"A well-researched and well-told epic history. The Dark Queens brings
these courageous, flawed, and ruthless rulers and their distant times
back to life." (Margot Lee Shetterly, New York Times best-selling
author of Hidden Figures)
The remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women in the
Early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for
daring to rule.
Brunhild was a foreign 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,
changing the face of Europe.
The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes.
They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them.
They fought a decades-long civil war - against each other. With
ingenuity and skill, they battled to stay alive in the game of
statecraft and in the process laid the foundations of what would one day
be Charlemagne's empire. Yet after the queens' deaths - one gentle, the
other horrific - their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to
slander and legend.
In The Dark Queens, award-winning writer Shelley Puhak sets the record
straight. She resurrects two very real women in all their complexity,
painting a richly detailed portrait of an unfamiliar time and striking
at the roots of some of our culture's stubbornest myths about female
power. The Dark Queens offers proof that the relationships between
women can transform the world.
