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Godegisel (? - 501) was a Burgundian sub-king and son of the Burgundian king Gondioc.
Godegisel was the educator and uncle of Clotilde, wife of the Frankish king Clovis I. Beginning in 463 he was a sub-king of Kingdom of the Burgundians. With the help of Clovis, Godegisel attempted to become the king of all the Kingdom of the Burgundians by eliminating his brother Gundobad. Gundobad had previously seized the rest of the kingdom after the assassination of their brother Chilperic II, the father of Clotilde.
With the promise of annual tribute and territorial cessions, Clovis agreed to aid Godegisel, and in 500 (or 501) Clovis entered the Burgundian territory, compelling Gundobad to march against the invaders and request his brother's aid. When the armies arrived outside of Dijon, Gundobad found himself fighting both the Franks and his brother. Defeated, Gundobad fled to Avignon, while Godigisel retired to Vienne. Clovis followed Gundobad to Avignon and began besieging it, only to abandon the operation and make peace with Gundobad. In 501 Gundobad was able to recover his territory with Visigothic aid. Gundobad murdered Godegisel in Vienne, and replaced him with his son Sigismund. He was married to Teudelinda, who also died at Vienne.
References
- Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks in Ten Books, 2.28
- Holmes, Thomas Scott. The Origin & Development of the Christian Church in Gaul During the First Six Centuries of the Christian Era: Being the Birkbeck Lectures for 1907 and 1908 in Trinity College, Cambridge, Macmillan and Company, ltd. 1911, p. 334
- Bachrach, Bernard S. (1972). Merovingian Military Organization, 481-751. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 9–10. ISBN 9780816657001.
Sources
- Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, Book IV, Ch. 9 (pp323-350)
- Reinhold Kaiser: Die Burgunder (Kohlhammer-Urban-Taschenbücher. Bd. 586). Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-17-016205-5, S. 57 und S. 114–116.