Editing Chlothar II (section)

===Frankish territories in the sixth century===
[[File:Division of Gaul - 587.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The kingdom of Chlothar at the start of his reign (yellow). By 613 he had inherited or conquered all of the coloured portions of the map.]]
The domain of Clothar II was located in the territorial and political framework derived from the Frankish kingdom present at 561 at the death of [[Chlotar I|Clothar]], son of [[Clovis I|Clovis]] and grandfather of Clothar II.

On the death of Clovis in 511, four kingdoms were established with capitals at [[Reims]], [[Soissons]], [[Paris]], and [[Orléans]], [[Aquitaine]] being distributed separately. In the year 550, Clothar I, the last survivor of four brothers reunited the Frankish kingdom, and added Burgundian territory (Burgundia) by conquest.

In 561, the four sons of Clothar I followed the events of 511 similarly and split the kingdom again: [[Sigebert I]] in Reims, [[Chilperic I]] in Soissons, [[Charibert I]] in Paris, and [[Guntram]] in Orleans, which then included the Burgundian kingdom territory (Burgundia). They divided Aquitaine separately again.  Very quickly, Sigebert moved his capital from Reims to [[Metz]], while Guntram moved his from Orléans to [[Chalon-sur-Saône|Chalon]].  On the death of Charibert in 567, the land was again split between the three survivors, of greatest importance Sigebert (Metz) received Paris and Chilperic (Soissons) received Rouen.  The names Austrasia and Neustria seem to have appeared as the names of these kingdoms for the first time at this point.