=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20The=20origins=20of=20Redburh=20or=20R=E6dbu?=

Friday, 8 September, 2006

Dear Peter,

Thanks for your reply yesterday to my post.

My reply of yesterday, concerning the rationale for the
placement of Rædburh in the family of Count Ingram, addressed
(on chronological and other grounds) the questions you raised
concerning my placement of her in "just one family with royal
links using names with the "Chrod-" element", i.e. that of Count
Ingram.

Peter Stewart...

I must be missing something - an entire post perhaps.

All I can find in your reply yesterday is:

"...using the text without additional inference we should be looking at
Charlemagne or Louis le Debonair. [para] My point: that Louis makes better
sense, chronologically, and his wife was a daughter of Count Ingram.
Ruodburga, or Redburh, makes a nice fit."

Taking the text without additional inference to indicate either Charlemagne
or his son Louis involves narrowing down the chronology to before late 813,
otherwise you must add an additional inference that the author for some
unknown reason wrote of a "king" when he meant an emperor, "of the Franks"
when he meant of the Romans. Charlemange was emperor from December 800,
Louis from August/September 813. Within this timeframe, until July 810
Charlemagne's elder son Pippin was still living, a king and a Frank although
king of the Lombards. If the author in England must be inferred to have
overlooked the higher title of either Charlemagne or Louis, why not the
territorial title of Pippin? The last had a son by a lady name Chrothais,
closely related Adalhard and Wala, abbots of Corbie. Why could she not have
had a sister name Chrotburgis?

As to your first question:

" For starters, if Rædburh is supposed to be possibly an
Anglo-Saxon rendering of Ruodburga, are there examples of
the name of any Frankish duke, king or other called Ruodbert
becoming "Rædbert" across the Channel?"

There is one early example of Rædbert, that of Eorpwald, son
of Rædbert, a king in East Anglia, who apparently converted to
Christianity in the early 7th century. This is obviously not a
Frankish example, but does indicate that the name Rædbert did in
fact exist before the time of Egbert and Rædburh. The only
subsequent examples I note of a (possibly) pertinent cross-channel
name change are 11th century, where we have assorted Roberts
(including dukes of Normandy) being called Rodbeorht in
Anglo-Saxon records, ca. 1050 and later [1].

To what extent Rædbert and Rodbeorht may, or may not, be
phonetically similar (or, specifically, to a 9th century
Anglo-Saxon ear) I am not certain. Unfortunately, I see no
9th or 10th century examples that would bear directly on the
matter.

Peter Stewart...

It would also bear directly on the matter if you could find any female in
the Robertian lineage who has a name beginning with "Rod-". "Rodbeorht" is
far from "Rædbert" (it is only the first syllable that matters here, of
course).

So far we have absolutely nothing except an impression, without support from
onomastics, linguistics or circumstances, to direct the search in this
particular direction.

Peter Stewart

Cheers,

John

NOTES

[1] W. G. Searle, Onomasticon Ango-Saxonicum (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1897), pp. 393, 402.