Agnes von Staufen († 1184)

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Imperial crypt in the Speyer Cathedral . Agnes' brother, King Philip of Swabia, is buried in the rearmost grave directly in front of the bars . Agnes lies in the grave in front of it with her mother, Empress Beatrix of Burgundy .
Staufer stele at Speyer Cathedral with an inscription on Agnes von Staufen (left side).

Agnes von Staufen († October 8, 1184 ) was a daughter of Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa and Beatrix of Burgundy .

All we know about her is that her name was Agnes, who was probably the youngest of eleven children of the imperial couple and therefore must have been born after 1177, as a small child with a son of King Béla III. was betrothed by Hungary , died on October 8th, 1184, was buried as the only child in the royal choir of the Speyer Cathedral and has been there with her mother in a grave in the royal and imperial crypt since 1902.

The Marbach annals show that shortly before the death of Empress Beatrix in 1184, a daughter of the emperor who was engaged to a son of the Hungarian king died. The chronicle of the Peterskloster in Erfurt reports in the same year that the empress died with a daughter who was betrothed to a son of the Hungarian king not named in this source and who was still parvula (= very small , very young ) and was buried in Speyer.

King Béla III. von Hungary had two sons at that time: the ten-year-old heir to the throne Emmerich and the two or three years younger Andreas . It can be assumed that Agnes, the daughter of the Roman-German emperor , was betrothed to the first-born Emmerich, who was crowned co-king in 1182. The engagement will be dated after 1180, because the codex of Zwettl Abbey reports that Barbarossa and Béla got together at the time because their children were married. No sources exist for the engagement year 1183 mentioned by Hansmartin Decker-Hauff .

Johann Seffried reports her name and the exact date of her death. In the Chronicle of the Bishops of Speyer around 1468 he writes that in 1309 at the burial of King Adolf von Nassau in an existing grave in the royal choir of the Speyer Cathedral, the body of a little girl was found in a small capsule. According to the inscription, these were the remains of a daughter of Emperor Friedrich I named Agnes, who died on October 8th. From 1309 to 1902, when the royal and imperial crypt was built under the royal choir and Agnes was reburied in a double grave with her mother, Adolf von Nassau and Agnes lay in the same grave.

Since Agnes is referred to in this source by Johann Seffried as puellula (= diminutive of girls ) and her corpse as corpusculum (= little body ), it can be assumed that she was born after her brother Philipp von Schwaben, who was born in 1177 . When she dies, she will have been a toddler six years or less. An engagement in early childhood was not uncommon in the High Middle Ages. A year of birth between 1169 and 1174, as assumed by Hansmartin Decker-Hauff, is implausible because a ten to fifteen year old girl would not have been described as very small , little girl and body .

In two English chronicles a daughter of Frederick I Barbarossa is mentioned, who was married to Richard the Lionheart , then 26 years old , Count of Poitou and son of King Henry II of England , in the second half of 1184 . However, the bride, whose name has not been passed down, died that same year. According to Decker-Hauff, it is said to have been Agnes, whose Hungarian engagement was broken in 1184. This is countered by the fact that for a 26-year-old who urgently had to look after children at the time, a toddler would have been useless as a bride. In addition, there are no sources whatsoever from which a solution to the engagement of Agnes and Emmerich emerges, which would not have been politically opportune for either Barbarossa or Béla. The English and Hungarian marriage agreements undoubtedly refer to two different daughters of Barbarossa, who both died in 1184. It can be assumed that the daughter who was connected to Richard the Lionheart was born in the series of children of the emperor in October / November 1168 and that she was at the marriageable age of sixteen, which was common at the time.

Agne's remains have been lying since 1902 in the royal and imperial crypt, which was then built under the royal choir of the Speyer Cathedral, under a modern grave slab together with her mother Beatrix, who died on November 15, 1184 just a few weeks after her. Her original burial in 1184 in a single grave next to her mother is in stark contrast to the burial practice practiced in the royal choir of Speyer Cathedral. Because she is the only child in a place where otherwise only kings, emperors and empresses are buried.

Since June 2018, a Staufer stele by Markus Wolf has been reminding of the girl in the northern upper cathedral garden at the level of the Afra chapel of Speyer Cathedral . The inscription reads:

"Agnes von Schwaben, daughter of Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, betrothed to King Imre of Hungary, dies on October 8, 1184. Agnes is buried in the cathedral like her imperial mother Beatrix of Burgundy, who died on November 15, 1184."

literature

  • Hansmartin Decker-Hauff : The Staufer House. In: Württembergisches Landesmuseum (Hrsg.): The time of the Staufer. History - art - culture. Stuttgart 1977, Volume III, pp. 339-374, here: pp. 355-356.
  • Erwin Assmann : Friedrich Barbarossa's children . In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages, Vol. 33 (1977), pp. 435–472.
  • Tobias Weller: The marriage policy of the German nobility in the 12th century. Cologne 2004, pp. 175–178.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Decker-Hauff p. 355.
  2. ↑ Marbacher Annalen , MGH SSrG 9, p. 55 , lines 7–9.
  3. ^ Chronicle of the St. Peterskloster zu Erfurt , MGH SSrG 42, p. 193 , lines 18-19.
  4. ↑ Codex Zwettl , MGH SS 9, p. 541 , lines 46-48.
  5. ↑ Johann Seffried, Chronica praesulum Spirensis civitatis , pp. 344–345: In cuius quidem tumuli apertione inventa est parva capsula, in qua effigies cuiusdam puellule, que quondam erat filia Friderici imperatoris, adhuc qualiter restabat ser corpusculo involuto cum panno. Quod corpusculum, cum manibus tractaretur, statim in pulverem est redactum et remanserunt ossa sola, et coma seu pili capitis integri apparebant. De qua puella in eodem marmore tale habetur epitaphium: Octavo idus octobris Agnes filia regis Friderici imperatoris obiit.
  6. ↑ Assmann p. 453.
  7. ↑ a b Weller p. 176.
  8. ^ Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi , RBS 49/1, p. 319 , lines 1-7.
  9. ^ Chronica Magistri Rogeri Houedene , RBS 51/2, p. 288 , lines 15-18.
  10. ↑ Chronica Magistri Rogeri Houedene , RBS 51/2, p. 289 , lines 4-6.
  11. ↑ Decker-Hauff p. 356.
  12. ↑ Assmann p. 454.
  13. ↑ Assmann p. 459.
  14. ^ Peter Koblank: Staufer graves. Only a few of the most prominent Hohenstaufen are buried in Germany. on stauferstelen.net. Retrieved December 4, 2017.
  15. ↑ Hartmut Jerike: The Speyer Cathedral and its importance as the central burial place of the Western Empire in connection with the burials during the 12th century . In: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 154, 2006, pp. 77–110, here: p. 92.
  16. ↑ Speyer 2018 on stauferstelen.net. Retrieved July 1, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Agnes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Agnes; Agnes von Staufen; Agnes von Hohenstaufen; Agnes of Swabia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Daughter of Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa
DATE OF BIRTH 11th century or 12th century
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1184