Audovera

{{Infobox royalty

| name = Audovera

| image = File:Albert Maignan-Audovère Repudiée.jpg

| caption = Painting of Audovera's repudiation by Albert Maignan.

| succession = Queen consort of Neustria

| reign = 561 – 567

| birth_date = {{circa}} 533

| death_date = 580

| death_place = Le Mans

| consort = yes

| spouse = Chilperic I

| issue = Theudebert of Soissons
Merovech
Clovis
Childesinda
Basina

}}

Audovera (died 580) was the first wife or mistress of Chilperic I, king of Neustria.{{Cite journal |last=Léglu |first=Catherine |date=March 2017 |title=The Vida of Queen Fredegund in Tote listoire de France : Vernacular Translation and Genre in Thirteenth-Century French and Occitan Literature |url=https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/nfs.2017.0170 |journal=Nottingham French Studies |language=en |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=98–112 |doi=10.3366/nfs.2017.0170 |issn=0029-4586}}{{Cite journal |last=Stafford |first=Pauline |date=January 1978 |title=Sons and Mothers: Family Politics in the Early Middle Ages |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-church-history-subsidia/article/abs/sons-and-mothers-family-politics-in-the-early-middle-ages/36323BB6887A552F76C4B7DC71D74148 |journal=Studies in Church History Subsidia |language=en |volume=1 |pages=79–100 |doi=10.1017/S014304590000034X |issn=0143-0459|url-access=subscription }}

They had five children.

• Theudebert, killed in battle in 575 by Guntram Boso during the interminable conflict between Chilperic and his brothers.
• Merovech of Soissons, married the widow Brunhilda, becoming his father's enemy. Killed by his servants on his own orders in 578.
• Clovis of Soissons, assassinated by Fredegund in 580.{{Cite journal |last=Singer |first=Rachel |date=May 2022 |title=Gregory's forgotten rebel: the portrayal of Basina by Gregory of Tours and its implications |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/emed.12534 |journal=Early Medieval Europe |language=en |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=185–208 |doi=10.1111/emed.12534 |issn=0963-9462|url-access=subscription }}
• Childesinda, mentioned but once in the Liber Historiae Francorum as the infant whose botched baptism led to Audovera's dismissal. Committed to the same nunnery as her mother.
• Basina, nun, banished to a convent in 580.{{Cite book |last1=Effros |first1=Bonnie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xST3DwAAQBAJ&dq=Audovera+chilperic&pg=PA238 |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World |last2=Moreira |first2=Isabel |date=2020-05-01 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-023419-5 |language=en}} She later led a revolt in the abbey of Poitiers in 589.{{Cite book |last1=Effros |first1=Bonnie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xST3DwAAQBAJ&dq=Audovera+chilperic,+Clovis+Basina&pg=PA238 |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World |last2=Moreira |first2=Isabel |date=2020-05-01 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-023419-5 |language=en}}

Some time before 567, Audovera and Fredegund - then a servant of Audovera, but later to become another wife of Chilperic{{Citation |last=Dailey |first=E. T. |title=7 Brunhild and Fredegund, ii: Queens, Politics, and the Writing of History |date=2015-01-01 |work=Queens, Consorts, Concubines: Gregory of Tours and Women of the Merovingian Elite |pages=141–160 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004294660/B9789004294660_009.xml |access-date=2024-01-31 |publisher=Brill |language=en |isbn=978-90-04-29466-0}}{{Cite book |last=Wemple |first=Suzanne Fonay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DLUzCwAAQBAJ&dq=Audovera+chilperic&pg=PA9 |title=Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 5 to 9 |date=2015-12-16 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-1-5128-2133-8 |language=en}} - prepared for the baptism of Childesinda while Chilperic was away. Fredegund learnt that it was forbidden for a mother to receive her own child in her arms following a baptism, due to a canon law forbidding marriage between parents and godparents.{{Cite book |last=Jussen |first=Bernhard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tj19ssUQSw8C&dq=Audovera+chilperic&pg=PA7 |title=Spiritual Kinship as Social Practice: Godparenthood and Adoption in the Early Middle Ages |date=2000 |publisher=University of Delaware Press |isbn=978-0-87413-632-6 |language=en}} Fredegund arranged the events of the baptism such that Audovera unknowingly broke this taboo.{{Cite book |last=Wood |first=Ian N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_z-vB8XUiV4C&dq=Audovera+chilperic&pg=PA107 |title=Franks and Alamanni in the Merovingian Period: An Ethnographic Perspective |date=1998 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-0-85115-723-8 |language=en}}{{Cite thesis |title=Legislating Against Reality : The Political Conflicts and Context of the Seventh-Century Merovingian Church Councils |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.15760/etd.3596 |publisher=Portland State University Library |first=Gregory |last=Burgas|date=2000 |doi=10.15760/etd.3596 }} On Chilperic's return, Fredegund informed him of what Audovera had done. Chilperic committed Audovera to a convent in a rage. Fredegund later had her murdered in 580 to coincide with the assassination of Clovis and the exile of Basina.