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also Dode of Heristal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClothildeSaint Clotilde , also known as
Clotilda or simply
Clotild, was the daughter of
Chilperic II of Burgundy and Caretena, and wife of the Frankish king
Clovis I. Venerated as a
Saint by
Roman Catholics, she was instrumental to her husband's famous conversion to
Christianity and, in her later years, was known for her almsgiving and penitential works of mercy.
On the death of
Gundioc, king of the Burgundians, in 473, his sons
Gundobad,
Godegisel and Chilperic divided his heritage between them; Chilperic apparently reigning at Lyon, Gundobald at Vienne and Godegesil at Geneva.
According to
Gregory of Tours, Chilperic was slain by Gundobad, his wife drowned, and of his two daughters, Chrona took the veil and Clotilde was exiled. This account, however, seems to have been a later invention, since an epitaph discovered at Lyons speaks of a Burgundian queen who died in 506. This was most probably the mother of Clotilde.
In 493 Clotilde married Clovis,
King of the Franks, who had just conquered northern Gaul. She was brought up in the Catholic faith and did not rest until her husband had abjured paganism and embraced the Catholic faith in 496. With him she built at
Paris the church of the Holy Apostles, afterwards known as Sainte Geneviève. After the death of Clovis in 511 she retired to the abbey of St Martin at Tours.
In 523 she incited her sons against her cousin
Sigismund, the son of
Gundobad and provoked the Burgundian war. In the following year she tried in vain to protect the rights of her grandsons, the children of
Clodomer, against the claims of her sons
Childebert I and
Clotaire I, and was equally unsuccessful in her efforts to prevent the civil discords between her children. She died in 544 or 545, and was buried at her husband's side in the church of the Holy Apostles.