who was now to get back his kingdom, and Brunhild who, after being held prisoner for a time, succeeded after the most romantic adventures in escaping from Rouen and reaching Austrasia, where her son, Childebert II (still a child), had been proclaimed king.
Chilperic is the very type of a Merovingian despot. He had two dominant passions, ambition and greed of gold. He desired to extend his kingdom, he wished to accumulate treasure. He ground down his people with taxes and caused a new assessment to be made. Many of his subjects refused to submit to this increase of taxation, preferring to leave the country and seek an easier life elsewhere. In his capacity as judge he imposed especially heavy fines upon the rich as a means of confiscating their property. He was envious of the great possessions of the Church, complaining that "Our treasury is empty, all our wealth has passed over to the churches; the bishops alone reign, our power is gone, it has been transferred to the bishops of the cities." He therefore pronounced void all wills made in favour of the churches, he even revoked the gifts which his father had left to them. He sold the bishoprics to the highest bidder, and in his reign very few of the clergy attained to the episcopate; rich laymen purchased the priestly office and passed in one day through the various grades of orders. He was at once avaricious and debauched, gourmand and cruel. He delighted in low amours and he made a god of his belly. At the foot of his edicts he inscribes this formula: "Whosoever sets at nought our order shall have his eyes put out."
But with all this he was a man of original ideas. He desired that, contrary to the strict provisions of the Salic law, women should in certain cases be allowed to inherit land. He was no less ready to attack religious dogma than ancient custom. He did not believe that it is necessary to distinguish three Persons in God; he scoffed at the anthropomorphic designations, the Father and the Son, as applied to the Deity. He issued an edict forbidding the Trinity to be named in prayer — the name God was alone to be used. Orthography as well as dogma must bow to his decree. He added to the alphabet four letters, borrowed from the Greek, to represent the long o, the "voiceless" th, the æ and the w. It was not the Germanic sounds which he wished to represent more exactly: Chilperic despised the Germanic tongue, and his reform was intended to apply to the Latin. He directed that children were to be taught by the new methods; in ancient manuscripts the writing was to be erased and reinserted with the additional letters. This barbarian king was a devoted admirer of the Roman civilisation; he composed poems in the manner of Sedulius, and wrote hymns which he also set to music. His scepticism regarding the Trinity did not prevent him from being superstitious: he believed in portents, in relics, in sorcerers. He fancied himself able to outwit the Deity. Having sworn, for instance, not to enter Paris without the consent of his brothers, he broke the compact, but to avert misfortune he had a number of the bones of various
