Gailana

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Gailana or Geilana was first the sister-in-law, then the wife of the Franconian Duke Gosbert and initiator of the martyrdom of St. Kilian .

Family background

Gailana was wife of Gosbert , (step-) mother of Hetan II and grandmother of Thuring .

Live and act

As was customary among Germanic nobles, Gosbert had married his brother's widow. Kilian thought this was a sinful marriage, advised the duke to separate and then fell victim to the revenge of Gailana in 689.

Sinful marriage

The fact of sinful marriage is fed from two sources in the Old Testament . In the 5th book of Mose ( Dtn 25,5-10  EU ) the marriage with the widow of the deceased brother, the so-called Levirate marriage , is approved as a protective provision for the preservation of the male descendants entitled to inherit. In 3rd Book of Moses ( Lev 18,16  EU ), however, marriage-in -law is forbidden , apparently in order to distance oneself from the "immorality" of the people of Canaan. John the Baptist refers to this second current in his criticism of Herod's marriage and later the Church of the early Middle Ages in its marriage regulations.

Councils from the 6th century onwards deal with the dissolution of those marriages which they consider to be sinful. The marriage-in-law is mentioned again and again in the front row. What is meant here, as in the legend of Kilian, is marriage to widowed brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law, marriage to divorced people is ruled out from the start. This is based on the idea that through marriage (“one flesh”) the married couple establish a blood relationship between the related families.

At the time the Kilian legend was written around the year 800, the church's struggle against the popular marriage-in-law reached its climax. Germanic and Roman law had allowed marriage to widowed sisters-in-law. Saint Boniface was one of the sharpest critics of marriage in law. He made the matter a central question of faith. Apparently the levirate marriage was seen as a “Jewish” part of the Old Testament, the opposite position as a “Christian” part.

literature

  • Josef Schreiner : The brother's wife. On the Old Testament background of the Kiliansvita . In: Klaus Wittstadt (Ed.): St. Kilian. 1300 years of martyrdom of the Franconian apostles . Würzburg 1989 (51st vol.), 233-244.
  • Rudolf Weigand : Canon law marriage regulations of Ireland and the Roman-Frankish Church in the early Middle Ages. Pp. 245-259.

Web links

source

footnote

  1. ^ Passio minor. In: Erichsen, Johannes (ed.): Kilian. Monk from Ireland - patron of all Franks (catalog). Würzburg 1989, p. 20.
personal data
SURNAME Gailana
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first the sister-in-law, then the wife of the Franconian Duke Gosbert and initiator of the martyrdom of St. Kilian
DATE OF BIRTH 7th century
DATE OF DEATH after 688