Fw: CLOVIS THE RIPARIAN
Jim Larson
Kennwalrus writes:
-----Original Message-----
From: Kennwalrus <kennw...@aol.com>
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com <GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 17, 1998 6:01 AM
Subject: Re: CLOVIS THE RIPARIAN
>A question was raised on 2/15 as to the identity (or otherwise) of the 'two
>Clovises' of fifth- and sixth-century Gaul. (Or Frankia.)
>
>Clovis I, "The Great," was of the 'Salic,' as opposed to the 'Riparian,'
>Franks. (The former were associated with the seaward end of the Rhine and
its
>mouths, the latter with the banks of the middle and upper Rhine.) A 'real'
>figure (or so historians near to him in time say), b. perh. 465, d. c. 511;
the
>contemporary form of his name was, roughly, 'Chlodowech." Clovis was son
of
>Childeric, himself son of Merowech -- avoid 'Merovee,' which is a modern
French
>spelling; Merowech may have been son of, or related to, Chlodio (a short
>nickname, something like Ted for Theodore, which would have originally been
>framed 'Chlodo[___]," second part lost. [Though 'wech,' 'ric' and 'bald'
are
>plausible guesses.])
>
>Clovis the Riparian, supposedly King at Koln ca. 420, can be traced back,
in
>English, to a 1940s article by G. Andrews Moriarty in the New England
>Historical and Genealogical Register. (My papers are in disarray, so I
speak --
>this is a warning -- from memory.) He, however, was summarizing his
>understanding of a series of 1920s articles by a scholar named Depoin,
>published in a French periodical called the Revue Mabillon. What Depoin
>actually theorized in this article, on the basis of much later and rather
>confused saints' lives, was that Sigebert the Lame of Cologne (real, fl.
prob.
>ca. 500, give or take a bit) was younger brother of his predecessor,
>Childebert, and that both were sons and successors of a Clovis who was not
the
>same man as Clovis the Great of the Salic Franks. Mori- arty apparently
read
>or remembered this incorrectly, for he made Sigebert the Lame SON of
>Childebert, and GRANDSON of this 'other Clovis.' Having done so, he
guessed
>'fl.' dates for the supposed three generations, at 30 years each.
>
>Actually, the saint's life in question is a late and shaky document upon
which
>to found a genealogy; while it's barely possible that the genealogy as
Depoin
>extracted it is valid (Moriarty's would be less so, since its alteration
from
>Depoin's version is apparently accidental), nothing even remotely
contemporary
>documents the Riparian kings back of Sigebert of Cologne. Assuming that
there
>were any, it seems likely that they were in some degree akin to Clovis the
>Great, but impossible to specify how. (This is not for want of trying,
often
>of an original and inventive cast, by many hands over many decades; but the
>original documentation being so very thin, they are unlikely to approximate
the
>historical truth, whatever it was.)
>
I have a copy of the article by Moriarty mentioned above. It is in
NEHGR, October 1944, vol.. 98, pp..303-310. In it Moriarty attributes the
descent from Clovis the Riparian, King of Cologne, through to Sigibert the
Lame, King of Cologne, to Gregory of Tours' "History of the Franks."
I cannot find in my copy of Gregory of Tours any references to the
parentage of Sigibert the Lame.
Therefore an attempt, based upon Gregory of Tours, to trace the ancestry
of Charlemagne back to either Clovis I or Clovis the Riparian through
Sigibert the Lame would fail.
Jim Larson
JimL...@msn.com
Kennwalrus
I'd thought I'd pressed the wrong button, and my posting'g spun off into the
ether; but somehow, it's back.
... fortunately, as I've located the relevant articles.
You're right: in *NEHGR* 98 (1944) 303-10, "The Origin of the Carolingians,"
at 309, G. A. Moriarty writes: "Siegbert the Lame ... was the son of
Childebert, King of Cologne, and ... grandson of an earlier Clovis, ... King of
Cologne early in the fifth century (Gregory of Tours, *op. cit.*)." There's
nothing in Gregory about Siegbert's (or Sigebert's) ancestry, other than the
general statement, made somewhere in G of T's *History of the Franks*, that the
other Frankish kings (ca. 490? 500?) were (all?) relatives of Clovis the Great,
who killed them.
Moriarty apparently wrote doubly absent-mindedly at that point, for it isn't
just the citation, but the proposed ancestry itself, that's reported
incorrectly. Earlier in the same article he cites his source for the WHOLE
lineage as M. J. Depoin, "Les Grands [*sic*] Figures Monacales ...," *Revue
Mabillon*, 1921-2.
The latter article says, "Il s'agit ici ["ici" being the *Legend of St. Goar*]
de trois rois de Cologne dont le dernier, Sigebert le Boiteux, apparait comme
successeur d'un Childebert anterieur au fils de Clotilde, et fils d'un Clovis
qui etablit son pouvoir sur les Ripuaires probablement au temps de l'exil de
Childeric Ier." (I don't reproduce the diacritical markings, which tire me to
no good end.)
In another article by the same man -- "Etudes merovingiennes" -- for which I
can identify neither the date nor the journal (I took bad notes) -- unless it's
the *Revue des Etudes Historiques*, 11, pp. 369-85 -- he says,
"Le royaume des Franks austrasiens de 450 a 509 a donc eu pour titulaires:
1. Clodovie (Clovis), frere de Merovee.
2. Childibert (Childebert), fils de Clodovie.
3. Sigebert, frere cadet de Childibert.
4. Cloderic, fils de Sigebert."
In other words, Depoin analyzed a later medieval legend as meaning that a Frank
named Clovis took power at Cologne in the 460s or so; and that a Childebert and
a Sigebert ("the Lame") were his sons and successors, the latter being father
of Cloderic the Parricide.
Whether one accepts this depends on (a) one's assessment of the value of the
*Legend of St. Goar* as a source for the fifth century (a subject on which I
remain agnostic here), (b) Depoin's analysis of *Goar*; and (c) other sources
for the period, which name no Ripuarian kings (they name precious few anybodys,
as it was a dreadful period for annalists and historians, as for everybody
else), but do seem to indicate that there WERE 'other' Frankish kings -- other
than Childeric, fa. of Clovis, that is -- in the middle 400s.
Long story to short: Sigebert the Lame's real. He definitely doesn't descend
from Clovis the Great. (He was almost certainly older than C the G.)
Plausibly, though not provably, he was of royal Frankish descent, and kin, in
some unknown degree, to C the G; but the evidence for the existence of Clovis
the Ripuarian is debatable, which makes Depoin's analysis of this C's
genealogical bearings of secondary relevance; and Moriarty's report of Depoin's
analysis is incorrect -- either misread, or (I think more likely) misremembered
in the writing. (Which would indicate that Moriarty, at least sometimes, wrote
from an unreliable memory, without his sources beside him, and without
correcting from those sources later.)
cben...@adnc.com
I tapped into this thread late, but as an afterword here is what Settipani
has to say on the subject, loosely translated:
[Prehistoire des Capetiens, p51] discussing Bassina wife of Childeric: We
don't know her origins: J Depoin wishes to make her, quite gratuitously, a
Rhenish princess. [footnote 48:] His argument is as follows: Clovis
addresses Sigebert of Cologne as parens meus. Now, according to Depoin,
parens has the principal meaning "uncle" or "cousin german" thus, one should
make Basina, Clovis' mother, a sister of Sigebert. We would also explain
thereby the occurrence of the name Sigebert in Clovis' posterity. Further,
Sigebert was for Depoin the son of a Clodovech, hence the origin of the
Merovingian name. Apart from the fact that the filiation given by Depoin is
inexact (see second part [CJB: publication of which is still EAGERLY awaited
by yours truly....]) the use of the term parens is really too varied [see
Chaume, who shows it used in the sense of uncle, great-uncle, gt-gt-gt uncle,
cousin german, or to the third degree etc etc] for one to be able to draw
precise conclusions. Further, starting with the relationship beteen Clovis
and Sigbert, Munderic, undoubtedly grandson of the latter, qualifies
Theodoric son of Clovis as "parens" which shows well the semantic extension
of the term.
Chris
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