According to the

pseudohistorical Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohi ...

Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau The ''Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau'' ("Secret Files of Henri Lobineau"), supposedly compiled by Philippe Toscan du Plantier, is a 27-page document which was deposited in the Bibliothèque nationale de France on 27 April 1967. The document purp ...

'' and related documents, Sigebert IV was the son of the

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...

king

Dagobert II Dagobert II ( la, Dagober(c)tus; ang, Dægberht; died 679) was a Merovingian king of the Franks, ruling in Austrasia from 675 or 676 until his death. He is one of the more obscure Merovingians. He has been considered a martyr since at least the ni ...

who, on the assassination of his father, was rescued by his sister and smuggled to the domain of his mother, the (otherwise unknown)

Visigoth The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kn ...

princess Giselle de Razès in

Rennes-le-Château Rennes-le-Château (; oc, Rènnas del Castèl) is a commune approximately 5 km (3 miles) south of Couiza, in the Aude department in the Occitanie region in Southern France. In 2018, it had a population of 91. This hilltop village is k ...

. He is said to have arrived in the

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

in 681 and, at some point, adopted or inherited his uncle's titles,

duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...

Razès Razès (; oc, Rasés; ca, Rasès) is a historical area in southwestern France, in today's Aude ''département''. Several communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of ...

and

count Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...

of Rhedae. He is also said to have adopted the surname, or nickname, of “Plant-Ard” (subsequently Plantard) from the French appellation ‘''rejeton ardent''’ ‘ardently flowering shoot’ of the Merovingian vine. Under this name, and under the titles acquired from his uncle, he is said to have perpetuated his lineage. Journalists and scholars who have debunked the

Priory of Sion The ''Prieuré de Sion'' (), translated as Priory of Sion, was a fraternal organization founded in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard in his failed attempt to create a prestigious neo-chivalric order. In the 1960s, Plantard began claiming that ...

hoax argue that

Pierre Plantard Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair (born Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard, 18 March 1920 – 3 February 2000) was a French technical drawer, best known for being the principal fabricator of the Priory of Sion hoax, by which he claimed from the 1960 ...

created the ''Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau'' and the fictitious biography of Sigebert IV to support his false claim that he was a descendant of the extinct Merovingian dynasty through this figure. In 1990, Plantard revised himself by claiming he was only descended from a

cadet branch In history and heraldry, a cadet branch consists of the male-line descendants of a monarch's or patriarch's younger sons ( cadets). In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets— realm, tit ...

of the line of Dagobert II, while arguing that the direct descendant was really

Otto von Habsburg Otto von Habsburg (german: Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, hu, Ferenc József Ottó Róbert Mária Antal Károly Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Lajos Gaetan ...

, who, according to Plantard, was descended from Sigebert I (the son of Bera II and the grandson of Wamba), who married Magdala, the granddaughter of Dagobert II. In the 10th-century biography of

Saint Arbogast Saint Arbogast of Strassburg; german: Arbogast von Straßburg; french: Arbogast de Strasbourg; la, Arbogastus; 600s 700 AD) was a 7th-century missionary in the Frankish Empire and an early Bishop of Strasbourg. Biography Only little historica ...

, ''Vita Sancti Argobasti'', Sigebert is mentioned but not named as having died during a hunting accident and later miraculously raised from the dead by Arbogast,

Bishop of Strasbourg {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 These persons were bishop, archbishop or prince-bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Strasbourg (including historically Prince-Bishopric of Strasbourg): Bishops and prince-bishops * Amandus *Justinus ...

and close friend of Dagobert II.Christian Settipani, in ''La Prehistoire des Capetiens'' (1993) argued that the ''Vita Sancti Arbogasti'' is too late a source to be accepted without care, and points to evidence that it places Arbogast and his successor Florentius up to a century too late (Arbogast died in around 600). He argues that the trio of Dagobert II, and his alleged wife Mathildis and son Sigebert, may actually have arisen from confusion with Dagobert I, his wife Nanthilde and son Sigebert (his mother was actually Ragnetrude).

References

See also