Oda (Eastern France)

Oda , also Ota or Uta (* around 873/874 probably in Velden ; † after November 30, 903 ), was the wife of Arnolf of Carinthia, East Franconian queen and Roman empress, and mother of Ludwig IV the child .

Life

Oda probably came from the noble family of the Conradines . Around 888 she married the East Franconian King Arnolf. Through this connection he hoped to gain the support of the Conradines, who ruled over Lorraine , Rhine Franconia , Hesse and Bavaria .

At a meeting in Forchheim at the end of May 889, Arnolf von der Große wanted to recognize his two illegitimate sons Zwentibold and Ratold from two cohabiting couples as his successors. According to the Annales Fuldenses , some Franks swore the oath with the proviso that it should only apply if the king did not have a legitimate son. It was not until 893 that Oda finally gave birth to the desired male heir Ludwig.

Towards the end of Arnolf's reign, Oda repeatedly advocated the preservation of the privileges of the important monasteries Kremsmünster and Altötting as well as the bishopric churches of Worms and Freising in historical documents . Apparently she had given her husband vigorous support during his reign. In doing so, however, she also made enemies; Shortly before the death of her husband, who was already seriously ill and incapable of government , she had to defend herself against the charges of adultery in Regensburg in June 899, but was able to successfully avert the accusation with 72 oath assistants . This was the second trial of its kind in medieval history: the Empress Richardis had only been charged with the same offense 12 years earlier .

Oda bequeathed the important lands of Brixen and Föhring from her widows' estate to her son Ludwig to furnish the bishopric churches of Säben and Freising . After the death of her husband she probably returned to her Franconian homeland and after her death she was buried at the side of her husband in the monastery of Sankt Emmeram in Regensburg .

origin

Various sources are available on Oda's origin, but the question is controversial in research. Friedrich Stein had shown in 1872 that Oda was not a sister of Konrad the Elder and assumed that her father was Berengar or Berthold , two brothers and uncles of Konrad from the Konradin family . This view is still widely accepted today. The background to the conjectures in the direction of the Konradines are the names propinquus Ludovici and nepos amabilis , which are given to the sons of Konrad the Elder in relation to King Ludwig the child .

Donald C. Jackman sees these designations, especially with the addition amabilis , as an indication of a much closer relationship than indicated by Stein and Eduard Hlawitschka , but not on the paternal side, but on the maternal side: he comes to the conclusion that Queen Oda as the mother of King Ludwig and Glismut as the mother of King Konrad were sisters. From this he concludes in particular that neither Berengar nor Berthold were Oda's father, and that Oda cannot belong to the Conradin family. One consequence of his assumption is that King Conrad I, as a first cousin, was Ludwig's closest blood relative, which - after Jackman - played a decisive role in the election of the king in 911.

Georg Spitzlberger sees the Lower Bavarian market in Velden as the birthplace of Oda. Around the time of birth, the place assumed a central position as a royal court .

literature

• Friedrich Stein: History of the King Konrad I of Franconia and his house . CH Beck, Noerdlingen 1872.
• Eduard Hlawitschka: The ancestors of the high medieval German kings, emperors and their wives . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 2006.
• Donald C. Jackman: The pedigree of the earliest German kings . In: Herold Yearbook, New Series, Volume 15. Self-published, Berlin 2010, p. 47 ff.
• Adelheid Krah: Uta (Oda, Ota) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 8, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-89659-908-9 , Sp. 1344.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Matthias Becher: Between King and "Duke". Saxony under Emperor Arnolf. In: Franz Fuchs, Peter Schmid (ed.): Kaiser Arnolf. The East Franconian Empire at the end of the 9th century. Regensburg Colloquium 9. – 11. December 1999. Munich 2002, pp. 89–121, here: p. 91 (with further references).
2. ↑ Annales Fuldenses to 889.
3. ↑ cf. Adelheid Krah: Uta (Oda, Ota) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 8, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-89659-908-9 , Sp. 1344., as well as Eduard Hlawitschka: The ancestors of the high medieval German kings, emperors and their wives. Hanover 2006.
4. ^ Stefan Schütze (Red.): Veldener Heimatbuch. History and stories of a Lower Bavarian Vilstal community . STS-Verlag, Velden 2003.

predecessor	Office	Successor
Richardis	Roman-German Empress around 888 until after November 30, 903	Adelheid of Burgundy