis a pragmatic king, the nonconformity he and they displayed among peer tribes and kingdoms in the barbarian world of Late Antiquity was a matter of decision and practicality as much as it was the manifestation of faith, religious manifest destiny, or advantage-making.
(*This may also illuminate the question of Clovis’ conversion to Catholic, rather than Arian, Christianity; see notes on Catholicism and Arianism for further discussion.)


SERVI
The Latin term for a servant bound to the land—to an estate, specifically—these were not slaves, but not fully free in the Frankish sense either.  Forerunner of the term serfs, which would become so familiar in later medieval times.  This term exists minimally in this work, as a hat-tip to medievalism and a necessary allusion to Romanization as well as societal stratification—but it is kept fairly unobtrusive as well, in light of the preconceptions attached to both the Roman and medieval associations.


SIBLINGS
Clovis is known to have had two siblings other than Audofleda – another like-named sister, Abdofled/Abofled, the youngest, and Lanthechild, who along with the other siblings is largely known for having converted from Arian to Catholic Christianity with Clovis.  There was, in a previous draft of this work, a storyline for Lanthechild.  However, in the interest of avoiding confusion, the character was entirely excised during the most extensive revision.  Abdofled does not appear in all sources, and was never included in any draft, for reasons which may be obvious.  I have wondered whether the vagaries of spelling simply created this sibling in duplication of the clearly-historical sister, Audofleda, but will confess to having put no research into this question.


SICAMBRIAN
This term appears most prominently in the legend of the baptism of Clovis, by some depicted as having occured concurrent with his conversion.  The name refers to the Romans’ poetic designation for the Franks.  It is derived from the name of the tribe Sicambri, a tribe first appearing in Roman histories just before the last half of the first century BCE.  The Sicambri were said to live at the mouth of the Rhine at that time, and Clovis’ Salian Franks would have been considered their descendants.  To use archaic names for tribes was a Latin poetic convention; thus Bishop Remigius’ reference to Clovis as “O Sicambrian” at the iconic moment of his baptism.  Other references to Franks as Sicambrians can be found in the panegyrics of the time.  Because it seems unlikely, outside such contexts as the rarefied rules of Roman literary usage, that the Franks would have referred to themselves by this name, I’ve maintained the famous line from Remigius, but eschewed this usage anywhere else.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today will be brief and miscellaneous.  Stay tuned tomorrow, for a look at ROMANIZATION!



RICCHAR
Not noted by sources as a king, Ricchar was brother to Ragnachar, and little discussed except as one of many minor rulers whose domains were usurped during Clovis’ career.  He is variously described as having been killed with Ragnachar at Cambrai, or with their other brother, Rigomer, at Vindinium, during Clovis’ unification of Frankish territories.


RIGOMER
Like Ricchar, a brother of Ragnachar and not noted as a king; likewise little discussed by sources.  However, Rigomer is noted in relation to Vindinium, so it is possible that as a Frankish prince he had some governance over the city.  He was killed between 508-511 in Clovis’ Frankish unification campaigns.


RIPUARIAN/SALIAN
The distinction often employed by historians to discuss Ripuarian (river-dwelling) and Salian (sea-dwelling) Franks was not employed during the period of Clovis’ rule, though the latter term can be found in ancient histories—outside the context generally understood today.  The designation “Frankish” appears to be a later development as well, though francia and francisca may have been in use, and have long been connected with the people of Clovis as, respectively, designations for their land and their totemic weapons, the battle-axes which figure so prominently in this tale.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today, Clovis' two comes come in at the top, followed by a look at the type of king he was (literally, literally), and I thought we should round off this post with the Saint who baptized the King.


PHARAMOND
FICTIONAL; originally called Merovech, I changed this character’s name the moment someone fist asked me about Dan Brown.  Pharamond’s name does belong to another semi-historical/legendary king of the Franks.


RAGNACHAR
Ragnachar is a historical king, seated at Cambrai, and known to have fought beside his kinsman, Clovis.  Tales of him dating from Gregory of Tours’ day depict a dissolute, villain enough to make even Childeric’s early dissipations mild by comparison.  Though there is always room for the possibility of bias and propaganda in primary sources, rehabilitation/revisionism would do away with too many good stories in this case, and so we have the older, less-powerful cousin who both envies and ties himself—for a time, loyally—to the arc of Clovis’ much brighter star.  The tales of “my Farro” come largely as recorded in sources; and, of course, one can take the particular type of sexual slurs against Ragnachar with all the veracity that belongs to Clotilde’s bloodthirsty family and some of the more magical legends attached to Clovis himself.


REGES CRINITI
“Long-haired kings”; Franks of the period attached symbolic importance to hair, and their kings wore long hair as a badge both of power and position.  Stories abound of those who were shorn or tonsured like monks in a metaphorical display of their loss of authority.  As is illustrated in Clotilde’s threats to the young son of Chararic and the aftermath, for a victim of being shorn thus to even speak of growing his hair back was a clear threat to any king who wanted to see him stripped of power.
Tangentially related to this is the reference to Basina’s scalping, after her adultery.  This was intended to echo as much the fate of Morgause at her son Gaheris’ hand, as to reflect the connection to the archetypal power of long hair for Frankish royalty.


REMIGIUS
Bishop Remigius of Rheims, born 437, lived to the year 533.  By the time of Clovis’ baptism (as calculated from 508, rather than 496), he had already attained seventy-one years, and he eventually far outlived Clovis himself, surviving to the impressive age of nearly ninety-six.  This alone would have lent him a literal venerability, and his character certainly lent Remi a fame at least as great, if not even greater, than Clovis’ own.





As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Laws and characters - today, supporting roles, fictional and non:


LEX SALICA
Salic Law, the sixth century codification of law first set down by Clovis I.  Alaric II of the Visigoths, much maligned in these pages, was known definitively to have compiled his own code of Roman laws, the Breviary of Alaric, or brevarium.  The sixty-five chapers of Clovis’ pactus legis salicae represent traditions and punishments far predating his own rule, but synthesized to bring Franks and Gallo Romans under one system (though not equally; they are not treated precisely alike).  There is little Christian influence or input in the codification, and it demonstrates the priorities of Frankish society—with family above all other concerns, and loss of freedom or financial stability being the worst possible punishments.  The clearest thrust of these statutes is to minimize feuding, outlining tariffs and penalties clearly reflecting the specific value of relationships, and each member of a community’s worth within it.


MAGNERIC
FICTIONAL.  Both a bridge to the generation mostly destroyed in my version of Clovis’ accession, and an example of the nature of Frankish society in Roman Gaul, Magneric allowed me to represent both the newness of Catholicism and the old-guard of those more insular nobles who came before Clovis’ rule.


ODOVAKAR
Patrician of Rome whose ethnicity varies wildly across the sources, Odovakar deposed Romulus Augustulus and ruled during the ‘reign’ of Julius Nepos, the final Emperor in the West.  Already nearing fifty by the time Clovis came to his throne, he was nonetheless a staggering power in Italy and beyond.  His protracted standoff with Theodoric the Ostrogoth in northern Italy did end over a dining table, though some of the dramatic legends about this event are here omitted.  Variants:  Odoacer, Odovacer, Odoaker, possibly Adovacrius.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today we have two uncles and a sword.  Stay tuned tomorrow, when we'll go all lex salica up in here!


GUNDOBALD
King of Burgundy 473-516, uncle of Clotilde.  Gregory of Tours condemns Gundobald for the murder and the usurpation of his three brothers’ inheritances in a bid for their father Gundioc’s kingdom.  Clotilde was said to have been exiled, but was able to escape into marriage with Clovis as Gundobald feared the Frankish ruler’s strength.  Gundobald maintained a state of war with his last brother, Godegesil, for years, and each of them prevailed upon Clovis not knowing that the other had, begging for assistance against one another.  In the end, having promised tribute to Clovis, Gundobald is said to have broken this promise, and besieged Godegesil at Vienne, finally defeating the latter with the help of a traitor within the city.  Late in his life, he converted to Catholicism, and was succeeded on the throne of Burgundy by his son Sigismund.


GODEGESIL
Uncle and guardian of Clotilde, Godegesil quartered his niece at his capital in Geneva, where she was educated in the Catholic church.  Godegesil engaged with his brother Gundobald in conflicts over their inheritance for many years.  Though relieved by the support of Clovis for some time, he was finally destroyed in 501 during Gundobald’s siege of Vienne, after Clovis’ withdrawal and the betrayal of an artisan who helped Gundobald past the defenses after Godegesil expelled commoners from the protection of the city.


HEREBRAND
Accurately or not, as a kid who grew up reading Arthurian stories, I confess to an affection for the idea of naming a king’s sword.  This name is made up of two authentic naming-elements:  hari/here, meaning army; and brand, meaning blade or sword.  Pattern-welded swords exist among the artifacts of the period, and represent an extremely prized symbol and treasure for any warrior or king.  In Clovis’ early career, Herebrand would have represented an almost unattainably precious treasure; even with his increased prosperity and power over the years, it would have been a symbol of great potency and value.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today - the people and their institutions.


THE FRANKS
The name of the Frankish empire, of France, of the French themselves, is thought to have come from the word francisca, most often translated as the name of the small throwing axe unique to the people who carried them, and who were themselves unique among the “barbarian” tribes of Late Antiquity.  These people valued their individual and their tribal independence to such a degree that freedom, itself, has at times been ascribed as the meaning of the term francisca, either in combination with, or actually instead of, its definition as an ax.

The term Frank was not clearly in use as early as in Clovis’ time, though some sources do appear to refer to francia as a place name.  I have used the name for the land (francia) and the name for the people sparingly if at all, due to some of these ambiguities, but also in keeping with the fact that nationalism of the sort recognized by a modern reader would have been outside the experience of the people represented here.


FRIEDELEHE
This concept of marriage (often called concubinage) may be the artifact of historical research, rather than an actual institution of the Franks and/or the period.  Most sources referring to it did so from the outside, and centuries after the fact.  However, the institution is enough accepted, particularly within the general audiences for historical fiction, that I preserved it as authentic and used it for the relationship with Evochilde.

Given Clovis’ apparent continence with women, and particularly given the prince’s status, it seemed appropriate to bestow on Theuderic’s mother a form of legitimacy and inheritance rights which is understandable to most readers.  For the record, the general definition is:

The term is thought to mean “love-marriage”, though this simplifies a more complex arrangement.  Its key defining quality is mutual consent – both man and woman voluntarily entered this relationship.  The friedelehe is thus defined as a concubine with acknowledged status—lacking the full rights of a wife, but holding a legally defined position both with the man to whom she voluntarily bound herself thus, and in his household.  Her children would have been legitimate, able to inherit, and would have been viable heirs.

Clovis is frequently alluded to, in much-later historical analysis, as having fathered Theuderic with a mistress or concubine, but sources fail to record specifics on the matter one way or another.  These presumptions may be easy simplifications.  See “Evochilde” note for particulars relating to this work.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes - Latin, Lover

Today we have a couple of the Latin terms used in The Ax and the Vase most frequently ... and a look at Clovis' friedelehe, lover, first wife - the fictional mother of his first son, Theuderic.

COMES
Companion, comrade (plural:  comites).  The Germanic concept of comitatus, described in Latin by Tacitus, describes a wider relationship with the special connotation that comrades in this relationship would never desert one another on the field of battle.  A king’s comites were the most trusted companions, but as seen here this is not a hereditary/noble title.

This sense of the title illuminates the extent of betrayal and cowardice in Chararic’s failure to support Clovis on the field; as well, perhaps, as the extent of punishment it was for Clovis to renounce his kinsman and comes, Ragnachar, for all to see.  The term evolved into the modern title, comte’, or Count.  It shares a root with the words committee and constable.


DOMINE
“My lord.”  I wanted to use a title clearly illustrating subjection, in the sense of a kings’ subject, without evoking too-medieval a tone.  Here again, as I adopted the theory (oft questioned) that the Franks of Late Antiquity, and Clovis himself, were heavily Romanized, I borrowed from Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series, and adopted this address.  It is intended to both evoke a certain tone, but also stand apart from terms used in much fiction of this genre and period.  It has been perhaps the greatest asset in my attempt to avoid too much “antique-speak” in the tone of the manuscript, while still contributing to the world-building of this alien time and place.


EVOCHILDE
FICTIONAL.  Though it is known that Theuderic I is not the son of Clovis’ queen, Clotilde, not a breath of evidence testifies to the nature of Clovis’ relationship with Theuderic’s mother, nor who she might have been.  The name Evochildis does appear fleetingly in some sources, but even this is unreliable.

After the cautionary example of his voluptuous father, Clovis’ sexual behavior is notably unremarked by sources.  It seemed correct to simplify the king’s amatory adventures in the form of strongly bonded relationships and, to some extent, silence.  Theuderic’s birth is recorded as having occurred in 484, well before the advent of Clotilde.  I saw no reason to complicate matters with towering romance, nor to dismiss the emotional importance of a first love either.  A friedelehe who dies in childbirth fits the timeline.  It also explains Theuderic’s clearly estimable position with his father, explains the absence of any other documented concubine or lover alongside the queen, aligns with the position Clotilde herself eventually seems to have held with the king, and finally, simply, reflects the realities of the time.  For a man to love a woman might easily have meant, in this age and for many thousands of years before and since, to kill her.  As, “to be the queen, she agreed to be the widow”, so both parties in sex, for centuries before our time, always knew:  to be a lover might be a bargain with mortality.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes - MC Edition!

Yes, we are here at last - and, as luck would have it, the king and queen are right next to each other in The Ax and the Vase's Author's Note.  Enjoy!


CLOTILDE
475-544/545.  “Illustrious battle”, from hludo (fame, illustrious—the root also gives us the descendant “loud”) and tild (battle).  Much of the legend of St. Clotilde relates to the Burgundian wars, romanticized for centuries in songs of betrayal and blood.  A significant portion of these appear to be only that—legend—but the saint would have almost certainly have been a woman of some will, and records of Frankish royal womanhood are vivid; the tale of “choose your blade” is taken from real sources, though not attached to Clotilde.

Clotilde’s greatest accomplishment according to history was the conversion of her husband; certainly a significant event.  I felt the relationship here had to be contentious (the tale of the arguments surrounding baptism of the children, before Clovis’ own conversion, is taken from sources), but definitely loving.  I worked from the background of Clovis’ apparently profligate father to build the portrait of a marriage both befitting her sanctified repute and suitable to partner a monarch and a man as overwhelming as Clovis.  (Variants:  Clotilda, Clotildis, Clothilde, Chrodchild, Chrodegilde, Chlothilde von Burgund)


CLOVIS
466-511.  The name derives from the roots hludo (fame, illustrious—the root also gives us the cognate descendant “loud”) and wig/viga (war, warrior, battle).  Clovis’ exploits may have rested on a greater legacy from his own father than is sometimes assumed, and many of his timelines, motivations, actions, and legends are disputed.  Regardless of his real history, he makes for an irresistible story, and quite a subject in himself.  I was blessed to bump into him via the etymology of my own middle name, and overjoyed to encounter him at a time when productivity as a writer had become more than something to put off for later.  His legend has remained either wonderfully (for me as a writer) or sadly (for the millions who’ve never heard of him) untrodden in English, and has been an exciting tale to relate.

The sarcophagus of Clovis, interred at his church of St. Peter and Paul—later rededicated to St. Geneviéve—is said to have remained intact until the French Revolution, when revolutionaries broke into the church and desecrated his remains.  An interesting end for the king who was a kind of French beginning.  (Variants:  Chlodovech, Chlodovechus, Chlodovacar, Chlovis, Chlodwig, Hludowig, Hlodowig.  Gave rise to Hludowicus, Hludovicus, Ludovicus, Louis, Ludwig, Lewis, and, of course … Louise.)



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

CLIMACTERIC
Roman tradition counted the turning points of a man’s life at seven-year intervals, the climacteric years.  After a child’s seventh year, the survival of infancy might be celebrated.  At fourteen, passage to maturity was observed.  During a climacteric year, portents were strong, but danger was also at its greatest; a person was considered to be weakest during the marker years, and one’s health was most imperiled.  The sixty-third year would be the Grand Climacteric, when death and danger most imminent—and, of course, few people reached this particular marker.

Here again we have a rite observed by Romans, which may or may not have been part of Clovis’ real history.  However, given the Romanization of his people, and, fankly, the handiness of a sort of timekeeping device, I found this a good marker to use.  Certainly, rites of age remain with us today—though perhaps at altered points in time—in Bat and Bar Mitvahs, Quinceañera, legal ages for driving or other adult privileges, and even in observance of retirement ages and marital anniversaries.  Humans love a good anniversary; I just happened to choose a Roman convention for this work.


CLOTAIRE
497-561; inherited Soissons.  Clotilde and Clovis’ youngest son; ambitious and unfilial, he murdered Clodomer’s children in 524 and took Tours and Poitiers.  Campaigned against his mother’s former country of Burgundy, and in 534, won Grenoble, Die and other territories.  Fought beside Theuderic’s son, Theudebert, and his own brother Childebert.  Much-married and bloodthirsty, by 558, he was the sole King of the Franks.  After one too many rebellious forays by his own son, Chram, he imprisoned Chram in a cottage in Brittany and burnt him, along with his wife and Clotaire’s own grandchildren, alive.  In apparent remorse, Clotaire is said to have made pilgrimage to St. Martin’s tomb in Tours to beg forgiveness, dying not long after.  (Variants:  Chlothachar, Chlotar, Clothar, Clotaire, Chlotochar, or Hlothar.)


As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

CHLPERIC II
Clotilde’s father, son of King Gundioc, thought to have lived 443-480.  Gundioc’s sons, Gundobald, Godegesil, Gundomar, and Chilperic, inherited a divided kingdom, and Gregory of Tours condemns Gundobald for murder and usurpation in a bid for Gundioc’s entire inheritance.  Chilperic’s daughter Chrona was said to have taken the veil and later founded the church of Saint-Victor, and Clotilde was exiled, eventually marrying Clovis (and supposedly setting her husband and even her sons against the traitorous Gundobald and his son Sigismund).


CHLODERIC
King of the river-dwelling Franks, killed by Clovis in 509.  Chloderic was the son of Sigibert, and called The Parricide, I saw in one source an undoubted typo referring to him as “the parasite”.  This was just appealing enough to use anyway, and informs what character he’s allowed to display in these pages (little enough, as it happens).  Clovis used Chloderic to achieve the murder of Sigibert, who had fought beside him in multiple battles—and then used Chloderic’s crime of betrayal to then remove him also from the picture.


CHLODOMER
495-524; inherited Orléans (Poitiers, Orléans—Aureliani, the city of Aurelius—Tours).  Eldest surviving son of Clovis and Clotilde, he is most closely involved in the legends of Clotilde’s (likely fictitious) lust for revenge against her own family in Burgundy.  He was killed at the Battle of Vézeronce in Burgundy, having assassinated Sigismund of Burgundy and both of Sigismund’s sons.  His widow was married, possibly without her consent, by Clotaire, who then murdered Chlodomer’s children, excepting the youngest, Clodoald, who escaped and gave up his long hair, emblem of his royalty.  Clodoald was canonized Saint Cloud.  (Clodomir, Clodomer)


CHOLWIG
FICTIONAL.  As with Pharamond, Cholwig is a piece of imagination.  He fills the role of sage elder for Clovis—indeed, he is almost the only member of the preceding generation who makes up Clovis’ court from the beginning.  He represents the sole tie to the old ways, to Clovis’ ancestors, and takes on the literary position of surrogate father to the king.  He is Merlin and Mr. Miyagi, Spock and Mickey Goldmill.  Completely imaginary, but for the way I found this novel developing, completely necessary.


CHROTILDA
Sole daughter of Clovis and Clotilde, born 506, between his conversion and eventual baptism.  The name Chrotilda is cognate with Clotilde; she was named for her mother.

In the years after Clovis’ death, given in marriage to Amalaric, she was “rescued” by her brothers after, according to legend, she sent a towel stained with her own blood to her brother Childebert, who brought an army to defeat the Visigoths and retrieved his sister, only for her to die on the journey homeward of unrecorded causes.


As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

CHARARIC
One of the kinsmen Clovis is famously said to have disingenuously bemoaned no longer having, toward the end of his life—thanks to his supposed bloodthirst against his own relations.  I’ve given Chararic the seat of Tongeren, an ancient Belgic city it seems reasonable to consider a ruined one during the period of Clovis’ reign.  It was destitute, but not without potential; and, as with many of the gains I have written through Clovis’ career, he enjoyed battle, but also the prospect of territories the assets and advantages of which he felt could be more greatly exploited for power, wealth, and profit.


CHILDEBERT
496-558; inherited Paris.  Second son of Clovis and Clotilde, later in life he led the liberating army for his sister against the Visigoths and her husband, the Arian Amalaric.  More religious than his brothers, Childebert was also more successfully expansionist, and involved himself in more foreign wars than Chlodomer, Theuderic, or Clotaire.  Founded the monastery of Saint Vincent to house relics of the saint he had won in battle at Zargoza.


CHILDERIC
437-481; King of the Salian Franks; foederatus, belgica secunda.  The heir, though not certainly known to be the son, of Merovus/Merovech, who was said to be son of a sea god, and who gave his name to the Merovingian line founded by Clovis.  Childeric ruled 457-481, possibly with a great deal more power and wealth than are indicated in many siources and certainly within this manuscript.  His adult life and reign are documented, but subject to debate.  He was said to be so dissolute his own people rejected him, but after his restoration his rule appeared to be uncontested and fairly strong.

Possibly the most valuable legacy of Childeric was discovered in 1653, when his tomb was uncovered in Tournai at the church of Saint-Brice.  The riches found therein are legendary, in spite—or because—of being plundered in 1831 and lost to us.  Byzantine coinage, a signet ring reading Childerici Regis, the famous crystal head of a bull, and riches of jewels and gold abounded, along with the possibility of equine sacrifice over a period of many memorial years, and on a fairly grand scale.  Most famous are three hundred golden bees, each one attached by embroidery upon a rich Roman robe of silk and worked in garnet cloisonne’ with the backs of the stones incised in an identifiably Merovingian style.

Childeric’s bees have been subject of fables and fantasies, their symbolism discussed in the most fascinating interpretations.  Napoleon had them embroidered onto his coronation robes.  The metaphoric possibilities are tantalizing, and include wonderful tales attaching to the fleur de lys, symbol of France, as well as spearheads and animal lore of varying significance.

Clovis’ succession after his father was not, in his time, the entrenched guarantee royal primogeniture eventually became (partially thanks to Clovis’ own Lex Salica).  His election informs the quotation used after my title page:  rex ex nobilitate, dux ex virtute - king through noble birth, commander through right of virtue.  Like many Germanic cultures, it was the raising on a shield by a people’s commanders which elevated a prince to a throne; the right of inheritance was neither presumed nor automatic.



As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

Today's edition:  a mother, a mother, and Mother Church!


BASINA
Wife of Childeric, mother of Clovis, she left another king, her husband, Bisinus (and, according to many sources, a son, Baderic), to become the wife of the Frankish king.  Certain legends depict her as asking for Childeric’s hand herself, saying, “I want to have the most powerful man in the world, even if I have to cross the ocean for him.”  She is credited with naming their son, Chlodwig/Hlodowig/Chlodowech/ Chlodovechus—not after an ancestor of the line, but in honor of her hopes for his legacy.

Basina’s fornication depicted in this work, after Clovis’ coronation, is complete fiction, serving the expedient of rendering our protagonist essentially orphaned (and unencumbered by women) and underscoring her shocking character.  This fiction also consciously echoes the Arthurian tale of Morgause, whose son Gaheris cuts off more than his mother’s hair when he finds her with a lover.


CARETENA
Mother of Clotilde, little is recorded of her but adventurous and significantly posthumous legends from Gregory of Tours, whose bloody chronicle of her drowning, and the murder of her husband Chilperic by Gundobald, Clotilde’s uncle, are late romantic inventions which appear to have little basis in fact or even good speculation.  It’s possible that Caretena was the Burgundian queen whose epitaph, discovered at Lyons, indicates she lived until 506; this would give the lie to Gregory’s exciting array of betrayals and murders, and allowed me the excuse to omit at least some of the myriad stories which cling to Clovis and his family in such profusion.  Even so, to include her in this extensive a cast of characters seemed unnecessary, so I have opted for omitting the lady herself, as well as her “blood-spattered” demise.


CATHOLICISM
Clovis was first described by Gregory of Tours as converting to Catholicism under the influence of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian princess.  Those princes in Gaul and central Europe who had adopted Christianity at all, at the time of Clovis’ rule, had chosen to subscribe to Arianism; so his acceptance of the Catholic faith of his wife has been alternately seen as either a political move based on the growing wealth and power of that Church, or a genuine reflection of her influence upon him.  The depth of his spiritual conviction is impossible to gauge, but I have chosen to give it some real power.  Apart from making for a good story line, it seems likely that a man of that era (and a man of the unique power Clovis both inherited and forged) would not have altered his spiritual status without some true inspiration.  I have made his spiritual choices difficult and troublesome, politically, personally, and for his people, in the ways many scholars have posited, but kept “faith” as the final consideration—as it has been for so many men and women throughout time.

Clovis’ conversion remains a seminal event in history.  Not least because of his religious pioneering, he is considered the first King of France, and it is in homage to his trailblazing faith as much as his power that his name was kept on the throne for over one thousand years.  Clotilde’s canonization has this at its root.

It’s impossible not to wonder what the face of European and Christian history might have been had Clovis followed his peers’ acceptance of Arianism (he is believed to have flirted with the faith at least in his youth), or perhaps never converted from paganism at all.

As to that paganism itself, it is often described as having been Roman, and the question of why a Frank would subscribe to Mars or Mithras has received ink for generations.  It seems to me a culture which yields the Frankish epitaph, Francus ego cives, miles romanus in armis (“I am a Frank by nationality, but a Roman soldier under arms”—a statement rendered in Latin, and a real artifact found at a Frankish burial), could easily have fostered cross-cultural spirituality, just as Clovis’ position itself, on the point between foederatus ally to Rome, and rex in his own right, would have been transitional.  Here is a man who on the one hand ousted Rome, in the form of its last governor in Gaul, Syagrius; and also embraced it, in the form of his chosen Church.  Clovis’ career is undeniably one of radical growth and change, and his conversion—and consecration—are the backbone of his contradictions, his fascinations, and his life’s story.


As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes

AUDOFLEDA
Sister of Clovis, queen of Theodoric the Great.  Her birth date is unrecorded, and little of her history is preserved, but her position as the sister and then wife of two of the most remembered kings in European history begs a memorable character.  She is somewhat minor in this work, but has indelible cameo appearances, and she is also the first of three matrilineal subjects of another manuscript currently in progress.

BONONIA
Today, the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer, in northern France.  Bononia in Latin meant “good city”.  The settlement and its port, serving as a trade connection to Britain, dates to at least the first century CE; it was called by this name by the fourth.  Bononia is closest to the coast of Chararic’s three cities, on the Channel southeast of London and Canterbury.


As always, Author's Notes excerpts are excerpted from the MS, which means they are written "in-universe."  These posts should not be taken as historical resources.

Author's Notes - Three-fer

Today, we'll take the next thee entries in the Authorial Notary gloss.  As always, kids - please remember that these are written "in-universe" from the point of view of writing The Ax and the Vase, and so should not be used as sources nor complete explanations.


ARIANISM
Arianism, an early Christian faith ruled heretical by the Catholic Church, was at one time a powerful Christian cult.  The central conflict between the Arian and Catholic faiths lay in the doctrine of the Trinity, which Arians did not accept.  By Arian doctrine, the Son was considered to be a creation of The Father, divine, but not co-eternal with God Himself.  The term was sometimes used as a blanket epithet for any nontrinitarian Christian belief.

Much has been made of Clovis’ adoption of Catholicism, as opposed to the Arianism adopted by those of his peers who accepted Christianity at all—many Catholic faithful accept the tale of Clotilde’s persuasion of her husband; some posit political advantages to his conversion to the Trinitarian faith.  Whatever the case, Clovis’ religious conversion made him the first Catholic king in Europe—and his power and influence, along with the dynastic continuation of his faith, makes this choice one of profound consequence for the millennium following his rule.


ARMORICA
The Armorican Peninsula, or Brittany, was at the time of Clovis’ rule most likely experiencing an influx of Britons, which gave the region the latter name.  There is some speculation that the Catholicism adhered to by this population made Clovis a palatable leader, which could have contributed to his acquisition of this territory by treaty and only minor combat.  Like Thuringia and Tongeren, Armorica presents an example of Clovis’ willingness to forgo war—and, his pet strategy, deceit—for conquest, and to manage his increase of power administratively.


ARRAS
One of the three cities held during the reign of Clovis’ father, Childeric, Arras’ etymology is uncertain, but occupation at the site of the city dates to the Iron Age.  Arras lay southeast of Bononia, southwest of Tournai.