Bertrada the Younger

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Bertrada or Bertha the Younger, Berta, Berhta , in other languages ​​also Berthruda (* around 725; † July 12/13, 783 in Choisy in today's Oise department ), was the daughter of Count Heribert von Laon and granddaughter of Bertrada the Elder , the founders of the Prüm Abbey .

Life

Tomb of Pippin the Younger and his wife, Queen Bertrada the Younger (French: Berthe), in the Basilica of St. Denis

Bertrada was born into one of the most influential families in Australia, who owned a large number of lands and estates in the Eifel region and in Laon, including the Prüm Monastery, which came into the Carolingian legacy through the marriage to Pippin. In 741 she became the wife of the Frankish King Pippins the Younger († 768), around 747 the mother of Charlemagne . She and Pippin were so closely related that the law precluded marriage; the connection was not legalized until 749, after the birth of Charlemagne. At the time of the marriage, Bertrada is said to have been around 13 years old, Pippin twice that old. Since Bertrada led the life of an only child, neither brothers nor sisters could dispute her father's inheritance, so that the entire inheritance belonged to Betrada and therefore also to Pippin.

When Pippin was crowned king in 751, she assumed the title regina (queen). From 752 on, her name was mentioned several times alongside Pippin in deeds of donation for the house monastery of Prüm. She accompanied Pippin in 754 on his Italian train. In St. Denis on July 28th, 754, Pippin received the royal dignity in a ceremonial anointing by Pope Stephan II. At the same time, the two eldest sons Karl and Karlmann are anointed, as is Bertrada, who is once again appointed queen. Allegedly, Pippin is said to have intended to divorce Bertrada, but was dissuaded from it by Pope Paul I in 762 due to the violation of his specially established marriage rights. In 767 and 768 Bertrada Pippin accompanied on his Aquitaine campaigns. Hartmann, Martina, The Queen in the Early Middle Ages, Stuttgart 2009, p. 95. 767 and 768 she accompanied Pippin on his Aquitaine campaigns.

After Pippin's death in 768, a dispute broke out between their sons Karl and Karlmann , due to the division of the empire between the brothers laid down in Pippin's will. With a sophisticated plan, Bertrada wanted to marry Longobard princesses with Franconian nobility, so that a Franconian-Longobard peace could arise. In 770 she allied herself with Duke Tassilo III. von Bavaria, traveled to the Lombard court in Italy in order to arrange the marriage of her son Karl with a daughter of Desiderius , whose name is unknown and who was wrongly called Desiderata , and thus to secure the Frankish empire, weakened by revolts and inheritance disputes, to the south. Bertrada supported and urged Karl to divorce his first wife Himiltrud, with whom Karl already had a son. Then she traveled on to Rome - presumably to pray at the tombs of the apostles and to meet Pope Stephan III. to tell of the concessions Desiderius had made to her.

Their peace policy failed, however, as Karl broke away from Bertrada's influence after Karlmann's death (December 4, 771). He rejected his Longobard wife against Bertrada's wish, which destroyed the alliance with the Longobards and outraged the Longobard king Desiderius. From then on, Karl led a more independent policy. Bertrada was in high regard until her death.

After Karl cast his mother out, Bertrada disappears from the Reichsannalen. Only the time and place of Bertrada's death and her burial place can still be found in the annals. She finally died on December 12th / 13th. July 783 in the Palatinate Choisy-au-Bac and was buried in "Cauciaco". A little later, her body was brought to the "ecclesia sancti Dionysii martiris" (Church of the Holy Martyr Dionysius) in the Abbey of Saint Denis and finally buried at the side of her husband.

progeny

Bertrada and Pippin had six children. Three of the children together died as young children. It is known that Karl is the oldest descendant of Bertrada, but the order of birth of the following five siblings cannot be exactly listed, since the two dates of birth of Ruothaid and Adelheid do not appear in the sources.

legend

Bertrada's fame is based more than on her actual life on the Carolingian saga, in which she was merged with the goddess Perchta under the name "Bertha with the big foot" (Latin: Regina pede aucae = the queen with the goose foot) . The legend of Saint Genoveva of Brabant also goes back to this story.

The Berthasage was preserved in around 20 versions, including:

  • the Chroniques Saintongeoise from the first half of the 13th century
  • the epic Berte from grans piés by Adenet le Roi , which was written around 1275
  • a Franco-Italian verse epic "Berta da li pe grandi"
  • in popular books and prose novels
    • in Italy ( Reali di Francia , around 1370),
    • in France ,
    • in Flanders ( Berte metten breden voeten )
    • and in Germany

In these stories she is sometimes given as the daughter of Flore and Blanziflor ( Flore and Blanscheflur ), but almost always abandoned as a bride in the forest and exchanged for a fake Bertha until the real one is found and because of her feet, one of which is larger than her others, can be identified.

There are romantic adaptations of the material from:

swell

literature

  • Eduard Hlawitschka : Bertrada the Younger . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , Sp. 2038.
  • Silvia Konecny: The women of the Carolingian royal family. The political significance of marriage and the position of women in the Frankish ruling family from the 7th to the 10th century. Dissertation from the University of Vienna 1976, pp. 61–64.
  • Gerd Hit: The French queens. From Bertrada to Marie Antoinette (8th – 18th centuries). Verlag Friedrich Pustet Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1530-5 , pp. 23-29.
  • Martina Hartmann : The queen in the early Middle Ages. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-17-018473-2 , pp. 95-98.
  • Janet L. Nelson : Bertrada. In: Matthias Becher , Jörg Jarnut (Ed.): The dynasty change from 751. Prehistory, strategies of legitimation and memory. Scriptorium, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-932610-34-2 , pp. 93-108.

Web links

Commons : Bertrada of Laon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Eduard Hlawitschka: Bertrada the Younger . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , Sp. 2038.
  2. ^ Johannes Fried: Charlemagne. Violence and belief. A biography . Ed .: CH Beck. Munich 2013, p. 35 f .
  3. ↑ Friedrich Kurz (Ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 6: Annales regni Francorum inde from a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi. Hannover 1895, p. 8 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ) for the year 749.
  4. ↑ Martina Hartmann: The Queen in the Early Middle Ages . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-17-018473-2 , pp. 95 .
  5. ↑ Silvia Konecny: The women of the Carolingian royal family. The political significance of marriage and the position of women in the Frankish ruling family from the 7th to the 10th century . Ed .: University of Vienna. Association of Austrian Scientific Societies, Vienna 1974, p. 48 .
  6. ^ Johannes Fried: Charlemagne. Violence and belief. A biography . CH Beck, Munich 2013, p. 69 .
  7. ↑ Martina Hartmann: The Queen in the Early Middle Ages . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-17-018473-2 , pp. 95 .
  8. ↑ a b Martina Hartmann: The Queen in the Early Middle Ages, p. 95ff.
  9. ↑ Lexicon of the Middle Ages. Verlag JB Metzler, Vol. 1, col. 2038.
  10. ↑ Wilfried Hartmann: Charlemagne . In: Kohlhammer Urban paperbacks . No. 643 . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-17-018068-0 , pp. 47 .
  11. ↑ Wilfried Hartmann: Charlemagne . In: Kohlhammer Urban paperbacks . No. 643 . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-17-018068-0 , pp. 51 .
  12. ^ Ludo Moritz Hartmann: History of Italy in the Middle Ages Vol. II Part 2, pp. 251f.
  13. ↑ Wilfried Hartmann: Charlemagne . In: Kohlhammer Urban paperbacks . No. 643 . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-17-018068-0 , pp. 53 .
  14. ↑ Martina Hartmann: The Queen in the Early Middle Ages . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-17-018473-2 , pp. 98 .
  15. ↑ Friedrich Kurz (Ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 6: Annales regni Francorum inde from a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi. Hannover 1895, p. 66 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ) for the year 783.
  16. ↑ Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 1: Annales et chronica aevi Carolini. Hannover 1826, p. 164 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ) for the year 783.
  17. ↑ Martina Hartmann: The Queen in the Early Middle Ages . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-17-018473-2 , pp. 95 .
personal data
SURNAME Bertrada the Younger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bertha the Younger; Berthruda; Berta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Carolingian Queen
DATE OF BIRTH at 725
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 783 or July 13, 783
Place of death Choisy