Eticho

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Eticho (disambiguation) .

Mosaic with a portrait Etichos in his grave chapel on the Odilienberg

Eticho (* around 645; † February 20, 690 in Odilienberg ) was the third known duke in Alsace and the father of St. Odilia . He is also called Athich , Adalrich or Adalricus . The Alsatian duke of the Etichones is named after him.

Live and act

origin

Eticho was born the son of the Attoarian Duke Adalrich , who belonged to the Burgundian people and was wealthy and influential in the Pagus Attoriensis , the area between Dijon and Langres . His grandfather Amalgar was one of the most powerful representatives of the nobility in Burgundy and through his grandmother Aquilina, the daughter of Duke Waldelenus , there was a direct relationship with the Burgundian noble family, which rose to one of the most influential families in the Franconian Empire as the Waltriche clan over the next two centuries .

Duke in Burgundy and Civil War

After his father was deposed as an Attoarian Duke by King Chlothar III. In the year 663 and the brief reign of the Interimdux Sichelm, Eticho was confirmed in 664, at the latest in 665 by the king again in his father's office as an attorney dux.

As Chlothar III. 673 died, Eticho belonged to the group of nobles to leodegar , a relative of his wife Berswinda that the Austrasian King Childeric II. Invited the regency in the kingdom of Neustria and Burgundy to take over and the Franks to reunite under a single ruler. In return for his support, Eticho was appointed Dux of Alsace after Childerich's enthronement in 673, succeeding the late Duke Boniface , and thus ruled over duchies in Burgundy and Austrasia.

Two years later, in 675 , after the murder of Childerich II, a civil war broke out in the Frankish Empire for his successor. Eticho supported the party of Clovis of Austrasia against the Neustrian King Theuderic III, led by the former houseman Ebroin . In the wake of Ebroin, Eticho moved through southern Burgundy with the aim of gaining patriciate over Provence after the murder of Patricius Hector - but this endeavor failed because of the unsuccessful siege of Lyon . After Theuderich's victory, Eticho was relieved of his Burgundian property on September 4, 676 because of his ties to the Austrasians; It is noteworthy that the ducal estates were not completely withdrawn from him, but instead were added to the Saint-Pierre family abbey in Bèze . Eticho then left Burgundy, then withdrew completely to Austrasia to his ducal seat in Alsace and recognized Dagobert II as King of Austrasia.

Dominion in Alsace

Sarcophagus of Duke Eticho

After the assassination of Dagobert II on December 23, 679 , the entire Franconian Empire was under the rule of Theuderich III. reunited for the first time in a long time - although the real power lay in the hands of his housekeeper Pippin .

Eticho was involved in the opposition of the South Australian upper class to the Pippinids through family ties, especially to the founding clan of the Weißenburg monastery , the Gundoines , and did not shy away from securing his independence by encroaching on other related noble houses. The murder of the abbot of the Moutier-Grandval monastery , Germanus von Granfelden and his companion Randoald , which took place on the orders of Etichos, served on the one hand to expand the Alsatian domain to the area of ​​the Ducat Transjuranien , on the other hand, Eticho pursued the goal of increasing the influence of the To push back the Pippinids and their allies, the ancestral home of his grandmother, in the Burgundian-Austrasian border area.

Due to the fact that Eticho, despite the conflicts with Theuderich III. When the Duke of Alsace was confirmed, research assumes that he changed political sides again around 680 and subsequently supported the Pippinids in their rise in the Franconian Empire. In this way, the duke not only succeeded in securing rule over Alsace for his house until the reign of Pippin the Younger - more important was the first-time enforcement of the inheritance of the ducal title on his successors.

Between 673 and 682, Eticho had a new manorial seat built on the strategically located Mount Odile, and chose this place as the permanent ducal residence.

Eticho died here on February 20, 690 and found his final resting place in a specially built burial chapel on the palace grounds.

Foundations of monasteries

Eticho, like all the greats of his time, was convinced that public penance ( medicamenta paenitentiae ), which was preached in particular by the followers of Colomban , would make divine forgiveness of even the most serious sins possible. Presumably as atonement for the murder of St. Germanus von Granfelden and his companion, Eticho, like his grandfather Amalgar, founded two monasteries together with his wife Berswinda:

In 680 Eticho and his wife had the Hohenburg Abbey built on Mount Odile within the ducal residence and equipped it with a church and a convent building. Originally conceived as a male monastery, the abbey was transformed into a female convent under her daughter Odilia, next to which a small monastery still existed.

The ebersmunster abbey was around 675 in honor of St. Maurice to own property near Sélestat founded and consisted of a convent Irish monks, which was led by the Holy Deodatus of St. Die.

Marriage and offspring

Eticho married Berswinda around the year 655, who according to the records of the Ebersheimmünster Monastery, the Chronicon Ebersheimense , was a niece of St. Leodegar von Autun and sister Chimnechilds, the wife of the Austrasian King Sigibert III. was.

From the marriage came the sons Adalbert , who succeeded the father as duke, Batticho, Hugo and Hecho as well as the daughter Odilia , who as the patron saint of eyesight and Alsace became one of the most venerated saints in the Middle Ages and whose grave is still on Mount Odile is always one of the most important pilgrimage sites in France - with more than two million pilgrims a year.

Eticho is the progenitor of the noble family of Etichonen , to which later dynasties, for example the Habsburgs , trace their origin.

literature

• Eugen Ewig : The Merovingians and the Franconian Empire. Verlag W. Kohlhammer Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, 1993.
• Horst Ebeling: Prosopography of the officials of the Merovingian Empire from Chlotar II (613) to Karl Martell (741) in: Beihefte der Francia, Volume 2, Munich 1974, pp. 33-37.
• Nicole Hammer: The foundations of the Etichonen monasteries in Alsace. Tectum Verlag Marburg, 2003.