Brunhilda (in German) or Brunehaut (in French) (534-613) was a Frankish queen who ruled the East Frankish kindoms of Austrasia and Burgundy in the names of her sons and grandsons. Initially known as a liberal ruler of great political acumen she became notorious for her cruelty and avarice. In some histories she is known as Brunhilde, or Brunechildis.

She was born about 534, the daughter of the Visigoth king Athanagild of Spain and Ingonde, his queen. She married king Sigebert I of Austrasia, the grandson of Clovis, and joined him at Metz. Upon her marriage in 567 she abjured Arianism and converted to orthodox Roman Catholicism.

Sigebert's father Clotaire had reunited the four kingdoms of France but when he died Sigebert and his three brothers divided them again. Sigebert ruled Austrasia and later shared Paris with his two surviving brothers when Charibert died in 570.

Brunehaut's sister Galswintha married Sigebert's brother Chilperic I of the West Frankish kingdom of Neustria and Soissons in 567. He is thought to have proposed because he envied the attention garnered to his brother by the marriage to Brunehaut and he had Galswintha murdered within the year at the behest of his mistress Fredegund, whom he then married. Brunehaut so detested Fredegund for the death of her sister and this hatred was so fiercely reciprocated that two queens persuaded their husbands to wage war. Germanus, Bishop of Paris, negotiated a brief peace between them until Chilperic invaded the Sigebert's dominions. Sigebert defeated Chilperic, who fled to Tournai, and the people of Paris hailed him as a conquerer when he went there with Brunehaut and their children. Germanus wrote to Brunehaut, asking her to persuade her husband to restore the peace of France and to spare his brother. Chroniclers of Germanus' life say that she ignored this; certainly Sigebert set out to besiege Tournai. Fredegund responded to this threat to her husband by hiring two assassins, who killed Sigebert at Vitry with poisoned daggers. Brunehaut was captured and imprisoned at Rouen. She escaped "after a series of extraordinary adventures" by marrying Chilperic's son, Merovech.

Brunehaut now tried to sieze the regency of Austrasia in the name of her son Childebert II but she was resisted fiercely by her nobles and had to retire to briefly to Burgundy before obtaining her goal. She ruled Austrasia until Childebert came of age in the early 580s. Upon his death in September or October 595 she attempted to govern Austrasia and Burgundy in the name of her grandsons Théodebert II and Theodoric II, respectively. She was exiled from Austrasia, and then persuaded Theodoric to attack his brother, whom he defeated at Toul and Tolbiac . Theodoric then had Théodebert and his family killed but himself soon after. It was during these later regencies that Desiderius, Bishop of Vienne (later Saint Didier) publicly accused her of incest and cruelty. Desiderius finally enraged her with a pointed sermon on chastity preached in 612 before her and Theodoric, with whom she hired three assassins to murder him at the village now called Saint-Didier-sur-Chalaronne .

In 576 Sigebert's brother Guntram, King of Burgundy, founded a bishopric that was suffragan of Vienne at Maurienne , which belonged to the Diocese of Turin. The Bishop of Turin protested this to Brunehaut for more than twenty years but even when Pope Gregory the Great supported his complaint in 599 Brunehaut dismissed it. In general, however, she protected the church and treated Gregory with great respect. He wrote a series of positive letters to her; in 597 he wrote to her about interdicting pagan rites such as tree worship . Gregory of Tours was another favoured cleric; he was a trusted courtier to her and her son from 587 until his death. She also took a keen personal interest in the bishoprics and monasteries within her dominion. This brought her into conflict with Columbanus, abbot of Luxeuil, whom she eventually exiled.

When Theodoric died in 613 Brunehaut proclaimed of her great-grandsons as king but the nobles of Austrasia and Burgundy, objected and asked Clotaire II, son of Fredegonda, and king of most of France to help them. Clotaire had Brunehaut accused of causing many deaths including those of ten kings and Desiderius. She was condemned to the rack for three days at Renève , Burgundy, before being either tied to the tail of a wild mare and dragged to her death or torn between four horses. According to the Liber Historiae Francorum :

"Then the army of the Franks and Burgundians joined into one, all shouted together that death would be most fitting for the very wicked Brunhilda. Then King Clotaire ordered that she be lifted on to a camel and led through the entire army. Then she was tied to the feet of wild horses and torn apart limb from limb. Finally she died. Her final grave was the fire. Her bones were burnt."

One legend has her being dragged by a wild mare down the Roman road La Chaussée Brunehaut at Abbeville.

Brunehaut was buried in the Abbaye de St. Martin at Autun that she founded in 602 on the spot where the bishop of Tours had cut down a beech-tree that served as an object of pagan worship. The abbey, which was destroyed in 1793 and Brunehaut's sarcophagus is now in the Musee Lapidaire in Avignon.

Brunehaut commissioned the building of several churches and the abbey of St. Vincent at Laon (founded in 580). She is also credited with founding the castle of Bruniquel and having a Roman road resurfaced near Alligny-en-Morvan (where the name of a nearby hill Terreau Bruneau is belived to be derived from hers). The part of Mauves-sur-Loire known as la Fontaine Bruneau is named after Brunehaut who may have cooled herself with the fountain's water when she suffered heat exhaustion.

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