Gunhild of Denmark

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Queen Gunhild, medieval book illustration

Gunhild of Denmark , also Kunigunde, in Anglo-Saxon sources called Chunihildis or Chunelinda, (* around 1019; † July 18, 1038 ) was the first wife of the Roman-German king and later Emperor Heinrich III from 1036 until her untimely death in 1038 .

Life

Gunhild was the daughter of the Anglo-Scandinavian King Canute the Great and his second wife Emma of Normandy . Through her mother's first marriage, she was the half-sister of the canonized English king Edward the Confessor and Alfred Æthelings . At the end of 1025, when she was around six years old, it served as a pledge of peace between Emperor Konrad II and her father. In this capacity she came to the German court.

In May 1035 she was betrothed to the heir to the throne Heinrich (III) and the wedding took place in Nijmegen at Pentecost 1036 , to which an embassy of her brother Hardeknut , who had meanwhile succeeded his father on the Danish throne, traveled. The coronation and anointing as queen took place on June 29, 1036 by Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne.

Princess Gunhild was on friendly terms with Bishop Azecho von Worms . In a letter from August 1036, the court cleric Immo (later Bishop of Arezzo ) reported to his shepherd Azecho that Gunhild had been sad since his departure, because no one was giving her almond kernels and comforting her with fatherly words. Gunhild celebrated Christmas 1036 with Heinrich III. and her mother-in-law, Empress Gisela, in Regensburg.

At the end of 1037 or beginning of 1038 the princess gave birth to her daughter Beatrix in Italy. Soon after, on July 18, 1038, Gunhild died there, possibly of malaria . Since Heinrich did not become emperor until 1046, she was only queen herself. Henry III. was elected and crowned co-king since 1028.

Her only child, Princess Beatrix († 1061), served as abbess in the Gandersheim monastery and in the Quedlinburg monastery .

tomb

Grave of Queen Gunhild, in the ruins of the Limburg Abbey near Bad Dürkheim

When Gunhild died in Italy in 1038, her body was embalmed, brought across the Alps and buried in the Limburg monastery.

In 1935, Friedrich Sprater looked for the grave in the course of an archaeological excavation. He found one that was in the most prominent position, right in front of the former location of the central altar in front of the rood screen . It contained a sarcophagus , which had been robbed and damaged in the process, leaving water in it. Except for skeletal remains, the burial contained nothing. These remains were examined in the Anthropological Institute of the University of Munich . They could be assigned to a woman around the age of 25. Since Gunhild cannot have been that old due to the marriage of her parents, according to historical tradition, it remains unclear whether the grave found in 1935 is actually that of Queen Gunhild.

Plans to bury the remains as those of Queen Gunhild in Speyer Cathedral failed due to the refusal of the city of Bad Dürkheim , as the owner of Limburg. They were therefore buried in their original location on December 13, 1942, but now in a watertight shrine. During the reburial, the grave slab visible today was also relocated.

literature

  • Hansmartin Schwarzmaier : From Speyer to Rome. Stations and traces of life of the Salians. Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4132-2 .
  • Friedrich Sprater : The grave of Queen Gunhild on the Limburg . In: Our home. Sheets for the Palatinate-Saarland Volkstum 4 (1938/39), pp. 364–369.
  • Wipo : Deeds of Emperor Konrad II. In: Werner Trillmich , Rudolf Buchner (Hrsg.): Sources of the 9th and 11th centuries on the history of the Hamburg Church and the Empire. (FSGA 11), Darmstadt 1961, pp. 505-613.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Friedrich Böhmer: Regests of the Empire under Konrad II. 1024-1039. (No longer available online.) Norbert von Bischoff, Heinrich Appelt, archived from the original on January 18, 2017 ; Retrieved January 18, 2017 (1951, registration number 225c). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.regesta-imperii.de
  2. ^ Johann Friedrich Böhmer: The Regesta of the Empire under Konrad II. 1024-1039. (No longer available online.) Norbert von Bischoff, Heinrich Appelt, archived from the original on January 18, 2017 ; Retrieved January 18, 2017 (1951, Regesten No. 238c). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.regesta-imperii.de
  3. ^ Hansmartin Schwarzmaier: From Speyer to Rome. Stations and traces of life of the Salians . 2nd Edition. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1992, ISBN 3-7995-4132-2 , p. 75 .
  4. ↑ Herwig Wolfram: Konrad II. 990-1039 . CH Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46054-2 , p. 137 .
  5. ↑ Amalie Fößel: The Queen in the Medieval Empire . 4 - Medieval research. Jan Thorbecke, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-7995-4256-6 , p. 24 (with footnote 43 inter alia on the coronation date according to the Annales Hildesheimenses ).
  6. ^ Hansmartin Schwarzmaier: From Speyer to Rome. Stations and traces of life of the Salians. Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4132-2 , p. 72 and 73
  7. ^ Johann Friedrich Böhmer: The Regesta of the Empire under Konrad II. 1024-1039. (No longer available online.) Norbert von Bishoff, Heinrich Appelt, archived from the original on January 18, 2017 ; Retrieved January 18, 2017 (1951, registration no. 244c). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.regesta-imperii.de
  8. ^ Johann Friedrich Böhmer: The Regesta of the Empire under Konrad II. 1024-1039. (No longer available online.) Norbert von Bischoff, Heinrich Appelt, archived from the original on January 18, 2017 ; Retrieved January 18, 2017 (1951, registration no. 117a). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.regesta-imperii.de
  9. ^ Sprater, p. 364.
  10. ^ Sprater, p. 365.
  11. ↑ Sprater, S. 365f.
  12. ↑ Local historical website with additional references
predecessor Office Successor
Gisela of Swabia Roman-German queen
1036 to 1038 		Agnes of Poitou
personal data
SURNAME Gunhild of Denmark
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wife of Heinrich III.
DATE OF BIRTH around 1019
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1038