Re: Otgiva of Luxemburg

Monday, 25 September, 2006

Peter Stewart...

Dear Stewart, Peter, et al.,

In addition to the evidence you cite concerning the likely
descent of Otgiva of Luxembourg from Eadgifu, there was a citation
provided some time ago by Hans Vogels which provides further
indirect support for this relationship:

"Id. cec. dom. Hadewich comitissa, mater Chunigundis
imperatoricis. Agnes imperatrix ejus consanguinea." [1]

Peter Stewart...

Other descents have been postulated to explain this relationship. Hadwig may
have been a Saxon lady, perhaps from the Ottonian family. Depoin speculated
that she was daughter of Duke Giselbert of Lorrain & Gerberga of Saxony,
though this was refuted by Renn. Another suggestion is that she was daughter
of Count Everard II of Hamaland by his wife Amalrada, again with imperial
connections.

If Hedwig, wife of Siegfried, mother of the empress Cunigunda
and apparent grandmother of Otgiva (whether Otgiva was the daughter
of Frederick or Giselbert) was a descent of Eadgifu, she would have
been closely related to Agnes of Poitou (wife of the emperor Henry
III) as shown below [the conjectured descent of Hedwig shown
.......]. An interesting possibility also arises: that the name
Hedwig (already current in the Ottonian family of Gerberga) was
used/conflated with Eadgifu to leave us with the rendering
Odgiva/Otgiva, as suggested below.

Peter Stewart...

This is an unnecessary stretch - no woman named Hadwig occurs as "Odvisa" as
far as I'm aware, but rather as Advisa, and there is no linguistic warrant
for either the substitution of initial O for (H)A or the reversal of order
with the consonants g and w/v in these names. Queen Eadgifu was called
"Orgiva" (by Witger) and "Eadgiva" (by a continuator of Ado of Vienne), so
that O(t)giva represent no stretch from these variants.

Peter Stewart...

This should read: Queen Eadgifu was called "Otgiva" (by Witger)....

Peter Stewart

Charles III 'the Simple' = Ćdgiva/EADGIFU of England
I________________
I
1) Giselbert = Gerberga = 2) [939] Louis IV
D of Lorraine I of Saxony : fl. 921-954
k. 939 I :
____________I :......
I :
Alberada = Raynald :
______I C of Roucy :
I :
Ermentrude = 2) Otto-William HEDWIG [ "Odgiva" ? ]
I C of Mâcon = Siegfried of Luxembourg
________I ______I_________________
I I I I
Agnes = Guillaume V Giselbert Frederick CUNIGUNDA
I D of Aquitaine : : = Henry II
____I :...........:
I :
AGNES ODGIVA
'imperatrix' = Baldwin IV
= Henry III of Flanders

There is no other close Carolingian ancestry in common between
Agnes of Poitou and Cunigunda: a common descent from Gerberga of
Saxony is the sole apparent answer to the relationship between
these two.

The chronology would be a bit less tight if Hedwig, wife of
Siegfried of Luxembourg were a daughter (and not a granddaughter)
of Louis IV. I show there was a daughter of Louis IV not otherwise
accounted for [see ES I Tafel 6]. The absence of Carolingian or
Ottonian names amongst the progeny of Siegfried and Hedwig is
somewhat bothersome - only the name Henry reflects a connection.
At the same time, I note among the issue of Matilda and Conrad
'the Pacific', besides Matilda only the name Gerberga (Matilda's
mother) was given to a child of theirs.

Peter Stewart...

Apart from other considerations - especially the extreme unlikelihood of
such a Carolingian princess going missing - the chronology could only work
if Hedwig was a daughter of King Louis IV: the one not otherwise accounted
for (presumably because she died as an infant or child) was baptised in the
summer of 948, and must have been born a few monthes earlier to allow for
her brother Louis to be born in December of the same year. Count Sigfrid
and Hedwig were having children by ca 960 - their son Heinric occurs in 964
and their daughter Liutgard was married ca 980. (I don't have time to check
the marriages of her descendants, but would be surprised if there isn't a
problem of consanginity with this proposal about Hedwig's origin further
down the lineage.)

Peter Stewart

There is the matter of consanguinity between Siegfried and a
daughter of Louis IV (3rd-3rd degree) or a granddaughter of Louis
IV (3rd-4th degree). This relationship would likely not have
escaped notice, and certainly deserves further discussion.

Cheers,

John

NOTES

[1] Hans Vogels, , SGM, 24 April
2003, citing MGH (Monumenta Germaniae Historica) SS IV, p. 791.