Fastrada

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Fastrada (* around 765; † August 10, 794 in Frankfurt am Main ) was the fourth wife of Charlemagne .

Life

Fastrada was the daughter of Count Radulf from what was presumably a Thuringian - Main Franconian count family, probably that of the Mattons . In October 783, after the death of Karl's third wife Hildegard and his mother Bertrada , he married Fastrada, with whom he had two daughters: Theodrada (* around 785; † Jan. 9, 844/853, since 814 abbess of Argenteuil ) and Hiltrud (* 787, † after 800 (probably after 814)). She is considered to be the founder of the Münsterschwarzach women's monastery , the predecessor institution of the Münsterschwarzach Abbey .

Karl's chronicler Einhard reports in his Vita Caroli Magni that Fastrada was very cruel and that the blood court of Verden , at which 4500 Saxons allegedly were executed, was due to her influence. Einhard did not know Fastrada personally, however, as she had already died before he came to the court of Karl.

A letter from the year 785 has survived in which Karl Fastrada asked to come to the Eresburg with the children . Later, Fastrada did not go with her husband all the time, but was always in contact with him. A letter has been preserved in which Karl worried about her health in 791 because he had not received any news from her for a long time. Then he tells her of a victory against the Avars and asks her to hold thanksgiving services.

dig

The ailing Fastrada died during the Synod of Frankfurt and was buried in the St. Alban Abbey near Mainz long before the church was completed. The fact that Fastrada was buried in this place and not in the Saint-Denis basilica , which served the French kings as a burial place, or the St. Arnulf Abbey near Metz , as would have been Franconian tradition, shows the great influence of Archbishop Richulf of Mainz .

Gravestone of Queen Fastrada in Mainz Cathedral

Fastrada's tombstone was moved to Mainz Cathedral after the monastery was destroyed in 1552 and can be found on the wall in the south aisle. The original funerary inscription came from Theodulf von Orléans and was written in Greco-Latin hexameters . Due to the Latin diction of the plate in the cathedral, it must be assumed that this inscription could not have been made in the 9th century, but rather comes from an anonymous late medieval.

She died in the Frankish royal court in Frankfurt , where Karl and Fastrada had gone from Würzburg after Christmas 793. Karl is said to never have returned to the place of her death out of mourning for the deceased. He had her buried in Sankt Alban near Mainz, and had her silver spindle hung over the altar. Her tomb was of white marble, adorned with gold and statues, the inscription of which in translation reads as follows:

“Fastrada's decomposing corpse lies here in peace, which dreadful death, since it was still in bloom, mowed. A princess herself, she was married to the most powerful prince; But as a heavenly bride she is even more sublime. We have left the better part of her, the king; The good God gives him a longer life than you. "
(The grave cover with a simple script is walled in in the Mainz Cathedral.)

Inscription of the anonymous:

The pious wife of Charles, called Fastrada,
Loved by Christ, lies here covered in marble.
In the year seven hundred and ninety-four.
What number is reluctant to add to the meter.
Pious king, whom the maiden bore, give, if here too she crumbles to ashes,
that their spirit is the inheritance of the homeland that knows no tribulation.

Original text by Theodulf von Orléans:

Inclita Fastradae reginae hic membra quiescunt,
De medio quam mors frigida flore tulit.
Nobilis ipsa viri thalamo coniuncta potentis;
Sed modo caelesti nobilior thalamo
Pars animae melior. Carlus Rex ipse remansit
Cui tradat mitis tempora larga deus.
Queen Fastrada's exalted body rests here,
Which cold death tore from the prime of life.
As a noble woman she was married to a powerful man;
But now belongs, even more noble, to the heavenly bridegroom
The better part of her soul. King Charles stayed here
May the merciful God grant him happy times.

Say

A magic ring that Fastrada is said to have received from her husband is the content of a legend that the Brothers Grimm also included in the second volume of their German legends . This ring, the stone of which was a gift from a snake, tied the king to its wearer in such a way that he did not even want to release her body for burial when it was already beginning to rot. Finally, Archbishop Tilpin of Reims took the ring. So Charles's affection was transmitted to him and he became the king's advisor. Ultimately, Tilpin sunk the ring in a body of water, near which Karl then built his Aachen royal palace, in whose chapel he was also buried.

The heart-shaped floor plan of Neustadt an der Saale , near which Karl had a palace built in 790 , goes back, according to legend, to the king's love for Fastrada.

literature

  • Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie. Personal history lexicon. Volume 1: A - L (= publications of the Historical Commission of the City of Frankfurt am Main. 19, 1). Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3 , p. 196.
  • Franz Staab : The Queen Fastrada . In: Rainer Berndt (Ed.): The Frankfurt Council of 794 . tape 1 . Mainz 1997, p. 183-217 .
  • Regina Heyder : The ambivalent queen - Fastrada in Carolingian historiography and the ring legend . In: Wolfgang Dobras / Barbara Nichtweiß (ed.): It was a famous city ... Mainz medieval stories and their interpretation . Echter, Würzburg 2016, pp. 247–268.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Regesta Imperii 267f
  2. ^ Regesta Imperii 315
  3. ↑ Franz Dumont , Ferdinand Scherf , Friedrich Schütz (Ed.): Mainz. The history of the city . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2000-0 .
  4. ^ Philipp August Pauli: History of the City of Worms. Kranzbühler, Worms 1825, pp. 110–111 .
  5. ↑ The Ring of the Fastrada. In: Wilhelm Ruland : Rhenish legends.
  6. ↑ The Ring in the Lake near Aachen and The Emperor and the Snake

Web links

predecessor Office Successor
Hildegard Queen of the Franconian Empire
October 783 to August 10, 794 		Luitgard
personal data
SURNAME Fastrada
BRIEF DESCRIPTION fourth wife of Charlemagne
DATE OF BIRTH around 765
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 794
Place of death Frankfurt am Main