Sara, granddaughter of Witiza, ancestress of AbdurRahman III
Francisco Antonio Doria
I intersperse my comments.
>To follow up a little further on this: Christian Settipani sent me,
>off-line, some notes he had made on Visigothic royalty which are relevant to
>Sara's ancestry, though not her descendants. I summarise the points
>relevant here.
>
>According to the Chronicle of pseudo-Alfonso III, Sara's grandfather, king
>Witiza, was maternal grandson of king Erwig, who was the son of a nobleman
>Ardabasto and the niece of king Chindaswinth. Ardabasto had been expelled
>from Byzantium by the emperor in the early 640s (i.e. around the death of
>Heraclius).
>
>All this is fairly well known. Settipani points out (new to me, though
>apparently its a fairly old argument) that in Gothic law the king had to be
>of Gothic blood. On the face of it, Erwig would appear to be an
>exception -- his father came to Spain from Byzantium and carries an Armenian
>name (Artavasdes) -- and he is the only known apparent exception. However,
>although our source condemns him for the perfidious fashion in which he
>obtained the throne (he murdered king Wamba IIRC), it does not complain
>about a non-Gothic origin. This is OK if we suppose that Ardabasto actually
>of Gothic origin -- i.e. if he was the son or grandson of a Gothic exile who
>married an Armenian woman.
That's where things start being interesting.
>
>Now, we know of a Gothic prince who is last heard of at the Byzantine
>court -- Athanagild, son of prince Hermenegild and the Merovingian princess
>Ingund, daughter of Sigebert I, who was sent to the Byzantium after the
>failure of Hermenegild's rebellion against his father king Leovigild in 586.
>Chronologically, this Athanagild could easily be the father of Ardabasto;
>it is perhaps also relevant that a grandson of Erwig had the name Sigebert,
>just as a son of Witiza was called Ardabasto.
Yes. I once exchanged a couple of letters with the author of *History of
the Goths*, H. Wolfram, precisely on this point. He thinks that the three
(?) Visigothic dynasties are unconnected. I well recall that Salazar y
Castro (I quote from memory) gives a continuous descent from
Theuderic/Theodored all the way down. While I think that the gap between
the Baltunge and Leowegild is unbridgeable, I've always felt that there
might be a continuous line from then on. So, it seem that this *is* the
line, or something like it.
>
>On the Armenian side, Settipani notes that the name Artavasdes is
>characteristically Mamikonian, and suggests that Ardabasto's mother came
>from the family of Vardan III Mamikonian, who arrived in Byzantium in exile
>in 578, a few years before Athanagild. Personally, I find this conjecture
>less compelling than the other, since Artavasdes seems to be a fairly common
>Armenian name, but its perfectly possible.
>
>In short: if Ardabasto is the son of prince Athanagild, and if the
>information given by ibn al-Qutiyyah is correct, then the famous Cordoban
>caliph Abdur-Rahman III is of Merovingian descent.
>
>Chris
>
The point is: did those people leave descendants in the Iberian (I mean,
Western Iberian) nobility? That I don't know.
Chico Doria
>
>
>Chris Bennett wrote in message <72tg73$oum$1...@hops.adnc.com>...
>>While poking around the web on another matter, I came across the following
>>web page:
>>
>>http://www.erols.com/gmqm/saragp.html
>>
>>It tells the story of a Gothic princess Sara, granddaughter of the Gothic
>>king Witiza, who travelled to Damascus in c740 to plead to the Ummayad
>>Caliph Hisham for the restitution of estates confiscated by her uncle
>>Ardabasto. While there she married a certain 'Isa ibn Muzahim, and by him
>>became the ancestress of a line know as Banu al-Qutiyyah; her story is
>said
>>to be given by her great-great-grandson the historian Abu Bakr ibn
>>al-Qutiyyah who died in 978. After the death of 'Isa, she married again,
>to
>>a certain Umayr ibn Sa'id al-Lakhmi whose family went back to Lakhmid kings
>>of al-Hirah in Iraq. The descendants of her son by Umayr were known as the
>>Banu Hajjaj. Mary, the mother of 'Abdur-Rahman III, was a descendant of
>>princess Sara in this line.
>>
>>Can anyone fill in the blanks here? Not just from Witiza to 'Abdur-Rahman
>>III -- how about the Lakhmid side of this line? More importantly, how
>>reliable a source is Abu Bakr ibn al-Qutiyyah?
>>
>>Chris
>>
>>
>
>
>
Francisco Antonio Doria
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Doria) wrote:
>
>I intersperse my comments.
>
>>To follow up a little further on this: Christian Settipani sent me,
>>off-line, some notes he had made on Visigothic royalty which are relevant to
>>Sara's ancestry, though not her descendants. I summarise the points
>>relevant here.
>>
>>According to the Chronicle of pseudo-Alfonso III, Sara's grandfather, king
>>Witiza, was maternal grandson of king Erwig, who was the son of a nobleman
>>Ardabasto and the niece of king Chindaswinth. Ardabasto had been expelled
>>from Byzantium by the emperor in the early 640s (i.e. around the death of
>>Heraclius).
>>
>>All this is fairly well known. Settipani points out (new to me, though
>>apparently its a fairly old argument) that in Gothic law the king had to be
>>of Gothic blood. On the face of it, Erwig would appear to be an
>>exception -- his father came to Spain from Byzantium and carries an Armenian
>>name (Artavasdes) -- and he is the only known apparent exception. However,
>>although our source condemns him for the perfidious fashion in which he
>>obtained the throne (he murdered king Wamba IIRC), it does not complain
>>about a non-Gothic origin. This is OK if we suppose that Ardabasto actually
>>of Gothic origin -- i.e. if he was the son or grandson of a Gothic exile who
>>married an Armenian woman.
I have (in part from memory) Athanagild's wife as "Flavia Juliana" and
related to (perhaps g-daughter of) Maurice whose wife Constantia was
dau of Tiberius II, *ADOPTED* son of Justin II. I *THINK* I recall
Tiberius was Armenian, but dammit I left my Vasiliev in Calif. at
Christmas, and it's in the mail back to me (I hope).
Granting that the specific genealogy is discredited, there may remain
some grain of truth behind the legend of the origin of the de Laras;
if so, then the answer is "yes, but how, we don't know."