General Notes

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

[Etienne De Coligny.FTW]

[Hugh II.ged]

Stuart, Royalty for Commoners, 3rd Edition, 1998, lists four wives of Dagobert I (Gometrude, Nantilde, Wulfegunde, and Berthilde), naming Berthilde as the mother of Siegbert III. Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-471, lists five wives (Gomatrude, Nantechild, Ragnetrude, Wulfegund, and Berchild) and names Ragnetrude, a wife Stuart doesn't mention at all, as Siegebert's mother. Somehow, it doesn't seem worth the effort to try to determine which source is correct as the paternal line is without dispute and most of the wive's have unknown ancestry, anyway.

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Sigebert III (b. 630/631--died Feb. 1, 656, Metz, France), one of the first so-called rois fainéants ("sluggard kings") of the Merovingian dynasty, who held no real power of his own but was ruled by whoever was his mayor of the palace. Made king of Austrasia by his father, Dagobert I, in 634, Sigebert was governed first by Bishop Chunibert of Cologne and Duke Adalgisile; then, on Dagobert's death, by Chunibert and Pepin I, the mayor of the palace (died 640); and finally by Pepin's son, Grimoald, mayor of the palace from 642 or 643 until the king's death. In the early 640s, when a certain Otto was mayor of the palace, Thuringia succeeded in gaining effective autonomy at Austrasian expense. After Sigebert's death, his young son, Dagobert II, was sent off to an Irish monastery by Grimoald, who briefly established his own son, Childebert (adopted by Sigebert when the king was still childless) on the throne. [Encyclopædia Britannica CD '97, Siegebert III].