DAGOBERT I  . (d . 639),

king of the Franks, was the son of Clotaire IT . In 623 his father established him as king of the region east of the Ardennes, and in 626 revived for him the ancient kingdom of Austrasia, minus Aquitaine and Provence . As Dagobert was yet but a child, he was placed under the authority of the mayor of the palace, Pippin, and Arnulf, bishop of Metz . At the death of Clotaire II. in 629, Dagobert wished to re-establish unity in the Frankish realm, and in 629 and 63o made expeditions into Neustria and Burgundy, where he succeeded in securing the recognition of his authority . ,In Aquitaine he gave his brother Charibert the administration of. the counties of Toulouse, Cahors, Agen, Perigueux, and . Saintes; but at Charibert's death in 632 Dagobert became sole ruler of the whole of the Frankish territories south of the Loire . Under him the Merovingian monarchy attained its culminating point . He restored to the royal domain the lands that had been usurped by the great nobles and by the church; he maintained at Paris a luxurious, though, from the example he himself set, a disorderly court; he was a patron of the arts, and delighted in the exquisite craftsmanship of . his treasurer, the goldsmith St Eloi . His authority was recognized through the length and breadth. of the realm . The duke of the Basques came to his court to swear fidelity, and at his villa at Clichy the chief of the Bretons of Domnone promised obedience .

He intervened in the affairs of the Visigoths of

Spain and the Lombards of Italy, and was heard with deference . Indeed, as a sovereign, Dagobert was reckoned superior to the other barbarian kings . He entered into relations with the eastern empire, and swore a " perpetual peace " with the emperor Heraclius; and it is probable that the two sovereigns took common measures against the Slav and Bulgarian tribes,: which ravaged in turn the Byzantine state and the German territories subject to the Franks . Dagobert protected the church and placed illustrious prelates at the head of the bishoprics —Eloi (Eligius) at Noyon, . Ouen (Audoenus) at Rouen, and Didier (Desiderius) at Cahors . His reign is also marked by the creation of numerous monasteries and by renewed missionary. activity, in Flanders and among the Basques . He died on the 19th of January 639, and was buried at St Denis . After his death the Frankish monarchy was again divided . In 634 he had been obliged to give the Austrasians a special king in the person of his eldest son Sigebert, and at the birth of,a second son, Clovis, in 635, the Neustrians had immediately claimed him as king . Thus the unification of the realm, which Dagobert had re-established with so much pains, was annulled . See the Chronicon of Fredegarius; " Gesta Dagaberti I. regis Francorum " in Mon . Germ .

Kist . Script. rer . Meroving. vol. ii. edited by B . Krusch ; J . H . Albers,

Konig Dagobert in Gesch., Legende, and Sage (2nd -ed., Kaiserslautern, 1884) ; E . Vacandard, Vie de Saint Ouen, eveque de Rouen (Paris, 1901) ; and H . E . Bonnell, Die Anfange des karoling . Hauses (Berlin, 1866) . (C .