St. Ida St. IdaWife of count Egbert.
Date of birth: Unknown.
Place of birth: Unknown.
Date of death: After 811.
She survived her husband Egbert,
who was still living in 811.
Place of death: Unknown.
Place of
burial: Herzfeld.
[Vita S. Idæ, i, 7-8,
Wilmans (1867), 475]
Father: Unknown.
Mother: Unknown.
See the Commentary section. The Life of
St. Ida states that her father was a count ["Erat
præfato comiti, apud quem hospitibatur, unica filia, ..."
Vita S. Idae, i, 1, Wilmans (1867), 472].
Spouse: Egbert, fl. 809-811, count in Saxony.
Children:
See the page of Egbert for details/
Warin, d. 20 September 856, abbot of
Corvey, 826-856.
Cobbo, fl. 842, ca. 845.
NN (Egbert?).
NN, m. NN.
[Adela?], abbess of Herford.
Sisters: None.
The Life of St. Ida states that
she was her father's only daughter ["Erat præfato
comiti, apud quem hospitabatur, unica filia, ..." Vita
S. Idae, i, 1, Wilmans (1867), 472]
Conjectured father (improbable): Carloman/Karlmann, b. 751, d. 4
December 771, king of the Franks, younger
brother of Charlemagne.
Conjectured mother (improbable): Gerberga.
This parentage of Ida was proposed by
Eckhardt [Eckhardt (1963), 33ff., not seen by me], followed by
Hlawitschka [Hlawitschka (1974), 150-4; Hlawitschka (2006), 1.2:
49-51, 61]. The principle basis of the argument is the statement
of the Vita S. Pusinnae that Ida's granddaughter abbess
Haduwy of Herford was related to Charles the Bald in the third
and fourth degree ["Erat autem ei aditus facilis ad
ipsum, sive consanguinitatis gratia, cum ei tertio quartoque
cognatione gradu iungeretur, ..." Translatio S.
Pusinnæ, c. 3, Wilmans (1867), 1: 542; see also MGH SS 2:
682]. The description of Ida as "Ex regali scilicet
indole sanctarum virginum Odiliæ et Gertrudæ filiæ regis
Pippini, ..." [Vita S. Idae, preface, Wilmans
(1867), 471] suggested that Ida herself had Carolingian descent.
It was argued that because Charles the Bald was from his father's
second marriage (he was about 45 years younger than his father),
the three generations would be on the side of Charles and the
four generations would be on the side of Haduwy. If all of this
is correct, it would make Pépin/Pippin the Short the presumed
common ancestor of Charles and Haduwy, placing Ida as a daughter
of one of Charlemagne's siblings. By process of elimination,
Eckhardt and Hlawitschka then arrive at the conclusion that
Carloman was Ida's father. It is known that Carloman and Gerberga
had two children, with whom Gerberga fled to Italy after
Carloman's death ["Girberga vero, uxor Carlomanni, cum
duobus parvulis et paucis principibus de parte viri sui Italiam
petiit, ..." Annales Mettenses, s.a. 771, MGH
SS 13: 28]. Of these two children, only one, Pépin/Pippin, is of
known gender ["nativitas Pipini filii Karlomanni"
Annales Petaviani (cont.), s.a. 770, MGH SS 1: 13],
leaving open the possibility that the other was a daughter. Such
a hypothetical daughter would have had no claim to the throne,
and might have married and had children.
However, there are problems with this theory. First, there is a problem with the method. The statement that Charles the Bald and Haduwy were related in the third and fourth degree means that a grandparent of one of them (we do not know which one) and a great-grandparent of the other were siblings. It does not tell us which pair of ancestors were the siblings. In this specific case, there are 64 possible matches (four possibilities on one side times eight on the other, multiplied again by two because we don't know which side had three generations and which had four). In order to reasonably conclude a specific relationship from this information, we not only have to know that the relationship has been correctly calculated and reported, we also have to have successfully ruled out all of the other 63 possible sibling relationships by some argument or another. In essence, the implication is that this has been successfully done, and of course it is true that some of the arguments simultaneously eliminate many of the possibilities, but given that the paternal ancestry of Haduwy is a completely unknown factor, it is difficult to believe that this has been successfully done. To be convincing, an argument of this type would need to elimate the alternate possibilities more thoroughly than what has been done.
In addition, there is the problem of a conflict with one of the sources. The Life of St. Ida states that she was the daughter of a count, and this statement does not fit at all well with the conjecture that she was a daughter of king Carloman ["Erat præfato comiti, apud quem hospitibatur, unica filia, ..." Vita S. Idae, i, 1, Wilmans (1867), 472]. Vita S. Idae was written about 980, and is therefore not a contemporary source, but the contradiction is still significant. Hlawitschka mentions the possibility that Carloman's wife Gerberga had been remarried to some count, who would then be Ida's supposed stepfather [Hlawitschka (1974), 153-4]. However, this is pure speculation.
Falsely attributed
father: Bernard, son of Charles Martel.
The Chronicle of Corvey states that Wala (a son of
Bernhard) was a brother of Adalhard and of Ida ["...
Uualam, fratrem Adalhardi atque Idae, ..." Chronicon
Corbeiense, s.a. 826, Wedekind (1823-36), 1: 379]. However,
this source is an eighteenth century fabrication, and has no
authority. Against this, Ida is not included in the list of
Bernard's children from the Life of Adalhard ["Erant
igitur quinque unius viri semine propagati ... Erat autem maior
natu senex noster sanctissimus, ... deinde Wala virorum
clarissimus, ... Quibus inhaerebat ex latere sexu, soror Gundrada
nomine, ... Reliqui vero duo, videlicet Bernarius noster, et
Theodrada soror eius Deo devota, ..." Vita
Adalhardi, c. 32-3, MGH SS 2: 527], and the list includes
two daughters, not fitting at all well with the statement of the Life
of St. Ida that she was her father's only daughter [see
above]. Arguing for this parentage of Ida, Wedekind suggested
that the word unica should be understood as referring to
the only marriageable daughter, but this explanation is
unconvincing [Wedekind (1823-36), 1: 143].
Falsely attributed
mother: Theodrada, daughter of Bernard, son of Charles
Martel.
[e.g., Hüsing (1880), 10, 17]. However, Theodrada had at least a
daughter Imma [Wedekind (1823-36), 1: 143 n. 91; Hlawitschka
(1974), 153 n. 252], so this would contradict the statement of Vita
S. Idae that Ida was her father's only daughter.
Conjectured father (doubtful): Theodorich, fl. 782-793, count in
Ripuaria.
Theodorich was a propinquus of
Charlemagne who appears in the annals between 782 and 793 ["Theodericus
comes, propinquus regis" ARF, s.a. 782 (p. 61); s.a.
791 (p. 89); s.a. 793 (p. 93)]. Böttger follows Leibniz and
Eckhart in making him the father of Ida [Böttger (1865), 22,
48]. However, the theory is pure conjecture.
Conjectured father: Isanbard, fl. 774-806, count in
Alemannia.
Conjectured mother: Thiedrada,
daughter of Adalard, count of Chalon.
Count Isanbard appears in a number of charters from St. Galle
from August 774 to 29 May 806 [Urk. St. Galle, 1: 61-2 (#62),
69-70 (#71), 76-7 (#80), 82 (#86), 168 (#178), 180-1 (#190)]. He
and Thiedrada are conjectured as the parents of St. Ida by
Maurice Chaume [Chaume (1925), 1: 531, 543].
For conjectured children, see the page of Egbert.
ARF = Georg Pertz & Friedrich Kurze, Annales Regni Francorum (Annals of the kingdom of the Franks), MGH SRG 6 (Hannover, 1895).
Böttger (1865) = H. Böttger, Die Brunonen, Vorfahren und Nachkommen des Herzogs Ludolf in Sachsen (Hannover, 1865).
Eckhardt (1963) = K. A. Eckhardt, Genealogische Funde zur allgemeinen Geschichte (1963). [I have not seen this work.]
Hlawitschka (1974) = Eduard Hlawitschka, "Zur Herkunft der Liudolfinger und zu einigen Corveyer Geschichtsquellen", Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 38 (1974): 92-165.
Hlawitschka (2006) = Eduard Hlawitschka, Die Ahnen de hochmittelalterlichen deutschen Könige, Kaiser und ihrer Gemahlinnen. Ein kommentiertes Tafelwerk. Band I: 911-1137, 2 vols. (MGH Hilfsmittel, 25, Hannover, 2006).
Hüsing (1880) = Hüsing, "Genealogie der heiligen Ida", Zeitschrift für vaterländische Geschichte und Alterthumskunde 38 (1880): 1-21.
MGH SS = Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores series.
Wedekind (1823-36) = Anton Christian Wedekind, Noten zu einigen Geschichtschreibern des Deutschen Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Hamburg, 1823-36).
Wilmans (1867) = Roger Wilmans, Die Kaiserurkunden der Provinz Westfalen 777-1313 (Erster Band: Die Urkunden des Karolingischen Zeitalters 777-900) (Münster, 1867).
Compiled by Stewart Baldwin
First uploaded 3 April 2011.
Added note on conjectured father Isanbard, 16 August 2012.