provence
jl
of Guillaume II x Adelais D'ANJOU and Arsindis DE COMMINGES)
Many Thanks
JL
Guy.Bastin
www.users.skynet.be/nobily
Regards.
Guy Bastin
"jl" <zgl...@wanadoo.fr> a écrit dans le message de
news:bg3ql8$a2h$1...@news-reader5.wanadoo.fr...
Peter Stewart
> Is it possible to have ancestry of Boso DE PROVENCE x Constance (the father
> of Guillaume II x Adelais D'ANJOU and Arsindis DE COMMINGES)
His father was Rotbald I, count of Arles in 901 (son of Boso, margrave
of Tuscany & an unknown mother) and his mother, name unknown, was a
daughter of Guilhem the Pious, duke of Aquitaine, marquis of Gothia,
count of Auvergne, etc (reputed founder of Cluny) & Engelberga
(daughter of Boso of Vienne, king of Provence).
His wife Constance _may have been_ a daughter of Charles Constantin,
count (called prince) of Vienne ca 930, but note that this is
speculative.
Peter Stewart
Nathaniel Taylor
peter....@crsrehab.gov.au (Peter Stewart) wrote:
> "jl" <zgl...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
> news:<bg3ql8$a2h$1...@news-reader5.wanadoo.fr>...
> > Is it possible to have ancestry of Boso DE PROVENCE x Constance (the father
> > of Guillaume II x Adelais D'ANJOU and Arsindis DE COMMINGES)
>
> His father was Rotbald I, count of Arles in 901 (son of Boso, margrave
> of Tuscany & an unknown mother) and his mother, name unknown, was a
> daughter of Guilhem the Pious, duke of Aquitaine, marquis of Gothia,
> count of Auvergne, etc (reputed founder of Cluny) & Engelberga
> (daughter of Boso of Vienne, king of Provence).
Now, isn't Rotbald's connection to William the Pious simply speculative?
It crops up everywhere, but what is it based on, other than onomastics?
Jean-Pierre Poly ignores this hypothesis, which I've not seen traced to
any medieval source, though I haven't combed the earlier literature on
Provence. Where does it come from?
Todd A. Farmerie
And while we are at i, I think making Rotbald the son of Boso,
Margrave of Tuscany is an alternative explanation of the same
onomastics. Rotbald's parentage is undocumented, as far as I
know, and Boso of Tuscany is not known to have had any sons. I
imagine that someone guessed this in order to explain why Rotbald
named a son Boso. This would be an alternative explanation to
the Aquitaine marriage, which would also explain the names Boso
and William entering the family at this point.
To answer the other half of the original question, Constance is
likewise without documented parentage. It has been speculated
that she owed her unique name to having been daughter of Charles
Constantine, Count of Provence, son of Louis the Blind.
taf
Pierre Aronax
"Todd A. Farmerie" <farm...@interfold.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
3F25E269...@interfold.com...
> Nathaniel Taylor wrote:
<...>
> And while we are at i, I think making Rotbald the son of Boso,
> Margrave of Tuscany is an alternative explanation of the same
> onomastics. Rotbald's parentage is undocumented, as far as I
> know, and Boso of Tuscany is not known to have had any sons. I
> imagine that someone guessed this in order to explain why Rotbald
> named a son Boso. This would be an alternative explanation to
> the Aquitaine marriage, which would also explain the names Boso
> and William entering the family at this point.
<...>
So, either Rotbald is the son of Boso of Tuscany, either he is the grandson
of William the Pious by his mother, but not the both (and perhaps nothing of
the two). Does it work like that?
Pierre
Todd A. Farmerie
> "Todd A. Farmerie" <farm...@interfold.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
> 3F25E269...@interfold.com...
>
>>Margrave of Tuscany is an alternative explanation of the same
>>onomastics. Rotbald's parentage is undocumented, as far as I
>>know, and Boso of Tuscany is not known to have had any sons. I
>>imagine that someone guessed this in order to explain why Rotbald
>>named a son Boso. This would be an alternative explanation to
>>the Aquitaine marriage, which would also explain the names Boso
>>and William entering the family at this point.
>
> of William the Pious by his mother, but not the both (and perhaps nothing of
> the two). Does it work like that?
Yes, that is what I was hinting at, but to be honest I don't
think making him son of Boso of Tuscany is viable at all. I had
not seen it before, but if Boso had a son, he would have been a
significant personage. I can't think of any other explanation
than that it is intended to explain the name Boso (and hence
becomes superfluous if Rotbald married the sister of Boso of
Aquitaine).
For the time being, I would say that Rotbald's parentage is
unknown (unless new data has surfaced since I last researched
it), and his wife's ancestry is based on speculation supported
solely by onomastics (the use of the names Boso and William in
the next generation).
taf
Peter Stewart
intended paragraph that hedged about information in the first one
posted with reservations similar to that in the second. Apologies to
readers who were misled (I hope that no-one here would ever take my
unsupported word for anything). Also, I miscalled the Boso I was
thinking of "margrave of Tuscany", which is not even a possibility as
explained below.
"Todd A. Farmerie" <farm...@interfold.com> wrote in message news:<3F269071...@interfold.com>...
> Pierre Aronax wrote:
> > "Todd A. Farmerie" <farm...@interfold.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
> > 3F25E269...@interfold.com...
> >
> >>And while we are at i, I think making Rotbald the son of Boso,
> >>Margrave of Tuscany is an alternative explanation of the same
> >>onomastics. Rotbald's parentage is undocumented, as far as I
> >>know, and Boso of Tuscany is not known to have had any sons. I
> >>imagine that someone guessed this in order to explain why Rotbald
> >>named a son Boso. This would be an alternative explanation to
> >>the Aquitaine marriage, which would also explain the names Boso
> >>and William entering the family at this point.
> >
> > So, either Rotbald is the son of Boso of Tuscany, either he is the grandson
> > of William the Pious by his mother, but not the both (and perhaps nothing of
> > the two). Does it work like that?
>
> Yes, that is what I was hinting at, but to be honest I don't
> think making him son of Boso of Tuscany is viable at all. I had
> not seen it before, but if Boso had a son, he would have been a
> significant personage. I can't think of any other explanation
> than that it is intended to explain the name Boso (and hence
> becomes superfluous if Rotbald married the sister of Boso of
> Aquitaine).
Boso of Tuscany didn't have a son - this is not in question, Liutprand
definitely said that he had just four daughters, who are named
(Antapodosis bk IV, ch 11). The Boso I should have identified as the
possible father (or maybe grandfather) of Rotbald was the count (not
margrave) in Italy who was scandalously deserted ca 856 by his wife
Engeltrude. She had given him two daughters, then ran off with a
vassal & lived as an excommunicated "vagabond" while he survived for
up to 20 years after her departure. Failing to get her returned (she
threatened to run away to the Normans, afraid that he would kill her),
Boso was soon pestering the pope for permission to marry again. There
is no record of a subsequent wife or son: the daughters by Engiltrude
later disputed their mother's inheritance, with her bastard son, but
as far as I know they did not receive or contest their father's
possessions. He is generally thought to have been the elder son of
another Boso who was count, probably, of Arles as well as in Italy -
proof is lacking, but such a family background makes some sense given
the career of Rotbald as discussed briefly below, quite apart from the
concordant onomastics.
>
> For the time being, I would say that Rotbald's parentage is
> unknown (unless new data has surfaced since I last researched
> it), and his wife's ancestry is based on speculation supported
> solely by onomastics (the use of the names Boso and William in
> the next generation).
Well, this is the primary rationale, although note that the Guilhemid
connection is not an alternative to explain the name Boso in the
family of the later counts of Provence. In the context of longstanding
Aquitanian political ambitions, reaching across to Burgundy & Italy,
such a marriage does offer a fairly plausible explanation for the name
of Rotbald's (presumably) younger son Guilhem, who was count at
Avignon in 962, and the recurrence of this name amongst his
descendants through Boso of Arles, Rotbald's (ditto) elder son. For
that matter, there is no compelling reason why an individual might not
have both a paternal grandfather and a maternal great-grandfather who
happened to be namesakes. Boso was a common enough name at the time,
current in at least three separate lineages.
Nat pointed out that Jean-Pierre Poly ignored this hypothesis. Indeed,
but his discussion of the origin of this family [in _La Provence et la
société féodale (879–1166)_ (Paris, 1976)] doesn't strike me as
adequate even for his admittedly "prudent" conclusion: he thought that
Rotbald was most probably a Provençal, or from Septimania, and that
his family was of the second rank. However, I'm not at all convinced
that he was just a local on the make, as this doesn't take
satisfactory account of all the pointers that Poly said he had
covered. The hypothetical relationships I mentioned were based mainly
on onomastics, but there is also some measure of circumstantial
evidence to back this up, for the Bosonid hypothesis if not so much
for the Guilhemid.
There was probably just one man behind the mentions of a Count Rotbald
from 900/901 to some time before 942 when he was dead. (He is
sometimes known as "l'ancien", though it's possible that there there
were actually two successive counts of the same name.) Rotbald
apparently had valuable political connections in both Burgundy and
Italy - he was established as count in Provence from 903, after he had
been a major supporter of the Bosonid Louis III the Blind's adventure
into Italy in 900, pursuing his effort to be crowned emperor (in
February 901). I can't see much likelihood that this man had just
emerged from the pack of second rankers. Equally, we know enough of
the various families using the name Boso to be confident that this
didn't come to his son, and his own power hadn't materialised in the
first place, through marriage to a Bosonid heiress. It is quite
plausible that "Rotbald" came to him from a mid-level Provençal
origin, but I can see no particular reason behind Poly's implicit
assumption that this should be paternal rather than maternal.
As for Constance, I'm not convinced by the theory linking her to
Charles Constantin of Vienne. Poly questioned whether she might have
been his sister, rather than daughter (assuming at the same time that
he was illegitimate, which is by no means certain). The names
Constancius and Constancia were not quite as uncommon as is sometimes
represented: however, I should think that if Charles Constantin had a
daughter & wanted to perpetuate his name across genders he would more
readily have chosen Constantina, which also occurred, than Constancia
which was to become the more familiar form of this name through
descendants of the lady in question (this may be an orthographic
accident, but given the later popularity of "Constance" and the
absence of its masculine form, as of "Constantine" and its feminine
form, in noble & royal families, I doubt it). Apart from the first
Christian emperor, there were several saints after whom this name
might have gained currency in the South, like Pons at first in the
comital family of Toulouse, from personal devotion instead of
bloodlines. The name occurs especially amongst the religious of both
sexes - perhaps taken with the tonsure or the veil if not given at
birth - and could easily pass back into a family from the cloister.
Peter Stewart
Pierre Aronax
"Peter Stewart" <peter....@crsrehab.gov.au> a écrit dans le message de
news: 5054737e.03072...@posting.google.com...
<...>
> The Boso I should have identified as the
> possible father (or maybe grandfather) of Rotbald was the count (not
> margrave) in Italy who was scandalously deserted ca 856 by his wife
> Engeltrude. She had given him two daughters, then ran off with a
> vassal & lived as an excommunicated "vagabond" while he survived for
> up to 20 years after her departure. Failing to get her returned (she
> threatened to run away to the Normans, afraid that he would kill her),
> Boso was soon pestering the pope for permission to marry again. There
> is no record of a subsequent wife or son: the daughters by Engiltrude
> later disputed their mother's inheritance, with her bastard son, but
> as far as I know they did not receive or contest their father's
> possessions. He is generally thought to have been the elder son of
> another Boso who was count, probably, of Arles as well as in Italy -
> proof is lacking, but such a family background makes some sense given
> the career of Rotbald as discussed briefly below, quite apart from the
> concordant onomastics.
<...>
Is it not this Boso who was later and until recently confused with King
Boso? I go through an article on that some time ago, with a funny title
(something like "Le cocu fait roi?"), but I don't remember the details (and
have no way to check right now).
Pierre
Peter Stewart
The two were contemporaries - the article you are thinking of is
François Bougard's 'En marge du divorce de Lothaire II: Boson de
Vienne, le cocu qui fut fait roi?', _Francia_ 27/1 (2000).
It's easy enough to confuse these gentlemen, as I did the other day
for one of them with yet another namesake. The Boso "qui fut fait roi"
was count of Vienne & Lyon by 871, chamberlain & chief ostiarius to
King Louis the Stammerer & governor of Aquitaine in 872, duke (of
Pavia) & missus in Italy in February 876, and was made king of
Burgundy & Provence on 15 October 879 (died at Vienne on 11 January
887). Christian Settipani linked his ancestry to the Pippinid family.
This man murdered his first wife, then married Ermengarde, daughter of
Emperor Louis le Jeune & Engelberge of Alsace (related to the runaway
Engelberge, whose husband was also cuckolded). The princess had been
betrothed to an Eastern emperor and thought that any alternative
husband should be at least a king (NB they were parents of Engelberge,
wife of Guilhem the Pious, duke of Aquitaine, and of Emperor Louis III
the Blind, both of whom figured in previous posts under this thread).
The Boso who I suggest might have been ancestor of the counts of
Provence was a brother of Hubert, the married cleric who became duke
of (Lower) Burgundy, and of Theotberga, the repudiated wife of King
Lothaire the Saxon who (perhaps out of spite against her family)
protected the runaway Engelberge in Lotharingia.
Peter Stewart
Peter Stewart
<snip>
>
> Is it not this Boso who was later and until recently confused with King
> Boso? I go through an article on that some time ago, with a funny title
> (something like "Le cocu fait roi?"), but I don't remember the details (and
> have no way to check right now).
My earler message didn't answer this completely: "until recently" is
not quite the case. The two men in question - Boso of Vienne who was
missus and duke in Italy and later king of Burgundy, and Boso who was
the cuckolded husband of Engeltrude and a count in Italy - were
disentangled first by René Poupardin in an appendix to _Le Royaume de
Provence sous les Carolingiens (855–933?)_, Biblioteque de l'École des
Hautes Études 131 (Paris, 1901).
This wasn't universally accepted, and was recently challenged by Franz
Staab in 'Jugement moral et propagande: Boson de Vienne vu par les
élites du royaume de l'Est', _La royauté et les élites dans l'Europe
carolingienne (du début du IXe aux environs de 920)_, edited by Régine
le Jan (Lille, 1998). His criticism of Poupardin was partly on the
grounds that he had applied 19th-century bourgeois morality to the
matter & was unwilling to concede that a cuckold might become a king.
Anyone who has read Poupardin much more extensively than the appendix
in question should be able to see straight through this absurdity of
1990s academic conceit.
Bougard, in the paper I cited before, took these two Bosos apart
again. He also found some evidence, not quite compelling, for a second
marriage of the Boso who had been deserted by Engeltrude - this
involved a woman named Aelnia whose daughter Gernia had a half-sister
with the Bosonid name Theotberga, whose own mother was called
Engeltrude. If both his evidence and my speculation are combined, this
Aelnia and Gernia could perhaps be the mother and a sister
respectively of Rotbald.
Peter Stewart
Pierre Aronax
<...>
> This wasn't universally accepted, and was recently challenged by Franz
> Staab in 'Jugement moral et propagande: Boson de Vienne vu par les
> élites du royaume de l'Est', _La royauté et les élites dans l'Europe
> carolingienne (du début du IXe aux environs de 920)_, edited by Régine
> le Jan (Lille, 1998). His criticism of Poupardin was partly on the
> grounds that he had applied 19th-century bourgeois morality to the
> matter & was unwilling to concede that a cuckold might become a king.
> Anyone who has read Poupardin much more extensively than the appendix
> in question should be able to see straight through this absurdity of
> 1990s academic conceit.
>
> Bougard, in the paper I cited before, took these two Bosos apart
> again.
Yes, I remember that part now. IIRC, Bougard points also that the two Bosos
must be separeted because pontifical letters use a different vocabulary when
dealing with each of them. I confess I read that only by curiosity and
because I have been amused by the title.
> He also found some evidence, not quite compelling, for a second
> marriage of the Boso who had been deserted by Engeltrude - this
> involved a woman named Aelnia whose daughter Gernia had a half-sister
> with the Bosonid name Theotberga, whose own mother was called
> Engeltrude. If both his evidence and my speculation are combined, this
> Aelnia and Gernia could perhaps be the mother and a sister
> respectively of Rotbald.
I don't understand: if Aelnia is the mother of Gernia and Theotberga, if
Gernia and Theotberga are half-sisters and if Theotberga is a Bosonid name,
then isn't it rather Theotberga than Gernia who could be the (full?) sister
of Rotbald?
Pierre
Peter Stewart
> "Peter Stewart" <peter....@crsrehab.gov.au> a écrit dans le message de
> news: 5054737e.03073...@posting.google.com...
>
> > He also found some evidence, not quite compelling, for a second
> > marriage of the Boso who had been deserted by Engeltrude - this
> > involved a woman named Aelnia whose daughter Gernia had a half-sister
> > with the Bosonid name Theotberga, whose own mother was called
> > Engeltrude. If both his evidence and my speculation are combined, this
> > Aelnia and Gernia could perhaps be the mother and a sister
> > respectively of Rotbald.
>
> I don't understand: if Aelnia is the mother of Gernia and Theotberga, if
> Gernia and Theotberga are half-sisters and if Theotberga is a Bosonid name,
> then isn't it rather Theotberga than Gernia who could be the (full?) sister
> of Rotbald?
Aelnia was the mother of Gernia, Engeltrude was the mother of
Theotberga. These younger women were half-sisters, and Bougard
conjectured that the father of both was the cuckold Boso. Apologies
for the ambiguity.
Peter Stewart
Pierre Aronax
"Peter Stewart" <peter....@crsrehab.gov.au> a écrit dans le message de
news: 5054737e.03073...@posting.google.com...
> "Pierre Aronax" <pierre...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<3f28dfbb$0$22542$79c1...@nan-newsreader-03.noos.net>...
> > "Peter Stewart" <peter....@crsrehab.gov.au> a écrit dans le message
de
> > news: 5054737e.03073...@posting.google.com...
>
> Theotberga. These younger women were half-sisters, and Bougard
> conjectured that the father of both was the cuckold Boso. Apologies
> for the ambiguity.
I understand now. Thanks.
Pierre