Published in 2023
378 pages
10 hours and 32 minutes
Shelley Puhak is a critically acclaimed poet and writer whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, Smithsonian, Time, Lapham’s Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications. She is the author of three books of poetry, including the Anthony Hecht Prize-winning Guinevere in Baltimore and Harbinger, a National Poetry Series selection. The Dark Queens is her nonfiction debut. She lives in Maryland.
What is this book about?
A vivid double biography of two fearless early medieval queens, and an enthralling journey of discovery across the unfamiliar and blood-soaked historical landscape of sixth-century Merovingian France.
Brunhild was a Visigothic princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law, Fredegund, started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet – in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport – these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades, changing the face of Europe.
The two queens commanded armies, developed taxation policies, established infrastructure and negotiated with emperors and popes, all the time fighting a gruelling 40-year civil war with each other. Yet after Brunhild and Fredegund’s deaths, their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend.
From the tangled primary evidence of Merovingian sources – the works of the chronicler Gregory of Tours and the Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus – award-winning writer Shelley Puhak weaves a gripping and intricate tale, its characters driven by ambition, lust and jealousy to acts of treachery and murderous violence. The Dark Queens resurrects these two women in all their complexity, painting a richly detailed portrait of a shadowy era and dispelling some of the stubbornest myths about female power.
