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Otgiva of Luxembourg

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Paulo Ricardo Canedo

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Jul 26, 2022, 7:33:53 PM7/26/22
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I know this has previously been discussed on the newsgroup, but years later, I'd like to know your current opinions: Stewart Baldwin made a very good case at https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/otgiv000.htm that contrary to modern scholarship,
Otgiva of Luxembourg was actually daughter of Giselbert, not his brother Frédéric. All early sources call her daughter of Giselbert. However, a late source made her sister of the sons of Frédéric though it also called her daughter of Giselbert. This late and contradictory source is clearly worse than the early sources. However, because of the lack of a documented marriage for Giselbert and the fact that he was said to have died a iuvenis, modern scholars decided to take this source and make Otgiva and her sister Giséle daughters of Frédéric. However, there are plenty of undocumented marriages and the term iuvenis is actually perfectly consistent with a man in his 30s. As a bonus, we could use the ancestry of Giselbert's unknown wife to explain Otgiva's apparently English name.

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

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Jul 26, 2022, 7:35:00 PM7/26/22
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A quarta-feira, 27 de julho de 2022 à(s) 00:33:53 UTC+1, Paulo Ricardo Canedo escreveu:
> I know this has previously been discussed on the newsgroup, but years later, I'd like to know your current opinions: Stewart Baldwin made a very good case at https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/otgiv000.htm that contrary to modern scholarship,
> Otgiva of Luxembourg was actually daughter of Giselbert, not his brother Frédéric. All early sources call her daughter of Giselbert. However, a late source made her sister of the sons of Frédéric though it also called her daughter of Giselbert. This late and contradictory source is clearly worse than the early sources. However, because of the lack of a documented marriage for Giselbert and the fact that he was said to have died a iuvenis, modern scholars decided to take this source and make Otgiva and her sister Giséle daughters of Frédéric. However, there are plenty of undocumented marriages and the term iuvenis is actually perfectly consistent with a man in his 30s. As a bonus, we could use the ancestry of Giselbert's unknown wife to explain Otgiva's apparently English name.
I, myself, am extremely inclined towards believing Otgiva and Giséle were daughters of Giselbert.

Peter Stewart

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Jul 26, 2022, 8:15:15 PM7/26/22
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I'm not sure that there is anywhere else to go with this question than
in previous threads, but for whatever sub-atomic particle it's worth I
agree with you.

If Otgiva and her sister Gisela were daughters of Giselbert, who was
killed in 1004, then between his death and their marriages they very
probably grew up with the children of their paternal uncle Frederic
(whose daughter is not very likely to have been married off to a mere
lord of Aalst as was Gisela). Perhaps the sisters were supposed later in
Flanders to have been siblings of their distinguished cousins (and
perhaps foster-brothers). In the late-1020s/early-1030s their orphaned
relatives (second cousins once removed) Sophie and Beatrix of Bar were
fostered as adoptive daughters by a maternal aunt, Gisela, wife of
Emperor Konrad II.

Peter Stewart


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Hans Vogels

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Jul 27, 2022, 5:51:37 AM7/27/22
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Op woensdag 27 juli 2022 om 01:33:53 UTC+2 schreef Paulo Ricardo Canedo:
> I know this has previously been discussed on the newsgroup, but years later, I'd like to know your current opinions: Stewart Baldwin made a very good case at https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/otgiv000.htm that contrary to modern scholarship,
> Otgiva of Luxembourg was actually daughter of Giselbert, not his brother Frédéric. All early sources call her daughter of Giselbert. However, a late source made her sister of the sons of Frédéric though it also called her daughter of Giselbert. This late and contradictory source is clearly worse than the early sources. However, because of the lack of a documented marriage for Giselbert and the fact that he was said to have died a iuvenis, modern scholars decided to take this source and make Otgiva and her sister Giséle daughters of Frédéric. However, there are plenty of undocumented marriages and the term iuvenis is actually perfectly consistent with a man in his 30s. As a bonus, we could use the ancestry of Giselbert's unknown wife to explain Otgiva's apparently English name.

A case for being daughters of Giselbert is made in my post of 3 aug. 2015: Count Giselbert of count Friedrich, that is the question!
https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/8CE03KgLZXc/m/1ZGZwqSJf3UJ
I still hold the same opinion.

Hans Vogels

Stewart Baldwin

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Jul 27, 2022, 11:46:49 AM7/27/22
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On Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 6:33:53 PM UTC-5, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:
> I know this has previously been discussed on the newsgroup, but years later, I'd like to know your current opinions: Stewart Baldwin made a very good case at https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/otgiv000.htm that contrary to modern scholarship,
> Otgiva of Luxembourg was actually daughter of Giselbert, not his brother Frédéric. All early sources call her daughter of Giselbert.

For those who prefer to cite something from the printed literature, I also wrote an article on the same subject, which was published in “The American Genealogist.”

See the article Stewart Baldwin, “The Parentage of Otgiva ‘of Luxemburg’: An Unsolved Tenth- and Eleventh-Century Problem,” TAG 83 (2008): 116–21.

Stewart Baldwin

Hans Vogels

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Jul 28, 2022, 2:50:28 AM7/28/22
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Op woensdag 27 juli 2022 om 17:46:49 UTC+2 schreef Stewart Baldwin:
Hi Stewart,

How does a non-American get access to your article? Can it be read digitally or otherwise received?

Met vriendelijke groet,
Hans Vogels

Stewart Baldwin

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Jul 28, 2022, 9:36:09 AM7/28/22
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According to the website of The American Genealogist at

https://americangenealogist.com/

they are still print-only, but they accept online orders for back issues (link provided).

Stewart Baldwin

vader....@gmail.com

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Jul 28, 2022, 10:19:34 AM7/28/22
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I read past issues on with a subscription to American Ancestors. They have a number of different periodicals available digitally, although they may not be the most current years. The website is AmericanAncestors.org and formerly was New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS).

mike davis

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Jul 28, 2022, 12:07:56 PM7/28/22
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On Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 1:15:15 AM UTC+1, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
> On 27-Jul-22 9:34 AM, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:
> > A quarta-feira, 27 de julho de 2022 à(s) 00:33:53 UTC+1, Paulo Ricardo Canedo escreveu:
> >> I know this has previously been discussed on the newsgroup, but years later, I'd like to know your current opinions: Stewart Baldwin made a very good case at https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/otgiv000.htm that contrary to modern scholarship,
> >> Otgiva of Luxembourg was actually daughter of Giselbert, not his brother Frédéric. All early sources call her daughter of Giselbert. However, a late source made her sister of the sons of Frédéric though it also called her daughter of Giselbert. This late and contradictory source is clearly worse than the early sources. However, because of the lack of a documented marriage for Giselbert and the fact that he was said to have died a iuvenis, modern scholars decided to take this source and make Otgiva and her sister Giséle daughters of Frédéric. However, there are plenty of undocumented marriages and the term iuvenis is actually perfectly consistent with a man in his 30s. As a bonus, we could use the ancestry of Giselbert's unknown wife to explain Otgiva's apparently English name.

I just wondered why her name is thought to be 'English'? I remember that the name of Eadgifu the mother
of Louis IV is rendered in a number of ways in the sources, including Otgive or Odgiva. Did the
name Otgiva have no history on the continent before her and is Otgiva of Lux the only other example?

Mike

Peter Stewart

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Jul 28, 2022, 8:20:52 PM7/28/22
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I'm not aware of other instances, though I haven't searched - Eadgifu
was called "Ottogeba" by Flodoard and "Otgiva" by Witger, both writing
in the mid-10th century, but her name does not appear to have been given
to any documented descendants.

In the following century the lady herself was addressed as Otgiva in a
letter from Othelbold, abbot of Saint-Bavon in Ghent. The possibility of
descent from the former Eadgifu's namesake paternal half-sister who is
said to have married "Louis, a prince in Aquitaine", and whose mother
was also Eadgifu, is a ready-made invitation to conjecture - but the
same name could have come from England independently of a royal bride.

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

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Jul 28, 2022, 9:09:51 PM7/28/22
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Deter Peter, Stewart Baldwin conjectured in 2006 at
https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/oldxIGHi0os/m/HsI4JIk6U0gJ that Giselbert's wife might have been Mathilde of Burgundy, daughter of King Conrad of Burgundy and Mathilde of France, daughter of Louis IV of France and granddaghter of Eadgifu. She apparently did marry though her husband is unknown.

Peter Stewart

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Jul 28, 2022, 9:41:18 PM7/28/22
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Mathilde of Burgundy was probably born in the mid- to late-960s as her
parents were married between March 963 and November 965. She was mother
of Berta whose son Gerold was count of Geneva - it is possible that a
sister of Berta, perhaps born ca 985, was mother of Otgiva though she
would have been a mother by ca 15 years of age at since Otgiva was
married by 1012.

However, as noted before, we have no clear evidence to indicate that the
name Otgiva was handed down from the wife of Charles the Simple, and it
would seem a little exceptional for it suddenly to reappear in the
fourth generation of descent for someone to whom Eadgifu was the
maternal grandmother's paternal grandmother.

Peter Stewart

Stewart Baldwin

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Jul 29, 2022, 8:26:44 AM7/29/22
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On Thursday, July 28, 2022 at 8:09:51 PM UTC-5, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:


> Deter Peter, Stewart Baldwin conjectured in 2006 at
> https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/oldxIGHi0os/m/HsI4JIk6U0gJ that Giselbert's wife might have been Mathilde of Burgundy, daughter of King Conrad of Burgundy and Mathilde of France, daughter of Louis IV of France and granddaghter of Eadgifu. She apparently did marry though her husband is unknown.

I was led to put this idea out there because of a few apparent coincidences I noticed which may be relevant, but might also just be random coincidences. Conjectures such as this can sometimes lead a discussion in a useful direction, even if the original conjecture turns out to be incorrect. More evidence would be required before this item is regarded as anything more than speculation (as I tried to make clear in my original posting).

Stewart Baldwin

Peter Stewart

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Jul 30, 2022, 9:42:12 PM7/30/22
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The ancestry of Otgiva is certainly worth a conjecture or two, if only
readers bear in mind the reservation you expressed in the first place
and that I also emphasise now.

Mathilde of Burgundy may fit chronologically as a candidate for Otgiva's
mother, but circumstantially this does not seem very likely to me.
Mathilde's daughter Berta can hardly be placed as another Luxemburg
(whether Giselbert or Frederic was the father of Otgiva and her recorded
sister Gisela), as in that case if Berta's only husband was a brother of
Pope Leo IX then the possession of Geneva by her son Gerold would become
even more mysterious than it already is.

Otgiva's sister Gisela appears to have been having children as late as
ca 1040 - her son Radulf was killed in battle in 1102 and her son
Gilbert de Gant was father of Robert who lived until 1157/58.

The marriage of Otgiva to Balduin IV is often placed by 1012 - it has
been placed as early as ca 1005 by some (including Nicolas Huyghebaert)
but this is not based on any evidence that I can find. The 1012 dating
appears to be deduced mainly from Christian Pfister's unwarranted
assertion that Otgiva's son Balduin V was married to Robert II's
daughter Adela in Paris at an assembly held in the early months of 1028,
assuming that he was 15 at that time and so born in 1013. However, there
is better evidence that the wedding of Balduin V and Adela did not take
place until after the death of her father (in July 1031), and better
again that it was before 5 July not later than 1034 (in the lifetime of
his father who died in May 1035). It is said to have been brought on by
Balduin's burgeoning manhood, so that he was presumably not far off 17
years old in the early 1030s and this would place the marriage of his
parents by ca 1012/16, fitting well enough with Otgiva's birth by ca
1000. Balduin IV may have been older than her by 15 years or more.

Apart from the probable English connection in her name, Otgiva may have
had a noble Byzantine ancestry through her unknown mother as reputed for
her son Balduin V according to William of Poitiers. This evidently did
not come through Balduin IV, so that Otgiva was more probably the
conduit if this near-contemporary belief was correct. The comparative
modesty of the claim, of noble rather than imperial blood from
Constantinople, does not have the ring of outright fiction. If true the
most likely explanation seems to me that Giselbert of
Luxemburg-Vaudrevange had married by ca 1000 a lady whose parents had
English and Byzantine antecedents between them. Possibly her father was
a son of King Edward the Elder's daughter (Eadgifu/Otgiva) who had been
sent to Germany with Otto the Great's wife Eadgyth, and her mother may
have come from Constantinople in the entourage of Otto II's wife
Theophanu in 972.

Peter Stewart

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Jul 31, 2022, 12:26:55 AM7/31/22
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On 31-Jul-22 11:42 AM, Peter Stewart wrote:

<snip>

> Apart from the probable English connection in her name, Otgiva may have
> had a noble Byzantine ancestry through her unknown mother as reputed for
> her son Balduin V according to William of Poitiers. This evidently did
> not come through Balduin IV, so that Otgiva was more probably the
> conduit if this near-contemporary belief was correct. The comparative
> modesty of the claim, of noble rather than imperial blood from
> Constantinople, does not have the ring of outright fiction. If true the
> most likely explanation seems to me that Giselbert of
> Luxemburg-Vaudrevange had married by ca 1000 a lady whose parents had
> English and Byzantine antecedents between them. Possibly her father was
> a son of King Edward the Elder's daughter (Eadgifu/Otgiva) who had been
> sent to Germany with Otto the Great's wife Eadgyth, and her mother may
> have come from Constantinople in the entourage of Otto II's wife
> Theophanu in 972.

The name of this English princess, conjectured above as a
great-grandmother of Otgiva of Luxemburg, was given in the principal
(11th-century) manuscript of Hrotsvitha's 'Gesta Ottonis' (10th century)
as "Adiva", see folio 135v line 16 ((Nec non germana[m] secu[m]
transmisit adiuam) here:
https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0004/bsb00046309/images/index.html?id=00046309&groesser=&fip=eayaqrswwsdasxdsydxdsydqrseayawewq&no=&seite=274.
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