Family tree Snelder - Versteegh » King Athanagild of the Visigoths (510-567)

Personal data King Athanagild of the Visigoths 

• He was born until 510.
• He died in the year 567, he was 57 years old.
• A child of Theudisclus of the Visigoths

Household of King Athanagild of the Visigoths

He is married to Goswinda VISIGOTHS.

They got married before 552.

Child(ren):

1. Brunhildis of the Visigoths  ± 540-± 614 

Notes about King Athanagild of the Visigoths

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanagild

 

Athanagild (Gothic: Aþanagilds), (c. 517 – December 567) was Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania. He had rebelled against his predecessor, Agila I, in 551. The armies of Agila and Athanagild met at Seville, where Agila met a second defeat.^[1] Following the death of Agila in 554, he was sole ruler for the rest of his reign.

Roger Collins writes that Athanagild's reign "is perhaps more significant than our sources may care to let us believe." Collins argues that the account of Isidore of Seville may be colored by the hostility subsequent Visigothic kings had towards Athanagild and his descendants.^[2]

His queen, Goiswintha, gave him two daughters — Brunhilda and the murdered Galswintha — who were married to two Merovingian brother-kings: Sigebert I of Austrasia and Chilperic, king of the Neustrian Franks. Although Gregory of Tours states the reasons for this was that Sigebert disdained the prevalent practice of "taking wives who were completely unworthy of them", and sought the beautiful and cultured Brunhilda, while Chilperic married her sister out of sibling rivalry, Ian Wood points out that the circumstances and the scale of the morgengab suggest that the situation was more complex. "Athangild had no sons. By marrying two daughters to Frankish kings, he may have intended to involve the Merovingians in the Visigothic succession. Perhaps he hoped that the marriages would produce grandsons who could succeed him."^[9]

However Athanagild's death in 567 altered the situation. Wood speculates that the date of Galswintha's murder followed soon after his death.^[10] Brunhilda avoided her sister's fate, and became a central figure of Frankish history for the remainder of the sixth century.^[11] Lastly, Goiswintha survived the upheaval that followed Athangild's death, and became the second wife of Liuvigild the brother of Athangild's successor Liuva, and himself a future king of the Visigoths.^[12]

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Timeline King Athanagild of the Visigoths

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