Bertha (daughter of Charlemagne)

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Bertha , also Berta and Berhta or Berchta , (* 775 , † after January 828 ) was a Carolingian noblewoman .

Life

Berta's father: Charlemagne on a silver penny (Denarius) from Mainz
Berta's brother: Emperor Ludwig the Pious on a gold coin of one and a half shillings (Sesquisolidus)

The daughter of Charlemagne from her marriage to Hildegard from Swabia was expelled from court by her brother, Emperor Ludwig the Pious , after the death of her father in 814 because of her way of life .

Bertha had an illegitimate relationship with Angilbert , a minister of Charlemagne and later head of the monastery Centulum / Sancti Richarii monasterium (French: St-Riquier) in Picardy. This relationship is the origin of the legend of Eginhard and Emma , which Heinrich Pröhle reproduced in his collection of legends and which inspired Wilhelm Busch to write his satirical picture story Eginhard and Emma .

From this relationship she had two children, Hartnid and Nithard . The latter is the historian of the four-volume histories ( Historiarum Libri IV ) from the 9th century. At the end of the fourth book he describes his origin himself: Angilbertus, vir memorabilis .... Qui ex eiusdem magni regis filia nomine Berchta, Hartnidum, fratrem meum, et me Nithardum genuit. Her other son, Hartnid, died in 813.

In Becoming Urbar which after the end of Norman invasions was written down (by 890), Bertha is mentioned again. There it is written that the daughter of Charlemagne made extensive donations to the Werden monastery on the Ruhr ( S. Liudgerum ). These are properties to the left and right of the Rhine between Krefeld and Duisburg ( Friemersheim , Rumeln , etc.).

literature

  • Friedrich Beck , Lorenz Friedrich Beck : The Latin script. Written certificates from the German-speaking area from the Middle Ages to the present day. Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Cie., Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-12506-6 (therein: Berhta traditions from the Werdener Urbar).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eginhard and Emma (Ingelheim novella) in Heinrich Pröhle: Rhineland's most beautiful sagas and stories; Berlin 1886, pp. 37-50
personal data
SURNAME Bertha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berchta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Carolingian nobles
DATE OF BIRTH 775
DATE OF DEATH 828