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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HermanfridHermanfrid was the last independent king of the
Thuringii. He was one of three sons of King
Bessinus and the
Lombard Menia . His siblings were
Baderic;
Radegund , married to the Lombard king
Wacho; and
Bertachar.
Hermanfrid married
Amalaberga, daughter of
Amalafrida who was the daughter of
Theodemir, between 507 and 511. Amalberga was also the niece of
Theodoric the Great. It is unclear when Hermanfrid became king, but he is called king in a letter by Theodoric dated to 507. He first shared the rule with his brothers Baderic and Bertachar, but later killed Bertachar in a battle in 529, leaving the young
Radegund an orphan.
According to
Gregory of Tours, Amalaberga now stirred up Hermanfrid against his remaining brother. Once she laid out only half the table for a meal, and when questioned about the reason, she told him "A king who owns only of half of his kingdom deserved to have half of his table bare." Thus roused, Hermanfrid made a pact with the king of
Metz,
Theuderic I, to march against Baderic. Baderic was overcome by the
Franks and beheaded, but Hermanfrid refused to fulfill his obligations to Theuderic, which led to enmity between the two kings.
In 531 or 532, Theuderic, his son
Theudebert I, and his brother King
Clotaire I of
Soissons attacked the Thuringii. The Franks won a battle near the river
Unstrut and took the royal seat at Scithingi . Hermanfrid managed to flee, but the Franks captured his niece Radegund and his nephews.
Theuderic gave Hermanfrid safe conduct, ordered him to come to
Zülpich, and gave him many gifts. While Hermanfrid talked with Theuderic, somebody pushed him from the town walls of Zülpich and he died. Gregory mentions that certain people had ventured to suggest that Theuderic might have had something to do with it.
Radegund was then forced to marry King Clotaire, while Hermanfrid's wife Amalaberga fled to the
Ostrogoths with her children
Amalafrid and
Rodelindis. She was later captured by the
Byzantine general
Belisaurius and sent to
Constantinople, where Amalafrid later became an imperial general and Rodelindis was married to the Lombard king
Auduin.
The Thuringian kingdom ended with Hermanfrid. The area east of the
Saale river was taken over by
Slavic tribes, north Thuringia by the
Saxons.
The fall of the Thuringian dynasty became the subject of numerous epic treatments, the best known of which is in the
Rerum gestarum saxonicarum libri tres by
Widukind of Corvey, a Saxon foundation
myth written in 967.
Rudolph of Fulda tells a related story.