Most divisive issues in medieval genealogy

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Other than Agatha and the Conradines, what are the most divisive figure issues in medieval genealogy?

[taf]

On Saturday, January 22, 2022 at 3:12:42 AM UTC-8, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:
> Other than Agatha and the Conradines, what are the most divisive figure issues in medieval genealogy?

I am not sure how to quantify divisiveness - example, Portuguese and Spanish genealogists have presented conflicting alternative ancestries for Alfonso VI's mistress, Jimena Munoz, but can you really call it divisive when the two sides have largely ignored the existence of each other? And there are some that couldn't rightly be classified as divisive, being generally simply accepted as established fact due to ignorance of how flimsy they really are, or for which there are as many answers as there are people making their own guess without any of them becoming prominent enough to actually cause division (e.g. the identities of 'Louis, prince of Aquitaine', and/or the 'prince near the Alps', son(s) in law of Edward the Elder). Anyhow, a few come immediately to mind that have generated a good bit of ink (or electrons) - these are not ranked, just whatever popped into my head until I got bored with the exercise:

Robert the Strong's parentage (more historical than current)
wife of Henry of Burgundy (heir of Duke Robert I)
Stephanie, wife of William, Count of Burgundy
whatever happened in Toulouse between Raymond III Pons and William III
Zaida
mother of Vermudo II of Leon
Madragana
anything Ragnar Lothbrok-related
the 'Fairhair dynasty'
Theophano
Eodoxia

I could go on and on . . . .

taf

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Thanks for the reply, Todd. What theory of Jimena's parentage do you lean towards, BTW?

[taf]

On Sunday, January 23, 2022 at 7:27:02 AM UTC-8, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:
> Thanks for the reply, Todd. What theory of Jimena's parentage do you lean towards, BTW?

The Canal/Salazar one, that she was sister of count Rodrigo Munoz, Urraca Munoz and Enderquina Munoz. The Quintana/Mello Vaz de Sao Paio one is based entirely on her being beneficiary of a grant from a Munio Munoz and his wife Velasquita, without any indication of parent/child relationship. Quintana Prieto first identified Munio with a documented man of this name, and based on that chronology concluded he was a generation before Jimena and therefor must have been her father. That is the entire basis for it.

Salazar's discovery from another document that Munio's wife was named Velasquita Munoz, and that the Jimena who was sister of count Rodrigo and his siblings had a maternal aunt of this same name who appears to have been co-parcener with their mother of their maternal grandfather's estates, provides a reasonable alternative explanation for the connection between Munio/Velasquita and Jimena, while the political context making her sister of count Rodrigo (and perhaps Bishop Pedro Munoz of Astorga), sister-in-law of counts Gonzalo Gonzalez and Fernando Diaz, and daughter of 'nobilisimi comitis Monio Gonçaluizi' seems more consistent with the "most noble" status attributed to her, compared to the relatively obscure count Munio Munoz.

That all said, I would class this as being more likley than the alternative, but far from a certainty.

taf

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Why do both sides largely ignore the existence of each other?

[taf]

On Sunday, January 23, 2022 at 5:27:01 PM UTC-8, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:

> > That all said, I would class this as being more likley than the alternative, but far from a certainty.

> Why do both sides largely ignore the existence of each other?

I don't even know how to answer this. It is a simple observation that Mello Vaz de Sao Paio (at least in the exposition I have seen) makes no mention whatsoever of Canal Sanchez-Pagin's alternative solution, nor do a number of Portuguese online genealogies and other sources (e.g. pt. Wiki) that follow him exclusively; and that likewise, Salazar y Acha makes no mention of the Quintana Prieto and Mello Vaz hypothesis in his paper, and various Spanish online sources follow him without noting the alternative. I have not found a single source more recent that Canal's paper that actually addresses the diverse possibilities, everything subsequent has simply focussed on single (different) soultions.

It could be as simple as not being aware, it could be that they view the other as so tenuous it doesn't merit response, or because both Mello and Salazar were presenting their reconstructions as an aside to an article austensibly about something else, they could have deemed it too much of a diversion to be pursued, while we all know that online pedigrees and wikis tend to cherry pick a single solution even when there is diversity of opinion (which can't be presented elegantly). And, of course, it could be nationalistic (like the German/French thing that developed over Robert the Strong). The problem is that with neither scholar even mentioning the alternative, if only to dismiss it, it is impossible to divine why they aren't mentioning it.

taf

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Thanks for the explanation, Todd.