Adélaïde AdélaïdeWife of Louis II le Bègue, king of France.
See Hlawitschka 165ff
Date of birth: Unknown.
Place of birth: Unknown.
Date of death: After 9 November 901.
Place of
death: Unknown.
Adélaïde was living on 9
November 901, when she was mentioned in an act of her son Charles
the Simple ["suggerentibus quoque una cum dilectissima
genitrice nostra Adelaide" RHF 9: 494 (#27)].
Possible father: Alard/Adalhard,
count, fl. 875-890.
The parentage of Adélaïde is not directly
documented. As noted below, she is documented as a sister of
abbot Wulfhard of Flavigny. Her parentage will be discussed in
the Commentary section.
Mother: Unknown.
Spouse: Louis II le Bègue, d. 10 April 879, king of France 877-9.
For her marriage, see the page of Louis II le Bègue.
Children:
See the page of Louis II le Bègue for more details.
Ermentrude, b
say 870×7;
m. NN.
Charles III
"the Simple", b. (posthumously) 17 September
879, d. 7 October 929, king of France 898-922;
m. (1) shortly before 19 April 907, Frederuna,
d. 10 February 917;
m. (2) 919, Eadgifu (Ottogeba),
d. after 951, daughter of Eadweard "the
Elder", king of Wessex.
Brother: Wulfhard, d. 6 September, 880×894,
abbot of Flavigny, ca. 875 - 880×894.
["Huic etiam Sigardus succedit, et
5. anno Wolfardo, Ludovici II. imperatoris sororio, dono eiusdem
sedem reliquit. Cuius ordinationis anno 3. consecratio
Flaviniacensis ecclesiae acta est a Iohanne papa et 18 episcopis,
anno 878. ind 11." Series abbatum Flaviniacensium,
MGH SS 8: 502; "8. Idus Sept. Wlfardus abbas
Flaviniacensis, Ludovici imperatoris sororius obiit."
Hugues de Flavigny, Necrologium, MGH SS 8: 286; 880×94
date range: Werner (1967), 432, sources unclear].
Great-grandfather (proavus): Bégon, d.
816, count of Paris.
Relative (consanguineus): Rumald, fl. 22 April 921, abbot of
Fossés.
These relationships are proven by an act of
Charles III the Simple on 22 April 921, which mentions his
mother's relative Rumald and his mother's great-grandfather (proavus)
Bégon ["Karolus divina propitiante clementia rex
Francorum, ... ubi nunc præest præfatus Rumaldus abbas
consanguineus ex nostræ genetricis parte Adeleisiæ, ... . ...
qualiter ipsum monasterium Bego genetricis nostræ proavus
penitus destructum restaurasset ..." RHF 9: 551 (#84)].
The parentage of Adélaïde
As noted above, there are three basic clues to the parentage of Adélaïde:
No direct evidence regarding the parentage of either Rumald or Wulfhard is known, so the descent from Bégon becomes the obvious starting point for further investigation. Assuming that the term proavus is literally correct, Wulfhard and Adélaïde should be the children of some grandchild of Bégon. Arguing along these lines, Karl Ferdinand Werner suggested that Wulfhard and Adélaïde were the children of count Adalhard, son of another Wulfhard by his daughter Susanna, possibly a daughter of count Bégon. If Susanna was indeed a daughter of Bégon, then the obvious onomastic argument would make Wulfhard and Susanna the likely grandparents of Adélaïde, with Adalhard as the most likely candidate for Adélaïde's father [Werner (1967), 429-441]. See the page of Adalhard for a more detailed discussion.
Conjectured father (improbable): Hunroch, b. before 20 June 840, living
1 July 874, d. 874×5?, duke of Friuli, 865-874×5;
Conjectured mother (improbable): Ava, daughter of
duke Liutfrid.
[Vianello (1984, not seen by me), cited by
Settipani (1993), 316 n. 857] Hunroch had a daughter, who in 887
was carried off from a nunnery in Brescia and married by force by
Liutward, bishop of Vercelli to his nepos ["..
ut monasterium puellarum in Brixia civitate situm invaderet et
per quosdam amicos suos filiam Unruochi comitis propinquam
imperatoris vi raperet suoque nepoti in coniugium daret."
Ann. Fuld., s.a. 887, 105; Werner (1967), 452, n. 26
cites Hirsch (1910), 87 for the marriage of Hunroch]. Vianello
identifies this daughter with Adélaïde, wife of Louis II. This
is improbable, as it is unlikely that she would have been
identified merely as a daughter of Hunroch and relative of the
emperor if she were in fact the widow of Louis II. For more on
Hunroch, see the page of his father Eberhard of Friuli, and for
their supposed descent from Bégon, see the page of Eberhard's
father Hunroch of
Ternois.
Falsely attributed
father (did not exist): Bégon, fl. 861, count of Paris.
[Kalckstein (1877), 470] As noted by
Werner, this supposed count is based on a worthless eleventh
century falsification, and no such Bégon ever existed [Werner
(1967), 429].
Falsely attributed
father: Welf I,
count in Argengau and Linzgau.
Based on the account of Genealogia
Welforum that Louis married Hildegard, daughter of Eticho
(of the Welf family), Decker-Hauff, in an unconvincing argument,
tries to make Adélaïde a daughter of Welf I [See Decker-Hauff
(1955), 329ff.]. See the page of Louis II le Bègue for more
details.
Decker-Hauff (1955) = Hansmartin Decker-Hauff, "Die Ottonen und Schwaben", Zeitschrift für Württemburgische Landesgeschichte 14 (1955), 233-371.
Hlawitschka (1968) = Eduard Hlawitschka, Lotharingen und das Reich an der Schwelle der deutschen Geschichte (Schriften der MGH 21, Stuttgart, 1968).
Kalckstein (1877) = Carl von Kalckstein, Geschichte des französischen Königthums unter den ersten Capetingern (Leipzig, 1877).
RHF = Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France.
Settipani (1993) = Christian Settipani, La préhistoire des Capétiens 481-987 (Première partie - Mérovingiens, Carolingiens et Robertiens) (Villeneuve d'Ascq, 1993).
Vianello (1984) = Francesco Vianello, "Gli Unruochingi e la famiflia di Beggo conte di Parigi (Ricerche sull'alta aristoctatia carolingia)", Bulletino dell'Intituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Eva e Archivia Muratoriano 91 (1984): 337-369. [Not seen by me]
Werner (1967) = Karl Ferdinand Werner, "Die Nachkommen Karls des Großen bis um das Jahr 1000 (1.-8. Generation)", Karl der Große 4 (1967): 403-483 (especially Excurs II: Königin Adelheid, pp. 429-441).
Compiled by Stewart Baldwin
First uploaded 16 August 2012.