Swanahild

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Swanahild ( Sunnichilde, Sonichilde, Serenahilt ), was the second wife of Karl Martell . She was the niece of Pilitrud , the wife of the Bavarian Duke Grimoald , and the niece of Duke Odilo of Bavaria .

Life

From their marriage she had the son Grifo , whose inheritance claims were passed over by his half-brothers Karlmann and Pippin after the death of their father.

From a campaign in Bavaria in 725 in which Grimoald was overthrown, Karl Martell brought his wife Beletrude and her niece Sunnichilde as prisoners to the Franconian Empire . He married her after the death of his wife Chrotrud ; a little later their son Grifo was born. Apparently the marriage to Swanahild was (also) an attempt to bind the Bavarian ducal house to the Carolingians.

In 736 Karl made her uncle Odilo Duke of Bavaria. Overall, in the last years of Karl's life, Swanahild is seen as a dominant influence, which also expressed itself in the attempt to secure an inheritance for her son. Ultimately, however, the influence that Swanahild exercised when Odilos married her stepdaughter Hiltrud has not been clarified - the only thing that is certain is that Hiltrud's brothers did not agree to the marriage. On the one hand, it is reported that Odilo, on his flight from the Bavarian aristocratic opposition to the court of Karl Hiltrud, married while Karl was still alive; on the other hand, that after Karl's death she advised her stepdaughter to flee to her uncle Odilo in Bavaria, who Hiltrud then got married.

At his death in 741, as Swanahild wished, Karl Martell left the empire to his three sons, Karlmann, Pippin and Grifo, although Karlmann and Pippin soon agreed ( Vieux-Poitiers 742) to ignore the inheritance claim of the much younger Grifo and to control power among themselves split up. Swanahild supported her son in his unsuccessful attempt to assert himself against his half-brothers. After Grifo's defeat, she was banished to Chelles Abbey , where she died and was buried at an unknown point in time.

The fraternization book of Reichenau Abbey gives Swanahild the title regina , although she was not entitled to the title of queen. Two positions are discussed in research on this

  1. On the one hand, that the name can be traced back to Karl's position in the Frankish Empire,
  2. on the other hand that the name within the Swanahilds family, the Agilolfinger , was common for the daughters of the princes

swell

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Continuationes, caput 12: "Subacta regione illa, thesauris multis cum matrona quandam nomine Beletrude et nepta sua Sunnichilde regreditur."
  2. ↑ " HL Mikoletzky, Karl Martell and Grifo (Festschrift EE Stengel, Münster-Cologne 1952), page shows, that Swanahild was not just concubina , as the later Carolingian annals show it and as it has consequently been repeatedly asserted in older literature 130-156 "(Hlawitschka); Hlawitschka refers primarily to the Annales Mettenses priores , which describe Swanahild as a "nefarious woman" ( improbae mulieris ) and concubine: "Carolus autemadhuc vivens, cum inter filios suos Carolomannus et Pippinum principatum suum divideret, tertio filio suo Gripponi, quem ex concubina sua Sonihilde, quam de Bawaria captivam adduxerat, habuit, ... partem ei in medio principatus sui tribuit "; "The disqualification of the second wife of Charles as a concubine evidently formed the moral justification for this procedure [what is meant is the pushing aside of Grifos] and should therefore have spread in the tradition." (Schieffer, p. 51)
  3. ↑ Schieffer, p. 42
  4. ↑ Annales qui dicuntur Einhardi, 741: "Hoc anno Karolus maior domus diem obiit, tres filios heredes relinquens, Karlomannum scilicet et Pippinum atque Grifonem, quorum Grifo, qui ceteris minor natu erat, matrem habuiton nomine Swanahildem."
  5. ^ "Towards the end of Karl's lifetime, a Bavarian party dominated the court around his 2nd wife Swanahild, who secured an inheritance for the young Grifo." (Schieffer, p. 49)
  6. ↑ So Wilhelm Störmer in the article "Odilo (I)" of the Lexikons des Mittelalter (Volume VI column 1351): "Whether this bishop's organization [foundation of the dioceses of Regensburg, Passau, Freising and Salzburg] became the main reason for the opposition in Bavaria, the Odilo caused to flee to the court of Karl Martell and his wife Swanahild, a relative of Odilos, can no longer be ascertained. During the escape he married Hiltrud. Odilo was able to return to Bavaria while Karl Martell (+ 741) was still alive ... "and in his habilitation (" Adelsgruppen ", 1972, p. 38):" In any case, it was Swanahild who brokered and managed the marriage of her stepdaughter Hiltrud (from Karl Martell's 1st marriage) to Duke Odilo, against the will of the Brothers Hiltruds, Pippin and Karlmann. "
  7. ↑ Ulrich Nonn's article "Swanahild" in the same work, Volume VIII, Column 349
  8. ↑ Schieffer: "Grifo was imprisoned on the Chèvremont near Liège, while his mother disappeared in the old royal monastery of Chelles near Paris ..."; Nonn on the other hand: "Swanahild was resigned as head of the Chelles monastery"
  9. ↑ "Suanahil regina", no. 32
  10. ↑ "... although Swanahild was no more a real queen than Karl Martell was a legitimate king, but this points to a particularly emphasized and respected position of Swanahild next to Karl Martell" (Hlawitschka, p. 79)
  11. ↑ Settipani, p. 173, footnote 174, with reference to Karl August Eckhardt , Merowingerblut, II Agilolfinger and Etichonen (1965), p. 108
personal data
SURNAME Swanahild
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sunnichilde; Sonichilde; Serenahilt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wife of Karl Martell
DATE OF BIRTH 8th century
DATE OF DEATH 8th century