In The Merovingian Kingdoms by Ian Wood, he states that Chilperic I made poor poetry. Do we have any of this poetry nowadays, and is there a modern English translation of any of his work?

One poem by Chilperic still survives, the Solemn Hymn to the Holy Bishop Medardus (Ymnus in solemnitate sancti Medardi episcopi). The Latin text has recently been published and corrected in U. Kindermann, 'Konig Chilperich als lateinischer Dichter', Sacri Erudiri 4 (2002), 257-8. Kindermann also translated the poem into German in the same article. Sadly I wasn't able to find an English translation, nor do I have the time to provide a translation myself :(

I can provide some general background to Chilperic though. The accusation that Chilperic wrote bad poetry comes from Gregory of Tours, a Gallo-Roman bishop writing in the early 590s who detested Chilperic. Amongst other accusations, he noted that 'The king wrote also other books in verse following Sedulius as a model. But those poor verses have no relation of any sort with meter'. We should not necessarily believe this, since Gregory blackened Chilperic's name so as to contrast him to the king's brother, Guntram, who Gregory did portray far more positively. Moreover, we also know that other bishops under Chilperic's rule felt rather more positively about the king, so it's hard to say whether Gregory was exaggerating wildly here. Venantius Fortunatus, a contemporary court poet, even praised the king's poetry: 'Amongst the kings, your equals, you are given higher esteem for your verse, no forefather was your equal in learning'. The problem is that Fortunatus noted this in a panegyric written specifically to praise Chilperic, so of course he would say that.

As a result, it is difficult to get a sense of how good of a poet Chilperic was - being a historian, I certainly can't, since even though I can get the rough meaning of the text I have no idea how it compares to other poems. Brian Brennan, a scholar who has worked extensively on Fortunatus, says that 'if they [Chilperic's poems] were of the standard of the one piece that has survived, [they] were not very good at all', but I wonder if this is the right approach, since Chilperic was not a professional poet. As we also hear that Chilperic had involved himself in theology and other Romanising reforms (according to Gregory of Tours), it is clear that the king had many varied cultural interests, which (I think) is perhaps more useful for historians than the fact that he was (probably) a bad poet.