Amalgar

Amalgar , also Amalgarius (* around 590 ; † 643 ), was a Burgundian nobleman and under the rule of the Merovingian Dux des Pagus Attoriensis in the area around Dijon .

Life

Amalgar's family belonged to the Burgundian people, as the formation of his personal name from the East Germanic Amal tribe suggests, and came to the Saône plain as part of the expansion of Burgundian rule under King Gundobad . The Battle of Autun in 532 ended the Burgundian independence, but the family remained wealthy and influential in the area between Dijon and Besançon even under Frankish rule .

Because of the Amal tribe , which rarely occurs among the Burgundian dukes, medievalists suspect that Amalgar was the grandson of that Dux Amalo (530-589) who is expressly named in volume 9 of the Ten Books of Stories (Decem libri historiarum) by Gregory of Tours .

The first mention of Amalgar as Dux can be found in the chronicle of Fredegar for the year 629, but research generally assumes that he was awarded the ducal dignity under the reign of Chlotar II .

After Chlotar's death, King Dagobert I took over rule in the Frankish Empire and passed over his half-brother Charibert II , who was described as simple-minded ( simplex ), in the usual division of the estate. As Fredegar reports, the king was forced to cede the sub-kingdom in Aquitaine to his half-brother under pressure from the Neustrian nobles around Charibert's uncle Brodulf . In order to prevent the enforcement of particular interests in the Franconian Empire in the future, Dagobert decided to have the influential uncle Chariberts eliminated. In 630 Brodulf, who was on his way to Aquitaine, was murdered jointly by Amalgar, the Dux Arnebert and the Patricius Willibad at the instigation of the Frankish king during a stay in Saint-Jean-de-Losne in Burgundy .

After this act, Amalgar was one of the closest Burgundian confidants of Dagobert I and was entrusted with important tasks by the king. In 631 he led a Frankish army to the Visigoth Empire on the Iberian Peninsula to support the Sisenand uprising against King Suinthila . In 637 Amalgar finally belonged to those Duces at the head of the Burgundian army, which was called up by Dagobert I to put down a revolt of the Basques.

After the death of Dagobert I, Amalgar played a central role in the inner-Burgundian power struggle for the underage King Clovis II . Together with his brother Chramnelenus , the Dux of Upper Burgundy and Duke Wandalbert Chambly he supported the Burgundian house Meier Flaochad against those Willibald, who was responsible for the murder with him Brodulfs. At the gates of Autun there was a decisive battle in September 642 in the dispute for power in the Franconian part of Burgundy, which came to an end with the death of Willibad.

Foundations of monasteries

Like all great men of his time, Amalgar was convinced that public penance ( medicamenta paenitentiae ), which was preached by Columban in particular , would make divine forgiveness of even the most serious sins possible. Therefore, together with his wife Aquilina, immediately after the murder of Brodulf in 630, he founded the Saint-Pierre monastery in Bèze , which subsequently served as a ducal burial place and thus acquired the character of a family abbey . In Brégille, today a district of Besançon , the couple founded another abbey, the Saint-Martin convent, which was dedicated to the Frankish imperial saint .

Both foundations were richly endowed with real estate - from Saint-Pierre in Bèze there is documentary evidence of lands around Jancigny , Talmay and Heuilley-sur-Saône near the confluence of the Vingeanne and the Saône .

Marriage and offspring

Amalgar was married to Aquilina, the daughter of Waldelenus , the Dux of Transjurania. With this connection, the two most powerful families in Burgundy came together - in particular the side of the Waldelenus rose to one of the most influential families in the Franconian Empire over the course of the following two centuries as a clan of the Waltriche .

From the marriage came the two sons Adalrich , who succeeded the father as duke, and Waldelenus, who was taught in the Luxeuil monastery of Columban and then worked as abbot of the family monastery of Saint-Pierre, as well as the daughter Adalsind, who of Amalgar as abbess in Brégille was determined.

The grandson of Amalgar, Adalrich's son Eticho , was a duke in Alsace , father of St. Odilia and ancestor of the noble family of Etichonen , to which later dynasties, for example the Habsburgs , trace their origin.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gregory of Tours: Ten Books Stories IX, 27 ( online ).

literature

• Horst Ebeling: Prosopography of the officials of the Merovingian empire from Chlotar II (613) to Karl Martell (741) (= supplements of Francia. Volume 2). Fink, Munich 1974, pp. 48-50.
• Eugen Ewig : The Merovingians and the Franconian Empire. 4th supplemented edition, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-017044-9 , pp. 146-149.
• Patrick J. Geary : The Merovingians. Europe before Charlemagne. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-49426-9 , pp. 186-187.
• Karl Ferdinand Werner : Important noble families in the empire of Charlemagne: a personal historical contribution to the relationship between royalty and nobility in the early Middle Ages. In: Helmut Beumann (ed.): Karl der Große. Personality and history. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1967, p. 101 ( PDF online ).
• Bruno Krusch (Ed.): Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii Scholastici libri IV. Cum Continuationibus. In: Bruno Krusch (ed.): Fredegarii et aliorum chronica. Vitae sanctorum (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores. 2: Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum. Volume 2, ISSN  0343-7574 ). Hahn, Hanover 1888 ( digitized version ).