Charlemagne's daughter Rotrude

[Peter Stewart]

Rotrude was described by her father's biographer Einhard as his
firstborn daughter ("primogenita"), but she was most probably the
second-born and just the eldest living by the time Einhard (who was
close to the same age) knew her. She was most likely born in 775 or
possibly 776.

She was betrothed as a child of about 6 to the young Byzantine emperor
Konstantinos VI (born in January 771). From the meaning of Rotrude she
was known to the Greeks as Erythro, 'red'; Christian Settipani in 1993
ascribed her betrothal to Easter (15 April) in 781, but the envoys sent
by empress Eirene did not leave Constantinople until some time before 25
May in that year and concluded their business after 1 September. A
eunuch named Elissaios was sent to Charlemagne's court to teach her
Greek and familiarise her with Byzantine customs. The contract was
broken off, to the distress of Konstantinos, in November 788 when he was
unwillingly married to Maria from Amnia who had been chosen for him in a
beauty contest.

Rotrude, in common with her sisters, never married. She lived for some
years as a nun with her paternal aunt Gisela, mainly at Chelles with
occasional visits to the court at Aachen. They were well-read in
theology and maintained a friendly correspondence with Alcuin of York,
abbot of Saint-Martin at Tours. In some of his letters he called them by
the pseudonyms Lucia (for Gisela) and Columba (for Rotrude), referring
to Charlemagne as his lord David after the biblical king. This was a
fairly frequent practice of some notable authors at the time, and
another instance provides useful genealogical evidence in regard to
Charlemagne's cousin Theodrada (about whom I will post in a separate
thread after Christmas).

The last certainly datable letter from Alcuin to the pair was written
after 4 April in 801, while at least one may have been as late as 803.
In any event, Rotrude cannot have become a mother by 800 as many
historians suppose, since Alcuin addressed the ladies explicitly as
virgins at the beginning of that year and after 19 April they described
themselves to him as "most lowly maidservants of Christ"; he was still
writing to them together at Chelles as his "dearest sister and daughter
in Christ" after 4 April 801. There is no chance at all that Alcuin
would have insulted the Virgin Mary by treating any other mother as a
perpetual virgin after she had given birth to a son.

We know from the annals of Saint-Bertin that Rotrude was the mother of
Louis, who was arch-chancellor to his cousin Charles the Bald. Louis was
abbot of Saint-Denis from late-840 and the editor of Charles the Bald's
charters asserted that he was as old as the century so in his 40s by
then - however, this must be wrong by at least a few years and perhaps
by as many as 10. Janet Nelson suggested in 1998 that Rotrude may have
died in childbirth with Louis, in 810, and also expressed doubt about
his accepted paternity. As Nelson emphasised, the name of the child
would surely have been chosen by Charlemagne himself. His daughters may
have taken advantage of enough freedom to get pregnant, but not enough
as to give such a burdened name to his grandson.

The annals of Saint-Bertin mention under 858 that Louis was held captive
by Vikings along with his brother Gausbert ("Ludouuicum abbatem
monasterii Sancti Dyonisii cum fratre ipsius Gauzleno capiunt"), and the
latter was almost certainly the son of this name of Rorgo, count of
Maine. Nelson and others thought that "brother" in this context might
not have meant a biological relationship: Gausbert succeeded Louis as
arch-chancellor, but in 858 he was not yet employed in the chancery and
although the men were fellow abbots they were not direct monastic
brethren - Louis was abbot of Saint-Denis and Saint-Wandrille, Gausbert
was abbot of Saint-Maur (he was an oblate there by March 839 and
ordained deacon in 845, presumably having reached the then-canonical age
of 25 at that time).

By September 844 Louis was abbot also of Saint-Riquier until some time
before late-February 856, and he may have exchanged this for
Saint-Wandrille where he was abbot by March in 853 or 854. He died on 9
January 867. Charles the Bald subsequently made a grant to the monks of
Saint-Amand, when Gauzbert was abbot there, conditional on their saying
mass for Louis on this date as the anniversary of his death: unless the
two were paternal half-brothers, such a requirement would seem oddly
arbitrary.

Rotrude's death in 810 was recorded in several sources. She is entered
in the obituaries of Saint-Denis and Notre-Dame d'Argenteuil under 3
June but according to the royal Frankish annals she died on 6 June.

Peter Stewart

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[mike davis]

By 800/05 CM must have several teenage + daughters: do the sources say
what he thought of them being knocked up by various nobles? Cos it
wasnt just Rotrude, I think Nithard the Historian was the son of another
daughter of CM, and when I looked this up to check I found there was
an Abbot Rihbod who was killed in the same battle in 844 who was
also the son of another daughter. I read that Nithards father became a
monk soon after his birth perhaps to avoid retribution like what
happened to Abelard. And as these daughters were nuns in convents
wasnt it a big scandal?

> The annals of Saint-Bertin mention under 858 that Louis was held captive
> by Vikings along with his brother Gausbert ("Ludouuicum abbatem
> monasterii Sancti Dyonisii cum fratre ipsius Gauzleno capiunt"), and the
> latter was almost certainly the son of this name of Rorgo, count of
> Maine. Nelson and others thought that "brother" in this context might
> not have meant a biological relationship: Gausbert succeeded Louis as
> arch-chancellor, but in 858 he was not yet employed in the chancery and
> although the men were fellow abbots they were not direct monastic
> brethren - Louis was abbot of Saint-Denis and Saint-Wandrille, Gausbert

Were both Louis and Gauslin brought up at St.Denis?
I didnt realise their relationship was doubted until I looked at wiki
and it said some think he was a natural son of Louis the Pious, but
it didnt say who.

Is there a latin term for half brother, if thats what they were? I remember
that sources use a phrase to describe the relationship of Charles Martel
and Hildebrand who were brothers sharing the same mother, is there a
similar way to express brothers who share the same father but
different mothers?

Mike

[Peter Stewart]

On 27-Dec-22 4:31 AM, mike davis wrote:

> By 800/05 CM must have several teenage + daughters: do the sources say
> what he thought of them being knocked up by various nobles? Cos it
> wasnt just Rotrude, I think Nithard the Historian was the son of another
> daughter of CM, and when I looked this up to check I found there was
> an Abbot Rihbod who was killed in the same battle in 844 who was
> also the son of another daughter. I read that Nithards father became a
> monk soon after his birth perhaps to avoid retribution like what
> happened to Abelard. And as these daughters were nuns in convents
> wasnt it a big scandal?

We are not told much more about Charlemagne's attitude to his daughters
beyond the statement by Einhard that he kept them living with him rather
than allowing them to marry. Janet Nelson once suggested that he held
them in a kind of incestuous harem, but that has not been accepted by
most historians (or, as far as I'm aware, repeated by her). Apart from
Rotrude who lived with her aunt Gisela at Chelles for some years before
802/3 and Theodrada who may have become an abbess in their father's
lifetime, the daughters all seem to have remained at the royal/imperial
court until 814. When Louis the Pious succeeded as emperor he had a man
named Hodoin executed who was probably the lover of one (or more) of his
sisters, and perhaps another blinded.

Nithard and his (anagrammatical) brother Hartnid were sons of Angilbert,
abbot of Saint-Riquier, by Charlemagne's daughter Berta. In the 12th
century a story was spun that she had piggy-backed him across a
courtyard under snow so that the emperor would not see a man's
footprints along with hers, but this was just a repetition of an old
folk-tale. We have no reason to suppose that Charlemagne resented his
daughters' behaviour or punished their lovers. Angilbert did not become
a monk after bedding Berta, as he was already abbot of Saint-Riquier by
789/90 well before her sons were born. He was arch-chaplain, or at any
rate minister of the chapel if only in minor orders, to her brother
Pippin, king of Italy, by ca 791 after becoming abbot. There is no solid
evidence that he was a lay abbot as sometimes asserted.

As for Ricbod, also abbot of Saint-Riquier, who was killed in battle, he
was described by Prudentius of Troyes as a grandson of Charlemagne
though it has been suggested that this was from confusing him with
Rotrude's son Louis and/or Berta's son Nithard, grandsons of
Charlemagne, both of whom were abbots of Saint-Riquier after Ricbod.
Karl Ferdinand Werner made a reasonable though not compelling argument
that Ricbod could have been a son of one of three daughters of
Charlemagne (Gisela, Rothais or Hiltrude) possibly by Richwin, count of
Padua.

>
>> The annals of Saint-Bertin mention under 858 that Louis was held captive
>> by Vikings along with his brother Gausbert ("Ludouuicum abbatem
>> monasterii Sancti Dyonisii cum fratre ipsius Gauzleno capiunt"), and the
>> latter was almost certainly the son of this name of Rorgo, count of
>> Maine. Nelson and others thought that "brother" in this context might
>> not have meant a biological relationship: Gausbert succeeded Louis as
>> arch-chancellor, but in 858 he was not yet employed in the chancery and
>> although the men were fellow abbots they were not direct monastic
>> brethren - Louis was abbot of Saint-Denis and Saint-Wandrille, Gausbert
>
> Were both Louis and Gauslin brought up at St.Denis?
> I didnt realise their relationship was doubted until I looked at wiki
> and it said some think he was a natural son of Louis the Pious, but
> it didnt say who.

No, Gauslin (whom I mistakenly called Gausbert above) was an oblate at
Saint-Maur by 839, then educated at Reims before returning to become
deputy and later sole abbot - he was also subsequently abbot of
Saint-Germain, Saint-Denis and Saint-Amand, then bishop of Paris.

> Is there a latin term for half brother, if thats what they were? I remember
> that sources use a phrase to describe the relationship of Charles Martel
> and Hildebrand who were brothers sharing the same mother, is there a
> similar way to express brothers who share the same father but
> different mothers?

Unfortunately that level of precision is not to be found in the Latin
terminology. Paternal full- as well as half-brothers are often described
as "germani", but there are instances where maternal half-brothers were
classified in the same way.

[mike davis]

On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 1:09:24 AM UTC, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
> On 27-Dec-22 4:31 AM, mike davis wrote:
>
> > By 800/05 CM must have several teenage + daughters: do the sources say
> > what he thought of them being knocked up by various nobles? Cos it
> > wasnt just Rotrude, I think Nithard the Historian was the son of another
> > daughter of CM, and when I looked this up to check I found there was
> > an Abbot Rihbod who was killed in the same battle in 844 who was
> > also the son of another daughter. I read that Nithards father became a
> > monk soon after his birth perhaps to avoid retribution like what
> > happened to Abelard. And as these daughters were nuns in convents
> > wasnt it a big scandal?
> We are not told much more about Charlemagne's attitude to his daughters
> beyond the statement by Einhard that he kept them living with him rather
> than allowing them to marry. Janet Nelson once suggested that he held
> them in a kind of incestuous harem, but that has not been accepted by
> most historians (or, as far as I'm aware, repeated by her). Apart from
> Rotrude who lived with her aunt Gisela at Chelles for some years before
> 802/3 and Theodrada who may have become an abbess in their father's
> lifetime, the daughters all seem to have remained at the royal/imperial
> court until 814. When Louis the Pious succeeded as emperor he had a man
> named Hodoin executed who was probably the lover of one (or more) of his
> sisters, and perhaps another blinded.
>
> Nithard and his (anagrammatical) brother Hartnid were sons of Angilbert,
> abbot of Saint-Riquier, by Charlemagne's daughter Berta.

I've seen it suggested on French geni that they might have been twins, and
also that they had a sister Berta who married Helgaud Ct of Ponthieu [d866].
If you google this you will see this repeated all over these genealogic
ancestry sites. AFAIK the only historical Helgaud is the father of Erluin
Count of Montreuil in the 10th century. I think Flodoard says Helgaud was
killed by Rollo in 926, and Erluin was killed in 945 also by the normans. The
only other source which mentions this family [who soon lost
control of Montreuil to Arnulf of Flanders] is the chronicle of Hariulf
of St.riquier from c1100, who says that a Helgaud succeeded Rodulf
as lay abbot of St.Riquier, who may be an earlier ancestor or as Hariulf
seemed to think the same man. I dont know where this Berta sister
of Nithard came from, but it seems ingrained in the web now.

>In the 12th
> century a story was spun that she had piggy-backed him across a
> courtyard under snow so that the emperor would not see a man's
> footprints along with hers, but this was just a repetition of an old
> folk-tale. We have no reason to suppose that Charlemagne resented his
> daughters' behaviour or punished their lovers. Angilbert did not become
> a monk after bedding Berta, as he was already abbot of Saint-Riquier by
> 789/90 well before her sons were born. He was arch-chaplain, or at any
> rate minister of the chapel if only in minor orders, to her brother
> Pippin, king of Italy, by ca 791 after becoming abbot. There is no solid
> evidence that he was a lay abbot as sometimes asserted.
>
> As for Ricbod, also abbot of Saint-Riquier, who was killed in battle, he
> was described by Prudentius of Troyes as a grandson of Charlemagne

nepos .. ex filia = grandson of CM by a daughter i think it says in the AB. Its
understandable that Prudentius writing in Troyes in the 840s might
not have known which of the 8? daughters of CM, was mother of Ricbod.

> though it has been suggested that this was from confusing him with
> Rotrude's son Louis and/or Berta's son Nithard, grandsons of
> Charlemagne, both of whom were abbots of Saint-Riquier after Ricbod.

I didnt realise Nithard was an Abbot, if so only for a short time, becos
Ricbod was killed June 844, and Nithard died in March 845 [according
to the intro in Scholz, Carolingian chronicles].

> Karl Ferdinand Werner made a reasonable though not compelling argument
> that Ricbod could have been a son of one of three daughters of
> Charlemagne (Gisela, Rothais or Hiltrude) possibly by Richwin, count of
> Padua.
> >
> >> The annals of Saint-Bertin mention under 858 that Louis was held captive
> >> by Vikings along with his brother Gausbert ("Ludouuicum abbatem
> >> monasterii Sancti Dyonisii cum fratre ipsius Gauzleno capiunt"), and the
> >> latter was almost certainly the son of this name of Rorgo, count of
> >> Maine.

Gauslin was probably quite a bit younger than Louis as well, since he
died in 886 and was an active defender in the seige of Paris by the Vikings
in 885.

Reading the story of their capture by the vikings in the AB, it says that
Charles the Bald only got them released after paying the vikings 688lbs
of gold and 3250 lbs of silver. I didnt realise the later carolingians
were so rich! Thats a heck of lot of bullion to get hold of to hand over
to the terrorists of their day.

Mike

[Peter Stewart]

On 28-Dec-22 12:29 AM, mike davis wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 1:09:24 AM UTC,
pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:

>> Nithard and his (anagrammatical) brother Hartnid were sons of Angilbert,
>> abbot of Saint-Riquier, by Charlemagne's daughter Berta.
>
> I've seen it suggested on French geni that they might have been
twins, and
> also that they had a sister Berta who married Helgaud Ct of Ponthieu
[d866].
> If you google this you will see this repeated all over these genealogic
> ancestry sites. AFAIK the only historical Helgaud is the father of Erluin
> Count of Montreuil in the 10th century. I think Flodoard says Helgaud was
> killed by Rollo in 926, and Erluin was killed in 945 also by the
normans. The
> only other source which mentions this family [who soon lost
> control of Montreuil to Arnulf of Flanders] is the chronicle of Hariulf
> of St.riquier from c1100, who says that a Helgaud succeeded Rodulf
> as lay abbot of St.Riquier, who may be an earlier ancestor or as Hariulf
> seemed to think the same man. I dont know where this Berta sister
> of Nithard came from, but it seems ingrained in the web now.

Making Nithard and his brother Hartnid twins is an old supposition based
on the latter's otherwise unprecedented name being an anagram of the
former's, which may have come from their paternal grandfather, and from
an unwarranted assumption that Rotrude must have been allowed only one
non-marital pregnancy. Nithard himself called Hartnid his brother
(frater) without specifying twin (geminus). There is no skerrick of
evidence for their having a sister, whether named Berta or anything else.

The mythical 9th-century abbot-count Helgaud was an unwitting invention
of the early-12th-century Saint-Riquier chronicler Hariulf of
Oudenbourg, who apparently mistook the time period of a source for the
historical namesake who died in 926.

>> In the 12th
>> century a story was spun that she had piggy-backed him across a
>> courtyard under snow so that the emperor would not see a man's
>> footprints along with hers, but this was just a repetition of an old
>> folk-tale. We have no reason to suppose that Charlemagne resented his
>> daughters' behaviour or punished their lovers. Angilbert did not become
>> a monk after bedding Berta, as he was already abbot of Saint-Riquier by
>> 789/90 well before her sons were born. He was arch-chaplain, or at any
>> rate minister of the chapel if only in minor orders, to her brother
>> Pippin, king of Italy, by ca 791 after becoming abbot. There is no solid
>> evidence that he was a lay abbot as sometimes asserted.
>>
>> As for Ricbod, also abbot of Saint-Riquier, who was killed in battle, he
>> was described by Prudentius of Troyes as a grandson of Charlemagne
>
> nepos .. ex filia = grandson of CM by a daughter i think it says in
the AB. Its
> understandable that Prudentius writing in Troyes in the 840s might
> not have known which of the 8? daughters of CM, was mother of Ricbod.
>
>> though it has been suggested that this was from confusing him with
>> Rotrude's son Louis and/or Berta's son Nithard, grandsons of
>> Charlemagne, both of whom were abbots of Saint-Riquier after Ricbod.
>
> I didnt realise Nithard was an Abbot, if so only for a short time, becos
> Ricbod was killed June 844, and Nithard died in March 845 [according
> to the intro in Scholz, Carolingian chronicles].

Hariulf placed Nithard, calling him son of St Angilbert, in the
succession of abbots and he was buried at Saint-Riquier according to his
contemporary epitaph. It seems likely that Nithard may have been lay
abbot and Ricbod regular abbot at the same time, and that they were
killed in the same battle on 14 June 844, although some historians have
thought that Nithard was Ricbod's successor and that he was killed on 15
May 845. This confusion is due to peculiar wording of the date in the
epitaph by Mico of Saint-Riquier as transmitted in the unique Brussels
manuscript, evidently with the wrong month ("Occubuit Iuni [sic, recte
Iuli] octavo decimoque Kalendas", 18th kalends of June, which ought to
be expressed as ides of May, instead of July).

>> Karl Ferdinand Werner made a reasonable though not compelling argument
>> that Ricbod could have been a son of one of three daughters of
>> Charlemagne (Gisela, Rothais or Hiltrude) possibly by Richwin, count of
>> Padua.
>>>
>>>> The annals of Saint-Bertin mention under 858 that Louis was held
captive
>>>> by Vikings along with his brother Gausbert ("Ludouuicum abbatem
>>>> monasterii Sancti Dyonisii cum fratre ipsius Gauzleno capiunt"),
and the
>>>> latter was almost certainly the son of this name of Rorgo, count of
>>>> Maine.
>
> Gauslin was probably quite a bit younger than Louis as well, since he
> died in 886 and was an active defender in the seige of Paris by the
Vikings
> in 885.
>
> Reading the story of their capture by the vikings in the AB, it says that
> Charles the Bald only got them released after paying the vikings 688lbs
> of gold and 3250 lbs of silver. I didnt realise the later carolingians
> were so rich! Thats a heck of lot of bullion to get hold of to hand over
> to the terrorists of their day.

We are told that Charles had trouble collecting the vast ransom, and
that he failed to get enough by depleting the resources of churches in
his kingdom so that he then had to make up the total from bishops,
abbots and lay magnates. Given the time it must have taken to achieve
this, which is recorded in the Saint-Bertin annals under 858 before
events occurring in the first half of that year, Louis and Gauslin were
almost certainly captured in 857.

[Peter Stewart]

On 28-Dec-22 12:29 AM, mike davis wrote:

> On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 1:09:24 AM UTC, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:

>> Nithard and his (anagrammatical) brother Hartnid were sons of Angilbert,
>> abbot of Saint-Riquier, by Charlemagne's daughter Berta.
>
> I've seen it suggested on French geni that they might have been twins, and
> also that they had a sister Berta who married Helgaud Ct of Ponthieu [d866].
> If you google this you will see this repeated all over these genealogic
> ancestry sites.

I haven't checked for sites carrying this misinformation, but I would
recommend avoiding them.

The date 866 is interesting, since this is the year of death (on 6
January) of Empress Judith's brother Rodulf, who was count of Ponthieu
and lay abbot of Saint-Riquier. There is no room for the mythical
Helgaud in this timeframe, since Rodulf was succeeded at Saint-Riquier
by his son Welf. However, it does suggest a possible source of Hariulf's
mistaken identification of a 9th-century count Helgaud - counts named
Helgaud and Rodulf occur together in a charter of Charles the Simple
dated 20 September in indiction 9 in the king's 29th regnal year (921):
Hariulf may perhaps have miscalculated the dating elements thinking this
was a charter of Charles the Bald.

[Peter Stewart]

On 27-Dec-22 12:09 PM, Peter Stewart wrote:

> As for Ricbod, also abbot of Saint-Riquier, who was killed in battle, he
> was described by Prudentius of Troyes as a grandson of Charlemagne
> though it has been suggested that this was from confusing him with
> Rotrude's son Louis and/or Berta's son Nithard, grandsons of
> Charlemagne, both of whom were abbots of Saint-Riquier after Ricbod.
> Karl Ferdinand Werner made a reasonable though not compelling argument
> that Ricbod could have been a son of one of three daughters of
> Charlemagne (Gisela, Rothais or Hiltrude) possibly by Richwin, count of
> Padua.

On looking further into the suggestion by Karl Ferdinand Werner about
Ricbod's possible father it is regrettably plain that he cannot have
read - or at any rate cannot have properly understood and considered -
several sources he cited. The description of his argument as
"reasonable" needs to be revised. I should have known better than to
take anything written by Werner in his massively-overrated 1967 study of
Charlemagne's descendants at face value, after posting years ago on some
gross lapses in this resulting in the concoction of a false
granddaughter of Louis I now fixed in more recent literature (and
plastered on the internet) as "Suzanna of Paris" (here:
https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/8JcNohNHm6w).

On the question of Ricbod's maternity Werner reasonably enough (if not
necessarily rightly) accepted the conventional view, based on the
statement by Prudentius of Troyes, that his mother was an unidentified
daughter of Charlemagne. The text in the annals of Saint-Bertin under
844 is as follows (1964 edition by Grat & others, pp. 46-47):

"Qua inopinata congressione Hugo, presbyter et abbas, filius Karoli
Magni quondam imperatoris et frater Hlodoici itidem imperatoris,
patruusque Hlotharii, Hlodoici et Karoli regum, necnon Richboto abbas et
ipse consobrinus [Saint-Omer manuscript: cum sobrinus] regum, nepos
uidelicet Karoli imperatoris ex filia, Eckardus quoque et Rauanus
comites cum aliis pluribus interfecti sunt" (literally: In which
unexpected attack Hugo, priest and abbot, son of the late emperor
Charlemagne and brother of Louis likewise emperor, and paternal uncle of
kings Lothar, Louis and Charles, as well as abbot Ricbod and himself a
cousin [Saint-Omer manuscript: and himself with a cousin] of the kings,
a grandson that is to say of Charlemagne by a daughter, also counts
Eckard and Ravan [Hraban] with many others were killed).

The battle took place on 14 June 844; the deaths of abbots Hugo and
Ricbod were reported in other sources without mentioning a relationship
between them, or of Ricbod to anyone else. The annals of Fulda placed
their deaths on 7 June noting that Hugo was paternal uncle of Charles
the Bald (here, pp. 34-35,
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_rer_germ_7/index.htm#page/34/mode/2up):
"Pippini duces Karli exercitum superant VII. Idus Iunii; in quo proelio
ceciderunt Hugo abbas, patruus Karli, et Rihboto abbas, Hraban quoque
signifer cum aliis multis ex nobilibus" (Pippin's commanders overcame
Charles' forces on 7 June; in which battle abbot Hugo, paternal uncle of
Charles, and abbot Ricbod, also the standard-bearer Hraban with many
others from the nobility fell). This dating error by a full week was
perhaps due to knowing the battle had taken place on a Saturday, as
recorded with the correct date but two years late in the annals of
Lobbes under 846 when 14 June was a Monday (here, p. 15,
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_1/index.htm#page/15/mode/1up): "18. Kal. Iul.
bellum inter Pipinum filium Pipini et homines Caroli, in quo Hugo et
Ricbodo ceciderunt die sabbati" (14 June a battle between Pippin’s son
Pippin and Charles' men, in which Hugo and Ricbod fell on Saturday).

The 844 entry in the annals of Saint-Bertin quoted above has been almost
invariably understood as referring "ipse" to Ricbod, indicating that he
was a grandson of Charlemagne and cousin (consobrinus or sobrinus) of
Louis I's three sons. However, the autograph manuscript of Prudentius no
longer exists and this passage may be garbled by a copyist's error
omitting the name of count Nithard, certainly a grandson of Charlemagne
by a daughter (Berta), whom we know from his contemporary epitaph (here,
p. 310 no. 33
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_poetae_3/index.htm#page/310/mode/1up) to have
been indeed lay abbot ("rector") of Saint-Riquier and killed on the same
date as Hugo and Ricbod. As mentioned before, the date was miscopied in
the sole manuscript of the epitaph with the month given as "Iuni octavo
decimoque Kalendas" (18th kalends of June = 15 May, that should be
expressed as ides of May) instead of "Iuli" (for 18th kalends of July =
14 June). Oddly, the same mistake was repeated in the mid-10th century
by Folcuin of Saint-Bertin, abbot of Lobbes, with "Iunii" corrected to
"Iulii" by a 16th-century hand (here, p. 618 line 13 and note b, with
the place mistakenly given by the editor as Toulouse - an old error of
German historiography - in note 1,
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_13/index.htm#page/618/mode/1up).

The succession and chronology of abbots of Saint-Riquier are uncertain.
Hariulf in his chronicle of the abbey placed Nithard as the direct
successor to his father Angilbert, who died on 18 February 814, and said
that he directed the abbey only for a brief period before he was killed
in battle (1894 edition by Ferdinand Lot, p. 79, here
https://archive.org/details/chronique-de-l-abbaye-de-saint-riquier-v/page/78/mode/1up):
"post ejus sanctum transitum filius ejus, Nithardus, quem de regis filia
Berthae susceperat, Centulensibus jure abbaticio praelatus est,
paucisque diebus in regimine expletis, interemptus praelio praesentis
luminis caruit visu". Ricbod was then placed after two intervening
incumbents as the abbot when Louis I died in 840. This cannot be right
since Nithard was very probably too young to become a count-abbot
immediately on his father's death and anyway his chronicle of the sons
of Louis I was written for Charles the Bald in the early 840s. As
mentioned before, it is more plausible that Nithard and Ricbod were lay
and regular abbot respectively at the same time, dying in the same
battle on 14 June 844 - if so, this unusual arrangement may have caused
a copyist of the Saint-Bertin annals to suppose that Prudentius was
writing about a single abbot instead of two, of whom only the unnamed
Nithard was a grandson of Charlemagne. It would have been asking for
trouble to appoint a pair of illegitimate cousins to run an important
abbey together, one temporally and the other spiritually, or for one
overall abbot to retire in favour of another in order to chronicle
strife among their own legitimate royal cousins. Hariulf wrote that
Nithard was son of a daughter of Charlemagne but said nothing of the
sort about Ricbod.

Whatever the relationship between Nithard and Ricbod as abbatial
colleagues or alternates, and perhaps even as kinsmen, Werner's
conjecture about Ricbod's paternity was not reasonably drawn from the
evidence he adduced and partly misrepresented. His view is that Ricbod
may have been the son of Richwin, count of Padua.

According to Werner's study, emperor Louis I gave property in Alsace to
"fidelis noster Ricbodo" (our trusty Ricbod) and shortly afterwards on 1
December 825 granted him the abbey of Senones in the Vosges as a fief,
followed by Werner with an exclamation mark in parentheses ("schenkt Ks
Ludwig an den fidelis noster Ricbodo im Elsaß, bald darauf ... (... 825
XII 1) verleiht er dem Abt Ricbodo die Abtei Senones in den Vogesen als
Lehen (!).") The date of the second grant should be 18 December 825, and
this was not by any means a grant of Senones abbey itself but rather of
the cell at 'Aluwini mons' on the Bruche river (near La Broque ca 27 kms
north-east of Senones, later known as Vipucelle, from 'Vicpodi cella'
after Wicbod, an uncle of Ricbod, who had founded it and given it to the
diocese of Metz) for his lifetime, reverting on his death to the diocese
for the benefit of Senones abbey - see here, pp. 622-623 no 250
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_dd_ldf_2/index.htm#page/622/mode/2up ("notum
fieri volumus, quia concessimus cuidam fideli nostro Ricbodoni abbati in
beneficium cellulam ... in Uosago in loco, qui vocatur Aluwini mons
super fluvium Prusia, quam iamdudum avunculus suus Wicbodus nomine
episcopio Mettensi ... per strumenta cartarum tradidit. Hanc itaque
cellulam cum omnibus iuste ad se pertinentibus totum ad integrum
praedicto fideli nostro Ricbodoni abbati in beneficium per hanc nostrae
auctoritatis largitionem concedimus, eo scilicet modo, ut omnibus diebus
vitae suae absque ullius iniusta contradictione illam quieto ordine
teneat atque possideat. Post obitus vero eius cum omnibus ad se
pertinentibus ad ius monasterii Senonicae, quod et ad praedictum
episcopium Mettensem pertinet, ad integrum modis omnibus revertatur").
Werner cited an older edition here, pp. 548-549 no. 137
https://archive.org/details/sim_academie-des-inscriptions-et-belles-lettres-paris_1870_6/page/548/mode/2up.

The first grant he cited is undated, ascribed to "814/25?" here. pp
1201-1202 no. F 44
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_dd_ldf_2/index.htm#page/1201/mode/1up, see the
text here, p. 320 no. 44
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_formulae/index.htm#page/320/mode/1up. This is a
grant to a Ricbod, presumably the same man but without the title abbot,
of property at Hohfrankenheim and Kleinfrankenheim in Alsace (ca 72 kms
north-east of Senones). Werner did not cite this text, but for both
documents he references the Regesta imperii entries here, p. 320 no. 809
for the 814/25 grant
https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00009516/images/index.html?id=00009516&seite=0440
and here, p. 321 no. 817 for the 18 December 825 charter of co-emperors
Louis and Lothar
https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00009516/images/index.html?id=00009516&groesser=&fip=eayaqrswwsdasxdsydxdsydqrseayaenyzts&no=&seite=441.


Werner ignored the comment in the first of these that Abbot Ricbod of
Saint-Riquier, assumed to be an illegitimate son of a daughter of
Charlemagne, hardly comes into consideration in light of the description
"fidelis noster", i.e. that the recipient abbot Ricbod does not appear
to be an unacknowledged close relative of the emperors. According to
Werner he can be identified with the abbot of Saint-Riquier, and his
uncle's name was also Ricbod miswritten as "Wicbod". This is the basis
for an argument from onomastics that is patently misconceived, because
the nominative used for the uncle's name is "Wicbodus" whereas the
nominative form for the recipient in both grants is "Ricbodo", clearly
two distinct names that would not occur to a 9th-century scribe as being
the same. Werner went on to propose that Ricbod's uncle arbitrarily
renamed from Wicbod to "Ricbod" was identical with the abbot of Lorsch
of the latter name from 784 who died in 804 as (arch)bishop of Trier,
making an unknown brother of this prelate into the father of
Charlemagne's putative grandson Ricbod of Saint-Riquier.

In fact the uncle Wicbod who founded the cell at La Broque was abbot of
Senones and the nephew Ricbod was his successor there by December 825,
as set out in _Gallia christiana_ vol. 13 column 1385 nos. 13 and 14
here https://books.google.com.au/books?id=xmzk97HmsOEC&pg=RA1-PP22.
Wicbod was most probably the theologian who named himself "Wigbodus" in
verses he wrote for Charlemagne (as king, i.e. before the imperial
coronation in December 800) for whom he had written a commentary on the
first eight books of the bible, see here, p. 97 no. 8 line 59
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_poetae_1/index.htm#page/97/mode/1up.

The assumption that there would be only one other abbot named Ricbod
within the four decades after the death of Ricbod of Lorsch, so that
Senones and Saint-Riquier must have shared an abbot of this name, is
untenable. Despite Werner's bumbling flight of fancy there is no actual
evidence to connect either Ricbod of Senones or his namesake of
Saint-Riquier with Richwin of Padua.

[Peter Stewart]

On 05-Jan-23 2:07 PM, Peter Stewart wrote:

> On the question of Ricbod's maternity Werner reasonably enough (if not
> necessarily rightly) accepted the conventional view, based on the
> statement by Prudentius of Troyes, that his mother was an unidentified
> daughter of Charlemagne. The text in the annals of Saint-Bertin under
> 844 is as follows (1964 edition by Grat & others, pp. 46-47):
>
> "Qua inopinata congressione Hugo, presbyter et abbas, filius Karoli
> Magni quondam imperatoris et frater Hlodoici itidem imperatoris,
> patruusque Hlotharii, Hlodoici et Karoli regum, necnon Richboto abbas et
> ipse consobrinus [Saint-Omer manuscript: cum sobrinus] regum, nepos
> uidelicet Karoli imperatoris ex filia, Eckardus quoque et Rauanus
> comites cum aliis pluribus interfecti sunt" (literally: In which
> unexpected attack Hugo, priest and abbot, son of the late emperor
> Charlemagne and brother of Louis likewise emperor, and paternal uncle of
> kings Lothar, Louis and Charles, as well as abbot Ricbod and himself a
> cousin [Saint-Omer manuscript: and himself with a cousin] of the kings,
> a grandson that is to say of Charlemagne by a daughter, also counts
> Eckard and Ravan [Hraban] with many others were killed).

[snip]

> The 844 entry in the annals of Saint-Bertin quoted above has been almost
> invariably understood as referring "ipse" to Ricbod, indicating that he
> was a grandson of Charlemagne and cousin (consobrinus or sobrinus) of
> Louis I's three sons. However, the autograph manuscript of Prudentius no
> longer exists and this passage may be garbled by a copyist's error
> omitting the name of count Nithard, certainly a grandson of Charlemagne
> by a daughter (Berta), whom we know from his contemporary epitaph (here,
> p. 310 no. 33
> https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_poetae_3/index.htm#page/310/mode/1up) to have
> been indeed lay abbot ("rector") of Saint-Riquier and killed on the same
> date as Hugo and Ricbod.

I should have made clearer that I am not suggesting the scribe of the
Saint-Omer manuscript of the Saint-Bertin annals when he wrote "Richboto
abbat et ipse cum sobrinus..." meant that Ricbod had been killed "along
with a cousin ...", that would have been written as "cum sobrino". He
probably meant "et ipse consobrinus" but wrote a u instead of the first
o and maybe placed a stroke over this to indicate it was followed by an
unwritten consonant - if a u this would necessarily be m, if an o then
it would be n, so that a single wrong letter was compounded into two.
The Latin words sobrinus and consobrinus have the same meaning, a cousin
through the mother of one or both parties to the connection.

Anyway, my point is that it would be very odd to detail that one man
killed in the battle was uncle to three kings and son to emperor
Charlemagne and a second man was cousin to the kings and grandson to the
emperor, while failing to mention that another man also with the latter
relationships had been killed on the same day - especially if both of
these cousins/grandsons had shared or successively held the abbacy of
Saint-Riquier, as we know from other sources they must have done.

The likelihood seems to me that Prudentius in the lost autograph
manuscript had omitted the name of Nithard, possibly writing untidily
"Richbotus abbas et quidam consobrinus ..." (abbot Ricbod and a certain
cousin ...), which the copying scribes who did not know the identities
then conflated from two men into one by misreading "et quidam" (or
whatever else) as "et ipse". If "quidam", the u and m would probably
have been unwritten, so that it could have appeared to be a four-letter
word (qida).