Gogo was the mayor of the palace

Mayor of the Palace

Mayor of the Palace was an early medieval title and office, also called majordomo, from the Latin title maior domus , used most notably in the Frankish kingdoms in the 7th and 8th centuries....

 of Austrasia

Austrasia

Austrasia formed the northeastern portion of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks, comprising parts of the territory of present-day eastern France, western Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Metz served as its capital, although some Austrasian kings ruled from Rheims, Trier, and...

 and nutricius (also nutritius, tutor/regent) for the young Childebert II

Childebert II

.Childebert II was the Merovingian king of Austrasia, which included Provence at the time, from 575 until his death in 595, the eldest and succeeding son of Sigebert I, and the king of Burgundy from 592 to his death, as the adopted and succeeding son of his uncle Guntram.-Childhood:When his father...

 from 576 until his death.

Gogo had become a very prominent member of the court of Sigebert I

Sigebert I

Sigebert I was the king of Austrasia from the death of his father in 561 to his own death. He was the third surviving son out of four of Clotaire I and Ingund...

 by 565. It was he who headed an embassy to Spain to fetch the Visigothic princess Brunhilda, Sigebert's betrothed. When Sigebert was assassinated he, possibly at the request of Brunhilda, took over the regency for Sigebert and Brunhilda's son Childebert.

There is a letter, an important but difficult source, written by Gogo, but undated and unattached to the name of either king he served. It has traditionally been assigned to around the year of his death (581) and said to have been written on behalf of Childebert to the Lombard

Lombards

The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 Duke of Friuli

Duke of Friuli

The dukes and margraves of Friuli were the rulers of the Duchy and March of Friuli in the Middle Ages.The dates given below, when contentious, are discussed in the articles of the respective dukes.-Lombard dukes:* 568–c.584 Grasulf I...

, Grasulf

Grasulf I of Friuli

Grasulf I was a brother of Alboin, the first Lombard King of Italy, and possibly the first Duke of Friuli. Grasulf's son, Gisulf, is the other candidate for first Duke of Friuli...

. An alternative solution put forward by Walter Goffart

Walter Goffart

Walter Andre Goffart is a historian of the later Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages who specializes in research on the barbarian kingdoms of those periods. He is a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale University....

 places it as early as 571–572 around the time of Sigebert's embassy to Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

.

Sources

• Bachrach, Bernard S.
  Bernard Bachrach
  Bernard S. Bachrach is an American historian and a professor of history at the University of Minnesota. He specialises in the Early Middle Ages, mainly on the topics of Medieval warfare, Medieval Jewry, and early Angevin history...
  
  The Anatomy of a Little War: A Diplomatic and Military History of the Gundovald Affair (568–586). Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.
• Nelson, Janet L. "Queens as Jezebels: Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History." Medieval Women: Essays Dedicated and Presented to Professor Rosalind M. T. Hill, ed. D. Baker. Studies in Church History: Subsidia, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), pp. 31–77. Reprinted in Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe. London: Hambledon Press, 1986. ISBN 0 907628 59 1.