Audoin

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Audoin (* around 515; † around 560) was dux (duke) or rex (king) of the Lombards from around 546 to around 560 (546–566 or 547 / 548–552?) .

family

Audoin's mother was Menia († after 510), the widow of the Thuringian king Bisinus , who married Audoin's Longobard father from the Gausen family for the second time . His half-sister Raicunda , from his mother's first marriage, was the first wife of King Wacho and stepmother of his ward Walthari .

Audoin was married to Rodelinde , with whom he had the son Alboin .

In his second marriage he married a daughter of the Thuringian king Herminafried and Amalaberga , niece of Theodoric the Great .

Life

Longobard settlement area on the middle Danube

Nothing has come down to us from Audoin's childhood and youth. After the death of King Wachos (539/540), Audoin was initially regent for the underage King Walthari . In 546 Walthari died under unclear circumstances. Audoin now declared himself king. Hildigis from the previous Lethinger dynasty , who lived in exile with the Gepids , unsuccessfully raised claims to the throne against Audoin .

While the Eastern Roman Empire under Justinian I in Italy was still engaged in the war against the Ostrogoths , it meant a certain relief for the emperor that the Lombards, compared to the Gepids, who had been a trouble spot on the Danube for a long time , were a counterweight in this Represented space. Audoin's foreign policy was based entirely on a cooperation with Justinian and he thus became an important Eastern Roman ally. He became a federation of Emperor Justinian I and was assigned by that land. The Lombards then moved their settlement area around 547 to the lower Danube to Pannonia , very close to the Gepids.

Audoin disowned his first wife Rodelinde between 540 and 552 and married, arranged by Justinian, a daughter of the Thuringian king Herminafried , who was related to Theodoric the Great on his mother's side , so that both the Ostrogoths and the Franks alienated Audoin, from whom they claimed the throne in the Ostrogothic empire in Italy and in the Thuringian empire feared.

In 547 the war with the Gepids finally broke out openly, with the Lombards being supported by Eastern Roman auxiliaries. In view of this superiority, the Gepid king Turisind agreed to an armistice. Nevertheless, hostilities broke out again in 552, with the Lombards defeating the Gepids in the battle of the Asfeld . Turismod , son of the Gepid King Turisind, was killed by Alboin. Finally, Justinian I brokered a peace treaty.

Audoin was now anxious to improve relations with the Franks and married his son Alboin to a daughter of Chlothar I. Audoin died around 560. His successor was Alboin.

reception

The Origo Gentis Langobardorum ("origin of the Langobard family"), written in the 7th century, mentions Audoin in two sentences: Et post waltari regnavit auduin; ipse adduxit langobardos in Pannonia. Et regnavit albuin, filius ipsius, post eum, ... (After Waltari, Audoin ruled, he himself led the Lombards to Pannonia. Then Alboin, his son, ruled after him, ...).

In the late 8th century Paulus Diaconus attributed legendary events to Audoin in his Historia gentis Langobardorum (History of the Longobards).

In the old English poem Widsith in the Exeter Book from the late 10th century, Eadwine (Audoin) had a daughter, Queen Ealhhild, in addition to the son "King" Ælfwine (Alboin) in Italy .

In 1725, Georg Friedrich Handel composed the opera Rodelinda, regina de Longobardi ( HWV 19) about Audoin's first wife.

Felix Dahn complained in 1902: The Lombard legend has overgrown the core of the historical tradition about him to the point of being unrecognizable.

swell

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Historia Langobardorum  - Sources and full texts (Latin)
Wikisource: Origo Gentis Langobardorum  - Sources and full texts (Latin)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Felix Dahn:  Audoin . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 46, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1902, p. 81 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire . Volume 3a, p. 152f.
  3. ↑ Cf. Jörg Jarnut : Thuringians and Longobards in the 6th and early 7th centuries . In: Helmut Castritius , Dieter Geuenich , Matthias Werner (ed.): The early days of the Thuringians. Archeology, language, history. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Supplementary Volume 63 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-021454-3 , pp. 279 .
  4. ^ A b Reinhard Schneider : King's election and king's elevation in the early Middle Ages. P. 18.
  5. ↑ Paulus Deacon: Historia Langobardorum. I, chap. 27.
  6. ↑ Origo Gentis Langobardorum chap. 5.
  7. ^ Paulus Diaconus :, Historia Langobardorum. I, chap. 22nd
  8. ↑ Paulus Deacon: Historia Langobardorum. I, chap. 23.
  9. ↑ Widsith. In: Francis B. Gummere: The Oldest English Epic: Beowulf, Finnsburg, Waldere, Deor, Widsith, and the German Hildebrand, Translated in the Original Metres with Introduction and Notes. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1923; Pp. 188-200.
  10. ↑ Widsith. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . (RGA), Volume 33, p. 576, ISBN 3-11-018388-9 .
predecessor Office successor
Walthari Duke of the Lombards
546-560 		Alboin
personal data
SURNAME Audoin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ruler of the Lombards
DATE OF BIRTH at 515
DATE OF DEATH around 560