Ingund (wife of Hermenegild)
Duke Gundovald immediately came to Paris, where Brunhilda and the children were living, took possession of Childebert and secured his safety among the Austrasian nobility.
When Chilperic came to Paris, he seized Brunhilda and ordered Ingund and Chlodosind to be held in custody in the monastery of Meaux.
Soon afterwards, in order to legitimize his kingship, he married Goiswintha, widow of the previous Visigothic King Athanagild and mother of Brunhilda.
As Ingund passed through the Visigothic town of Agde she met the local Catholic bishop, Phronimius, who warned her not to accept the 'poison' of Arianism.
According to Gregory of Tours: "the Queen lost her temper completely" and "seized the girl by her hair and threw her to the ground: then she kicked her until she was covered with blood, had her stripped naked and ordered her to be thrown into the baptismal pool".
The sixth century experienced a flight of Catholic clergy to southern Spain, many from Africa, but other areas as well.
Whether or not Hermenegild held the Orthodox Christian belief in the Trinity at this time cannot be known, for it is not till 582 that he "officially" accepted the Catholic faith.
Hermenegild converted to Catholicism in 582—as Leander was absent in the years prior, it would follow that Ingund was a major influence for his conversion.
Ingund and with their young son Athanagild tried to seek refuge in Constantinople after Hermenegild's execution, but it was refused while they were already in Sicily.
[20] Childebert, while only fourteen years of age at this time, would have also been much influenced by his strong-willed mother Brunhilda, who was also committed to securing Ingund and her grandson.
According to Gregory of Tours, Ingund's example deeply influenced her husband's acceptance of Catholicism and eventual conversion.
By the second year of his reign, Reccared embraced Catholicism and began the task of unifying the Spanish people under a single religion.
Pope Gregory's words further confirm Hermenegild's influence: "Reccared, following not his faithless father but his martyr brother, was converted from the perverseness of the Arian heresy.
[25] 17th-century Spanish genealogist Luis Bartolomé de Salazar y Castro gave Ardabast's father as Athanagild, the son of Saint Hermenegild and Ingund, and his mother as Flavia Juliana, a daughter of Peter Augustus and niece of the Emperor Maurice.
[26] This imperial connection is disputed by Christian Settipani, who says that the only source for Athanagild's marriage to Flavia Julia is José Pellicer, who he claims to be a forger.
