Family of Pope Leo IX [was: Re: Roeulx - two places & two familes]
Peter Stewart
"Peter Stewart" <p_m_s...@msn.com> wrote in message news:...
>
> "Roger LeBlanc" <lebl...@mts.net> wrote in message
> news:mailman.876.12061195...@rootsweb.com...
>> On the subject of Hainaut and Flanders, they were united in the person of
>> Baldwin VI, succeeding to Flanders after his father's death (1067), and
>> acquiring Hainaut by his marriage to Richilde (circa 1052), who if I'm
>> not mistaken is believed to be the widow of the former count, and not the
>> biological heiress.
>>
>> I was wondering what the current situation is regarding her ancestry. Is
>> she not thought to be a relative of the counts of Egisheim, -the family
>> of Pope Leo IX, whose pontificate bracketed the date of her marriage to
>> Baldwin VI?
>
> I'm not aware of any new developments in this question - it was discussed,
> with helpful contributions from Thierry Stasser, in January 2004, see
>
> http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2004-01/1073818080
>
> and the thread around this.
I have just checked one particular point in this post from Thierry Stasser:
From: Thierry Stasser < thierry...@wanadoo.be>
Subject: Re: Richilde, wife of William FitzOsber, Earl of Hereford
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:48:00 +0100
<snip>
> Le pape Léon IX était né Bruno d¹Eguisheim, fils du comte Hugues IV et
> d'Helvide (Wibert, Vita Leonis, éd. I. M. Watterich, Pontificum romanorum
> vitae, t. 1er, Leipzig, 1862, p. 128). On lui connait avec certitude deux
> frères,
> Gérard et Hugues (J. D. Schoepflin, Alsatia ... Diplomatica, t. 1er,
> Mannheim,
> 1772, n° 207, p. 163), ainsi que plusieurs soeurs: Gerberge, abbesse de
> Nuys
> (L. Viellard, Documents et mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Territoire
> de
> Belfort, Besançon, 1884, p. 115); l'épouse du comte Adalbert de Calw
> (Annalista Saxo,p. 687); peut être Hildegarde, mère de Louis de Mousson
> Montbéliard (F. Vollmer, Die Etichonen. Ein Beitrag zur Frage der
> Kontinuität früher Adelsfamilien, Studien und vorarbeiten zur geschichte
> des
> grossfrankische und frühdeutschen Adels, éd. G. Tellenbach, Fribourg,
> 1957,
> p. 182; pour les sources voir Viellard, pp. 12-13; Schoepflin, n° 680, p.
> 477).
The first of the sisters as listed here suggests that Abbess Gerberge of
Neuss is certainly known to have been one of them, but the basis for this
claim (as set out only briefly by Viellard in the work cited above) is far
from definite. There is no contemporary evidence at all for this alleged
relationship, indeed there are indications that it is impossible.
The chain of evidence and supposition is as follows, including further
details given by Frank Legl [in _Studien zur Geschichte der Grafen von
Dagsburg-Egisheim_ (Saarbrücken 1998), Exkurs 2, 'Zu den angeblichen
Schwestern und Verwandten Leos IX']:
1. A necrology compiled at Neuss in 1421 names Abbess Gepa (a form of
Gerberga), who died on 11th February in an unkown year, stating that relics
of St Quirinus were sent to her from the Holy See in Rome.
2. A martyrology compiled at Cologne in 1490 states that these relics were
sent to Gepa from Rome at her request, by an unnamed pope.
3. Arnold Mandt, dean of the chapter at Neuss, writing in 1619 asserted that
these events took place in 1050, i.e. during the reign of Pope Leo IX (from
February 1049 to April 1054).
4. Aegidius Gelenius, in a book published at Cologne in 1645, added that
Gepa is to be considered a sister of Pope Leo ("Gepam putari Leonis IX
sororem extitisse").
This is scarcely reliable, and it may well be flatly wrong.
According to research of Raymund Kottje [in _Das Stift St Quirin zu Neuss
von seiner Gründung bis zum Jahre 1485_, Veröffentlichungen des Historischen
Vereins für den Niederrhein, insbesondere das Alte Erzbistum Köln 7
(Düsseldorf, 1952)] it is likely that the abbess who received the relics of
her priory's patron saint lived almost a century earlier, maybe named Gepa
as stated later, and that the translation of relics from Rome to Neuss
probably took place around 966.
Even if Kottje was wrong and Mandt was correct about the dating, there is no
reason given by Gelenius to justify assuming that Gepa was the reigning
pope's sister.
Peter Stewart