Roman Bastards Database

[Jan Wolfe]

I understand that at least some are interested in finding a documented descent from antiquity. Perhaps this new database at the University of Warsaw will help, http://romanbastards.wpia.uw.edu.pl/
The time period is Augustus to Constantine.
(This was announced in this week's issue of The Weekly Genealogist from NEHGS.)

[Richard Smith]

On 07/06/2019 20:24, Jan Wolfe wrote:
> I understand that at least some are interested in finding a documented descent from antiquity.
> Perhaps this new database at the University of Warsaw will help, http://romanbastards.wpia.uw.edu.pl/
> The time period is Augustus to Constantine.

Is this really much help to people interested in descents from
antiquity? Surely the major problem is the period after that. How many
identifiable people born in the 6th century in Europe, the Near East or
North Africa have well-documented descents to modern times?

This is not a rhetorical question. I think it would be interesting to
see a list. I bet it's not very long at all. I'll start the list with:

Arnulf of Metz, Pepin of Landen and his wife Itta. I should think
that's it in Frankish territories.

Richard

[Vance Mead]

I once read something by Sir Anthony Wagner about descents from antiquity. There weren't many. If I recall correctly, some went by way of Armenia.

[Richard Smith]

On 08/06/2019 08:30, Vance Mead wrote:
> I once read something by Sir Anthony Wagner about descents from antiquity.
> There weren't many. If I recall correctly, some went by way of Armenia.

I think you're referring to an essay "Bridges to Antiquity" by Wagner in
1976. And, yes, from memory he discusses a line back through the
Bagratids in Armenia to the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome. However
this line, like other attempts at bridging Dark Ages at not generally
accepted. I don't recall precisely what Wagner's proposed line was, so
cannot say exactly which part of the line problematic, but I will try to
dig out Wagner's essay next week if no-one beats me to it.

You say there aren't many descents from antiquity. Typically when
people talk about descents from antiquity, they're referring to descents
from people living in the first two or three centuries AD, or earlier,
typically in the civilisations around the Mediterranean. That's
certainly how I recall Wagner used the term.

Isn't it actually the case that there isn't even one descents from
antiquity in Europe, North Africa or the Near East (and I include
Armenia in that) which is generally regarded as being anything more than
supposition, guesswork and wishful thinking? There are perhaps lines in
the Far East that may stretch back this far, but they have no early
connections to any lines outside the Far East.

Outside the Far East, the only lines I can immediately think of which
are sometimes claimed to be well-documented back to the 5th century are
the early king lists in the British Isles, chiefly Ireland. However, as
I understand it, these lines were not written down until several
centuries later, and any treatment of them typically has to begin by
building the case that the kings in question actually existed.

Even if we do accept them as accurate lineages back to the 5th century,
they don't obviously get us closer to a descent from antiquity as there
is relatively very little scope for connecting them to the earlier,
better documented civilisations around in Mediterranean.

Richard

[Peter Stewart]

Thanks to Jan for posting the link to a useful website - its
genealogical usefulness is only in relating ancient Roman people to
their contemporaries, but that is worthwhile.

By contrast I can't imagine how anything could be more inconsequential
than tracing a descent from antiquity to the present. Everyone living
today must have ancestors who lived in all historic periods beforehand,
but documenting specific lines through named individuals can establish
precisely nothing of value to anyone, now or in the future. This is a
frivolous pursuit, indulged in for no better reason than the vanity of
wishing to be first to make an utterly pointless discovery.

Peter Stewart

[Richard Smith]

On 08/06/2019 12:34, Peter Stewart wrote:

> By contrast I can't imagine how anything could be more inconsequential
> than tracing a descent from antiquity to the present. Everyone living
> today must have ancestors who lived in all historic periods beforehand,
> but documenting specific lines through named individuals can establish
> precisely nothing of value to anyone, now or in the future. This is a
> frivolous pursuit, indulged in for no better reason than the vanity of
> wishing to be first to make an utterly pointless discovery.

What a truly bizarre comment coming from someone on a genealogy
newsgroup. Any study of genealogy is, by most metrics, a frivolous
pursuit, and, yes, a lot of people indulge themselves in it for the
satisfaction of making some small discovery. Where's the harm in that?
Most study of history is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and
lacks practical application.

Of course everyone has ancestors who lived in all previous historical
periods. But simply saying that isn't genealogy. It only becomes
genealogy if you can document that descent, and start providing names,
dates and places, at least to some degree. I could equally say I'm
descended from (some of) the pharaohs as, statistically, it's
inconceivable that I am not. But without any knowledge of how, it's
essentially a worthless statement, exactly as yours is.

There's nothing wrong with researching the genealogies of specific
periods without reference to how they connect to other periods. The
early imperial period in Rome is an interesting one, and I've spent some
small amount of time looking into it myself even though it's not my main
interest. I don't doubt that this new Roman Bastards Database will be a
useful new source for people researching that period. The point I was
taking issue with was Jan Wolfe's assertion that it will be helpful "in
finding a documented descent from antiquity". That was Jan's comment,
not mine.

You are, of course, entitled to think the discovery of a descent from
antiquity would be the most inconsequential thing you can imagine.
However I should imagine the vast majority of people on this newsgroup
would be very interested were a descent from antiquity to be found that
could be well documented. Equally, I don't think I'm alone in thinking
the chances of that happening are pretty slim. The reason for that
isn't lack of documentation of families in imperial Rome, but rather the
dearth of evidence in the centuries after break up of the Western Roman
Empire. That's why I cannot see how this new Roman Bastards Database
will help find a descent from antiquity. By the sounds of it, you agree
with that, so I struggle to see why you felt it necessary to take such
an argumentative tone.

Richard

[taf]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 3:16:12 AM UTC-7, Richard Smith wrote:

> Isn't it actually the case that there isn't even one descents from
> antiquity in Europe, North Africa or the Near East (and I include
> Armenia in that) which is generally regarded as being anything more than
> supposition, guesswork and wishful thinking?

I suppose it depends on what you include under those categorizations. There is one in Western Iberia that claims descent of a family of counts in the Astur-Leonese kingdom from the Visigoth kings, and from thence on back, where the critical generations are neither supposition nor guesswork - they are fully documented in a medieval record. This, though, is of much later date, and is tracing a monastic house's patron family. It spans a period where there is no authentic documentation, making it impossible to even show that the named people existed. To the critical eye it has a certain whiff of forgery (either to glorify their patrons or themselves, with such an illustrious history of patronage). Of course, not everyone sees it this way.

taf

[Richard Smith]

And there's the problem. This descent seems fairly likely to involve
guesswork by the mediaeval monastic scribes who set it down, even if it
wasn't an outright deception. And as you point out, there are credible
motives that might have lead to the descent being a fabricated or
embellished. This descent is far from unique in this respect.
Proponents of such lines argue that they capture material from earlier
sources that no longer survive, and in some cases to varying extents
that will presumably be the case, just as some other lines must surely
be fictitious. However any modern attempt to distinguish the correct
lines from the false ones is relying heavily on guesswork and
supposition. At least, that's my take on it.

Richard

[taf]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 8:20:01 AM UTC-7, Richard Smith wrote:

> And there's the problem. This descent seems fairly likely to involve
> guesswork by the mediaeval monastic scribes who set it down, even if it
> wasn't an outright deception.

I think your last qualifier is closer to the mark. They weren't creating links among documented people, they were likely looking to span a 150 year gap between their earliest records and the Visigoth kings, and just traced back as far as they could (late 9th century) and then started making things up, so knowing fiction rather than guesswork.

I would put the William of Gellone 'Priory' descent in the same category - I see little indication that there was any guessing involved, just fabrication. On the other hand, the William of Gellone 'Exilarch' descent is more along the lines of wishful thinking/(poor) guesswork.

Also fabrication, but of a diffrent type, are the legendary Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian descents, that seem to be a combination on poetic invention with descents from legendary heroes and gods created from scratch, or else later interpolated into an existing pedigree. We can see some of these inventions in progress, as when the Bernicia tree was spliced onto the fatherless Cerdic, with an intentional substitution of the eponymous ancestor, then a heroic father and son were slipped into the middle and two more names added out of the blue to make it alliterate after the interpolation, or similarly, when the Anglo-Saxon tree was stolen by the Icelanders for the Scandinavian kings, chopped off and placed atop their legendary pedigree, then someone later adding their own tour of Thor's family from Scandinavian legend, and then some Trojans from Homer before finally attaching it to the Biblical post-flood peopling of the earth pedigree, or even more simply, when someone simply made the eponymous god appearing at the top of the East Saxon pedigree, Saexnet, into another son of Woden just so that all of the Anglo Saxon kingdoms traced to the same person. It would be very generous to view this as involving any guesses, as opposed to being outright creations intended to fulfill a cultural imperative.

taf

[Jan Wolfe]

I certainly agree it may be unlikely that an adequately documented descent from western antiquity to the present can be found. I only suggested that the Roman Bastards database could *perhaps* provide useful information for those interested in such a quest.

Even if one cannot find a documented descent from western antiquity, it still may be interesting to find documented people and documented family relationships spanning a small number of generations during the early centuries C.E. and to create databases of such documented people and family relationships.

The first two chapters of _Medieval People_ by Eileen Edna Power provide some examples of potential sources of such information about ordinary people in the 4th to 6th centuries (chapter 1) and the late 8th century (chapter 2). See https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13144/13144-h/13144-h.htm for an html transcription of this book.

[joe...@gmail.com]

The ptolemaic rulers, as well as many wealthy Roman families are easily traceable for hundreds and hundreds of years with significant documentation to link them. Maybe five hundred years or more ..(http://www.branchpike.com/antiochus.htm)

It may be 'frivilous' to try and discover descent from them, but no more so than any other intellectual puzzle, jigsaw or otherwise.

Unlike many other genealogical puzzles, there are DFAs missing only a few gaps that may yet be solved in the future with archealogical discoveres not yet made, especially in areas with less historical scholarship to date than the English and French speaking world. It seems more hopefully than ever finding out about that well worn Agatha business.

Joe cook

[Peter Stewart]

You are reading ideas of your own into my post - I didn't mean that
there is anything harmful or wrong in a self-centred pursuit of distant
ancestry, but only that this is frivolous. Frivolity is fine for
personal entertainment: the only harm results from failing to recognise
that it is nothing more than that.

Finding particular documented lines of descent that make up an
infinitesimally tiny fraction of a person's entire ancestry is not the
whole substance of genealogy, which is about how people are related to
others within their own times as well as across historical periods.
Contemporary relationships are meaningful in a way and to a degree that
mere tracing of ancestry cannot be.

It is not a contribution to knowledge so much as an amassing of
worthless information for the sake of enjoyment, like for instance
finding out what the Kardashian family are up to from week to week. As
people living today share the same cultural environment and may be
separated from them by, say, six or fewer degrees of acquaintance, I
would suggest that their doings are actually more personally relevant to
most of us than are the identities of ancestors in antiquity.

The personal influence today of an ancestor who was not even known to
any relative within living memory is negligible. The distant past and
the individuals who lived in it are the common heritage of everyone,
whether or not they can document a chain of ancestry. My own exiguous
relationship to Charlemagne, for example, is not a jot more meaningful
than that of a foundling who can't know the names of his or her own parents.

Peter Stewart

[Richard Smith]

On 08/06/2019 17:28, taf wrote:
> On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 8:20:01 AM UTC-7, Richard Smith wrote:
>
>> And there's the problem. This descent seems fairly likely to
>> involve guesswork by the mediaeval monastic scribes who set it
>> down, even if it wasn't an outright deception.
>
> I think your last qualifier is closer to the mark.

Fair enough. I'm no expert on early Iberia.

> I would put the William of Gellone 'Priory' descent in the same
> category - I see little indication that there was any guessing
> involved, just fabrication. On the other hand, the William of
> Gellone 'Exilarch' descent is more along the lines of wishful
> thinking/(poor) guesswork.

Just to clarify, by the 'Priory' descent, you mean the suggestion that
William of Gellone's father Theoderic was the son of Childeric III? And
by the 'Exilarch' descent, you're referring to the theory that William
of Gellone's father was Natronai ben Habibi? If so, I agree with you on
both descents.

> Also fabrication, but of a diffrent type, are the legendary
> Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian descents, that seem to be a combination
> on poetic invention with descents from legendary heroes and gods
> created from scratch, or else later interpolated into an existing
> pedigree.

I can't honestly say I've paid much attention to the line back from
Cerdic. In part that's because I'm distrustful of the line from
Ecgberht's father Ealhmund back to Ingild, an otherwise undocumented
brother of Ine, and without accepting that, Cerdic has no documented
descents beyond the 8th century. That said, I do find the conjecture
that Ealhmund's parent Eafa might be a woman somewhat persuasive, as it
allows some form of Kentish connection patrilineally without rejecting
the Wessex descent. Even if we accept the descent of Ealhmund from
Cenred, possibly by making Eafa a woman, and accept the historicity of
Cerdic and that Cenred was his descendent, the details between Cerdic
and Cenred are pretty murky.

> We can see some of these inventions in progress, as when the Bernicia
> tree was spliced onto the fatherless Cerdic, with an intentional
> substitution of the eponymous ancestor, then a heroic father and son
> were slipped into the middle and two more names added out of the blue
> to make it alliterate after the interpolation,

This is Sisam's hypothesis that the Wessex pedigree only went back to
Cerdic, so they grafted Cerdic on to Bernicia pedigree which went back
to Woden, changed Benoc to Giwis, inserted Frowin and Wig from the
Germanic legend, and then added Friðgar and Esla for poetic purposes.
It seems a plausible enough explanation, especially as there's no reason
to suppose these changes were all made simultaneously. As to
motivation, Cerdic could well have been added to the Bernician tree to
bolstering some alliance between the two kingdoms. (I'm not sure Sisam
suggested that motive, but it's been suggested many times since.)

One thing I find interesting about it is why Cerdic was grafted on to
the Bernicia pedigree in this particular manner. In Sisam's hypothesis,
Elesa, the purported father of Cerdic, is identified with the Aloc or
Alusa who appears five generations back from Ida in the Bernicia
pedigree. Ida was contemporary with Cerdic's son (or perhaps grandson)
Cynric, which gives chronological difficulties in making Cerdic's father
the same man as Ida's great great great grandfather. If you were simply
going to graft Cerdic onto an existing tree to fabricate a connection,
especially if the motivation is political, wouldn't you at least do a
bit of generation counting to do it in a plausible way? Unless
additional generations were added between Ida and Aloc in the Bernician
pedigree after Cerdic was grafted on to it, the generation counting did
not happen. This suggests to me, Cerdic wasn't simply grafted on
arbitrarily, but there was a reason for him being inserted as Sisam
suggests.

It seems plausible to me that the original Wessex pedigree may actually
have gone one generation beyond Cerdic to Elesa, and it was the
similarity between this name the Aloc or Alusa appearing in the
Bernician pedigree that caused the two genealogies to be spliced in the
way Sisam proposes. This in turn suggests we should have somewhat
higher confidence in the historicity of Elesa than in Cerdic's other
purported ancestors.

It's frequently suggested that Cerdic is actually a British name, rather
than a Germanic one. It's also been suggested that Elesa, given as
Cerdic's father in the traditional pedigrees might be Elasius or
Elafius, a 5th century British leader mentioned by Bede and Constantius
of Lyon. With only a bare name to go on, even if we accept that Cerdic
was from a British family with a father named Elesa, it's hard to
comment on whether this particular Elasius is likely to be Cerdic's
father, but it is evidence that the name was used by the British at the
right time. A few centuries later, there was a King of Powys called
Elise or Elisedd ap Gwylog (of Pillar of Eliseg fame) which is probably
the same name. By contrast, I cannot find any Anglo-Saxons in the
/Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England/ database with names like Elesa,
Aloc or Alusa, other than the putative ancestor of the Wessex and
Bernician ruling dynasties.

Recent DNA results have suggested a far greater degree of mixing between
Saxon settlers and the native British than was previously thought. This
seems to add strength to the idea that the rulers of Gewisse may have
British and the whole territory gradually underwent Saxonification.

It's an interesting idea, but short of some major new archaeological
discovery, it's one that must remain speculation. For now, I consider
Ealhmund, in the 8th century, as the earliest Anglo-Saxon from whom
there exists well-documented descent to modern times.


Richard

[Richard Smith]

On 08/06/2019 22:36, joe...@gmail.com wrote:

> The ptolemaic rulers, as well as many wealthy Roman families are
> easily traceable for hundreds and hundreds of years with significant
> documentation to link them. Maybe five hundred years or more
> ..(http://www.branchpike.com/antiochus.htm)

Indeed. Though, significantly, the line you link to by-passes Roman
families in favour of the kingdoms of the Near East. I suspect that's
the way to go in looking for a DFA, no matter how appealing the idea of
a Julio-Claudian descent might be, and Antiochos I does seem to be a
popular target for DFAs, probably for that reason.

> It may be 'frivilous' to try and discover descent from them, but no
> more so than any other intellectual puzzle, jigsaw or otherwise.

Quite. A DFA seems to me a fairly significant and interesting
intellectual challenge.

> Unlike many other genealogical puzzles, there are DFAs missing only
> a few gaps that may yet be solved in the future with archealogical
> discoveres not yet made, especially in areas with less historical
> scholarship to date than the English and French speaking world. It
> seems more hopefully than ever finding out about that well worn
> Agatha business.

You may be right. Certainly I agree that, barring a major new
archaeological discovery, there's little prospect of a DFA out of the
British Isles or the Frankish Empire. The available sources in these
areas have been reviewed so many times that if convincing evidence for a
DFA existed, it would have been found by now, and archaeological
discoveries with significant genealogical implications are not common in
these areas. By contrast, new tombs with useful inscriptions are found
in the Near East fairly frequently, and it's far more likely that
existing sources have not yet come under scrutiny of genealogists.

Richard

[taf]

On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 5:22:25 AM UTC-7, Richard Smith wrote:

> > I would put the William of Gellone 'Priory' descent in the same
> > category - I see little indication that there was any guessing
> > involved, just fabrication. On the other hand, the William of
> > Gellone 'Exilarch' descent is more along the lines of wishful
> > thinking/(poor) guesswork.
>
> Just to clarify, by the 'Priory' descent, you mean the suggestion that
> William of Gellone's father Theoderic was the son of Childeric III? And
> by the 'Exilarch' descent, you're referring to the theory that William
> of Gellone's father was Natronai ben Habibi?

In the former case, I was referring more generally to the whole line, tracing back to the son of Jesus, but yes, it is that line.

> I can't honestly say I've paid much attention to the line back from
> Cerdic. In part that's because I'm distrustful of the line from
> Ecgberht's father Ealhmund back to Ingild, an otherwise undocumented
> brother of Ine, and without accepting that, Cerdic has no documented
> descents beyond the 8th century. That said, I do find the conjecture
> that Ealhmund's parent Eafa might be a woman somewhat persuasive, as it
> allows some form of Kentish connection patrilineally without rejecting
> the Wessex descent. Even if we accept the descent of Ealhmund from
> Cenred, possibly by making Eafa a woman, and accept the historicity of
> Cerdic and that Cenred was his descendent, the details between Cerdic
> and Cenred are pretty murky.

There are definitely issues in this period, but I one has to be careful when throwing out the only sources in favor of an alternative one likes better.

> As to
> motivation, Cerdic could well have been added to the Bernician tree to
> bolstering some alliance between the two kingdoms. (I'm not sure Sisam
> suggested that motive, but it's been suggested many times since.)

He did - he dated the proposed change to the pedigree based on a documented alliance, though it has been long enough since I read it that I can't remember the details.

> By contrast, I cannot find any Anglo-Saxons in the
> /Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England/ database with names like Elesa,
> Aloc or Alusa, other than the putative ancestor of the Wessex and
> Bernician ruling dynasties.

This is the case with many of the names in the traditional pedigrees, they don't appear elsewhere to have been used. Offa is about the only one I can think of.

> Recent DNA results have suggested a far greater degree of mixing between
> Saxon settlers and the native British than was previously thought. This
> seems to add strength to the idea that the rulers of Gewisse may have
> British and the whole territory gradually underwent Saxonification.

I think this is reading too much into the DNA, to draw support for a very particular genealogical hypothesis from the generality that we know the populations intermixed.

> It's an interesting idea, but short of some major new archaeological
> discovery, it's one that must remain speculation. For now, I consider
> Ealhmund, in the 8th century, as the earliest Anglo-Saxon from whom
> there exists well-documented descent to modern times.

I would suggest that one mention of someone (maybe even someone else) at the time named Eahlmund is all that distinguished the degree to which Ecgberht's father is 'well documented' from what we have on Eafa. It is always tricky even talking about it, when we have just one source, and we have convinced ourselves it is wrong.

taf

[sba...@mindspring.com]

On Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 5:16:12 AM UTC-5, Richard Smith wrote:

>...

> Outside the Far East, the only lines I can immediately think of which
> are sometimes claimed to be well-documented back to the 5th century are
> the early king lists in the British Isles, chiefly Ireland. However, as
> I understand it, these lines were not written down until several
> centuries later, and any treatment of them typically has to begin by
> building the case that the kings in question actually existed.

It is misleading to suggest that this information was not written down until several centuries later. While most of the surviving manuscripts are late, they are clearly based on much earlier written material. The evidence is that contemporary annalistic recording began in the sixth century, and some of the more prominent lines can be accepted back that far with little hesitation. The problem is that the genealogical material is harder to date than the annalistic material. If the earliest genealogies were written down at around the same time as the earliest annalistic material, then there would be a good case for accepting the material in outline back to the second half of the fifth century. However, even though it is clear that much of the genealogical material is early, there is no certainty that it is THAT early.

> Even if we do accept them as accurate lineages back to the 5th century,
> they don't obviously get us closer to a descent from antiquity as there
> is relatively very little scope for connecting them to the earlier,
> better documented civilisations around in Mediterranean.

That is the main reason that, regardless of how far back these early these British traditional genealogies are reliable, I do not regard them as competitors for the dubious "DFA" title.

Stewart Baldwin

[sba...@mindspring.com]

On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 7:22:25 AM UTC-5, Richard Smith wrote:
>. . .

> One thing I find interesting about it is why Cerdic was grafted on to
> the Bernicia pedigree in this particular manner.

One very plausible explanation for this is that it was a medieval version of a "copy-paste" error. Both Ida's pedigree and Cynric's pedigree appear in consecutive entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. If part of Ida's pedigree was entered in the margin due to lack of space, it could have been misinterpreted as part of Cynric's pedigree. The fact that the "Elesa" pedigree appears in a pedigree of Cynric (rather than a pedigree of the alleged dynastic founder Cerdic) makes this a likely solution.

Stewart Baldwin

[Richard Smith]

On 09/06/2019 15:18, taf wrote:
> On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 5:22:25 AM UTC-7, Richard Smith wrote:
>

>> [...] I'm distrustful of the line from Ecgberht's father Ealhmund

>> back to Ingild, an otherwise undocumented brother of Ine, and
>> without accepting that, Cerdic has no documented descents beyond
>> the 8th century. That said, I do find the conjecture that
>> Ealhmund's parent Eafa might be a woman somewhat persuasive, as it
>> allows some form of Kentish connection patrilineally without

>> rejecting the Wessex descent. [...]

>
> There are definitely issues in this period, but I one has to be
> careful when throwing out the only sources in favor of an alternative
> one likes better.

I agree, but I hope I'm not doing that. So far as I'm concerned none of
the theories of Ealhmund's ancestry are sufficiently well documented to
accept. But I do think the suggestion that Eafa might be a woman
(originally proposed by Stewart Baldwin, I believe) deserves to be taken
seriously, even though it certainly isn't proven or ever likely to be.
I don't think I can quantify whether Baldwin's theory is more or less
likely than the ASC descent being literally true.

>> As to motivation, Cerdic could well have been added to the
>> Bernician tree to bolstering some alliance between the two
>> kingdoms. (I'm not sure Sisam suggested that motive, but it's been
>> suggested many times since.)
>
> He did - he dated the proposed change to the pedigree based on a
> documented alliance, though it has been long enough since I read it that
> I can't remember the details.

Thanks. I hadn't recalled that detail. You don't happen to recall the
date he gave, do you? A Google search suggests 7th century, which feels
plausible.

>> By contrast, I cannot find any Anglo-Saxons in the
>> /Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England/ database with names like Elesa,
>> Aloc or Alusa, other than the putative ancestor of the Wessex and
>> Bernician ruling dynasties.
>
> This is the case with many of the names in the traditional
> pedigrees, they don't appear elsewhere to have been used. Offa is
> about the only one I can think of.

There are others. For example, there are several other Saxons called
Frithuwald, Frithuwulf, Frithegar, Freowine, Heremod and Wig, all of
which are names in the ancestry of Cerdic, while the two components of
Godwulf are common. In many cases these are obscure people mentioned in
Anglo-Saxon charters. But my point is that Elesa is unusual in being a
name that appears in a Saxon pedigree, but is only otherwise recorded as
a British name. In Cerdic's ancestry, that appears to be unique.

>> Recent DNA results have suggested a far greater degree of mixing between
>> Saxon settlers and the native British than was previously thought. This
>> seems to add strength to the idea that the rulers of Gewisse may have
>> British and the whole territory gradually underwent Saxonification.
>
> I think this is reading too much into the DNA, to draw support for a
> very particular genealogical hypothesis from the generality that we know
> the populations intermixed.

A few years ago, a major difficulty with the hypothesis that Cerdic was
British was explaining how he became the progenitor of an Anglo-Saxon
ruling family when the mainstream belief was that there was little or no
intermixing between the British and Saxons incomers. There's now DNA
evidence that there was significant intermarriage and cultural mixing
between the two peoples in territories we consider to be under Saxon
control.

These recent DNA discoveries certainly don't prove the theory, as they
say nothing about which specific people were of British descent (except
the few bodies they dug up, who cannot be identified). But by removing
one of the biggest objections to the hypothesis, it indirectly supports
it.

>> It's an interesting idea, but short of some major new archaeological
>> discovery, it's one that must remain speculation. For now, I consider
>> Ealhmund, in the 8th century, as the earliest Anglo-Saxon from whom
>> there exists well-documented descent to modern times.
>
> I would suggest that one mention of someone (maybe even someone
> else) at the time named Eahlmund is all that distinguished the degree
> to which Ecgberht's father is 'well documented' from what we have on
> Eafa. It is always tricky even talking about it, when we have just
> one source, and we have convinced ourselves it is wrong.

The one mention you refer to is, I assume the charter of 784 [S.38] by
"Ego Ealmundus rex Canciæ". I've never been wholly satisfied this was
the same person, though it probably is. There's also a Wessex charter
of 801 [S.268], the year before Ecgberht's accession, witnessed by a
"Ealhmund princeps". I've never seen anyone comment on this, and I'm
not sufficiently familiar with the usage of the word "princeps" at this
time to know whether it necessarily implies Ealhmund was a male-line
descendent of a king.

However I agree that this is scant evidence to substantiate the
existence of Ealhmund as father of Ecgberht. In the back of my mind I
thought there was a charter somewhere starting "Ego Ecgberht filius
Ealhmundi", but having looked through all the charters from his reign
I'm now satisfied this was my memory playing tricks and there is no such
charter.

One other distinction I would make between Ealhmund and Eaffa is that
Eaffa was a generation further removed from when the relevant passages
in the ASC were written. The entries in the A manuscript (the Parker or
Winchester Chronicle) were probably written up to 891 in or shortly
after that date. This includes the genealogy of Æthelwulf in the 854
entry on fo. 12v. All the extant copies of the ASC are copies, and we
don't know exactly when the original was written, but I think most
educated guesses tend to say the original was written in the 870s or
880s in Wessex, drawing on earlier source material.

If we accept the traditional estimates of c640 and c770 for the births
of Cenred and Ecgberht, then we have 26 years per generation for the
line through Ingild, Eoppa, Eafa and Ealhmund, a plausible enough
average generation span. That would put Ealhmund's birth in the mid
740s and Eafa's in the late 710s, give or take. Depending when Ealhmund
died, there could be people alive who remembered him when the ASC was
written; that isn't true of Eafa. Almost certainly the monastery where
it was written will have had monks who were adults during Ecgberht's
reign, and one could reasonably expect them to have had some idea of the
name of the king's father: his grandfather, perhaps less so.

Richard

[Peter Stewart]

On 09-Jun-19 11:43 PM, Richard Smith wrote:
> On 08/06/2019 22:36, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> The ptolemaic rulers, as well as many wealthy Roman families are
>> easily traceable for hundreds and hundreds of years with significant
>> documentation to link them.  Maybe five hundred years or more
>> ..(http://www.branchpike.com/antiochus.htm)
> Indeed.  Though, significantly, the line you link to by-passes Roman
> families in favour of the kingdoms of the Near East.  I suspect that's
> the way to go in looking for a DFA, no matter how appealing the idea of
> a Julio-Claudian descent might be, and Antiochos I does seem to be a
> popular target for DFAs, probably for that reason.
>
>> It may be 'frivilous' to try and discover descent from them, but no
>> more so than any other intellectual puzzle, jigsaw or otherwise.
>
> Quite.  A DFA seems to me a fairly significant and interesting
> intellectual challenge.

I agree with Joe's analogy of a jigsaw puzzle - the challenge may be of
compelling interest but still it's not significant (unless this is just
a vague way of saying "difficult" in the context).

"Interesting" is properly subjective, but "significant" is making a
bolder claim that to me seems fallacious. A DFA would be no more
significant than a completed jigsaw puzzle, about as interesting to
anyone other than the completer as last week's episode of the Kardashian
show. All it produces is a picture that is just as interesting and
significant overall without the interlocking fragments.

And also of course liable to be broken up like a jigsaw puzzle for the
enjoyment, and interest, of someone else.

Peter Stewart

[taf]

On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 2:14:55 PM UTC-7, Richard Smith wrote:
> >> As to motivation, Cerdic could well have been added to the
> >> Bernician tree to bolstering some alliance between the two
> >> kingdoms. (I'm not sure Sisam suggested that motive, but it's been
> >> suggested many times since.)
> >
> > He did - he dated the proposed change to the pedigree based on a
> > documented alliance, though it has been long enough since I read it that
> > I can't remember the details.
>
> Thanks. I hadn't recalled that detail. You don't happen to recall the
> date he gave, do you? A Google search suggests 7th century, which feels
> plausible.

Sorry, after seeing Stewart's post I realize I had misremembered this. Sisam argued it was a likely transcription error. What I was remembering was someone else's argument about one of the other Anglo-Saxon royal tree inventions (maybe the attachment of the Essex tree to Woden? - it would take more effort than it is worth to dig this out.)

taf

[Richard Smith]

An interesting idea, and not one I'd heard before. (Or if Sisan made
this suggestion, I'd completely forgotten it.) As you say, it neatly
explains why the pedigree is given in the entry for 552 rather than in
the first entry for Cerdic in 495. The early material in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle must derive from an earlier annal or annals, and
transcription errors can certainly happen.

In this scenario, presumably what happened is that the original annal
was copied and Ida's ancestry mistakenly attached to Cerdic instead,
which would have Ida with no ancestry. Presumably the manuscript was
then copied one or more time during which the ancestry got altered to
change the eponymous Benoc to Giwis, to add Frowin and Wig from legend,
and to add Friðga and Esla for alliterative purposes. That's not hard
to believe. Annals were copied so other monasteries could access them,
and copies were rarely without modification, based on what we see with
later manuscripts. Then, at some point, a monastery must have come into
possession of both a copy with Cerdic's ancestry as subsequently
amendments, and also a divergent copy still showing Ida's ancestry. In
making their own copy, they took material from both with the result we
now see. It's entirely possible this last stage was in the creation of
the original Anglo-Saxon Chronicle itself.

Yes, I can see that happening. Is that more or less likely than a
deliberate usurpation of Ida's ancestry to Cerdic for some political
purpose? I don't know, and ultimately it has relatively few
consequences from a genealogical point of view. We cannot conclude that
Cerdic's father was named Elesa simply based on a tenuous argument on
how the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may have come to its final form. Besides,
Cerdic's line has more recent problems than the identify of his father.

Richard

[Hovite]

On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 10:14:55 PM UTC+1, Richard Smith wrote:


> There's also a Wessex charter
> of 801 [S.268], the year before Ecgberht's accession, witnessed by a
> "Ealhmund princeps". I've never seen anyone comment on this, and I'm
> not sufficiently familiar with the usage of the word "princeps" at this
> time to know whether it necessarily implies Ealhmund was a male-line
> descendent of a king.

All the ealdormen are called princeps in that charter, so the word has no significance, and Ealhmund, King of Kent, was very probably dead by then, as he is unlikely to have survived the conquest of his kingdom in 789: his son fled to France and lived in exile for 13 years.

> However I agree that this is scant evidence to substantiate the
> existence of Ealhmund as father of Ecgberht. In the back of my mind I
> thought there was a charter somewhere starting "Ego Ecgberht filius
> Ealhmundi", but having looked through all the charters from his reign
> I'm now satisfied this was my memory playing tricks and there is no such
> charter.

You are thinking of a note in the margin of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, version F, annal 784: “this King Ealhmund was the father of Ecgbeorht, the father of Æthelwulf.”

[Richard Smith]

On 10/06/2019 16:59, Hovite wrote:
> On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 10:14:55 PM UTC+1, Richard Smith wrote:
>
>
>> There's also a Wessex charter
>> of 801 [S.268], the year before Ecgberht's accession, witnessed by a
>> "Ealhmund princeps". I've never seen anyone comment on this, and I'm
>> not sufficiently familiar with the usage of the word "princeps" at this
>> time to know whether it necessarily implies Ealhmund was a male-line
>> descendent of a king.
>
> All the ealdormen are called princeps in that charter, so the word has no significance,

Okay. That would explain why I've not seen it discussed before. Thanks.

>> However I agree that this is scant evidence to substantiate the
>> existence of Ealhmund as father of Ecgberht. In the back of my mind I
>> thought there was a charter somewhere starting "Ego Ecgberht filius
>> Ealhmundi", but having looked through all the charters from his reign
>> I'm now satisfied this was my memory playing tricks and there is no such
>> charter.
>
> You are thinking of a note in the margin of the Anglo-Saxon
> Chronicle, version F, annal 784: “this King Ealhmund was the father
> of Ecgbeorht, the father of Æthelwulf.”

It's possible I had somehow confused that in my mind. Certainly I was
aware of that marginalia, but I'm also aware it's not even approximately
contemporary, which the record I thought I'd seen was. Regardless, it's
clear my memory is at fault and no such record exists.

Richard

[taf]

On Monday, June 10, 2019 at 8:59:08 AM UTC-7, Hovite wrote:
> On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 10:14:55 PM UTC+1, Richard Smith wrote:
>
> All the ealdormen are called princeps in that charter, so the word has no
> significance,

Well, no further significance than to indicate he was an Ealdorman.

taf