Re: Hildegard of Flanders Re: Louis VI to Charlemagne Fw: Capetien from Charl...

I just want to make sure I'm understanding Peter's position correctly.

Is it that Hildegarde's parentage is unknown ?
Or is it that Hildegarde was of the Flanders nobility but not sure how?

Peter Stewart...

Hildegard's parentage is not stated in any contemporary source. On onomastic
grounds, because two of her sons were given the names Arnulf and Egbert, it
is thought that she may have been a daughter of Count Arnulf I of Flanders,
and this has been bolstered by the interpretation of other evidence that is
equally uncertain.

On the basis that an account of her son as archbishop of Trier describes his
ancestry as British and noble rather than royal, I would suggest that
Countess Hildegard of West Friesland was quite possibly an Anglo-Saxon girl
from a noble family who was brought up by the widowed Countess Elftrude in
Flanders in the 920s, married to Dirk II by ca 940, and that maybe she gave
the names Arnulf and Egbert to her sons out of gratitude & affection for her
foster family, and/or to honour the heirs of her husband's overlord, not
necessarily from a blood link.

Some scholars have tended to make far too much of names as distincly
genealogical rather than more broadly social indicators.

By the way, in my earlier post I meant that the age required for
consummating marriage was 14 for females and 15 for males - marriage could
be contracted at 12 for females and 14 for males, but the sacrament was to
be perfected later. Over time this boundary was pushed, to synchronise with
the ability of girls to enter religious life (as brides of Christ) at 12.

Peter Stewart