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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1996-08 > 0839537016


From: Jared Olar <>
Subject: Re: Carolingian - Merovingian LINK ?
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 15:43:36 -0500
In-Reply-To: <4tijkc$nr3@lex.zippo.com>


On Mon, 29 Jul 1996 wrote:

[snip]
> However a number of Merovingian princesses did marry foreign kings in
> the sixth century: including Ingund dau. of Sigebert I who married
> Hermenigild son of Reccared I, and had at least one son.

Actually Hermenigild was Reccared's older brother.

> But the most promising line of enquiry is from Charibert I. His daughter
> Bertha married Aethelbert I of Kent (d.618?), so I suggest looking in
> Anglo-Saxon descents to see if any of his descendants married into
> the other Saxon royal houses. I found this reference in Ian Wood's
> 'The Merovingian Kingdoms' published about 1994: the references for
> this marriage are Gregory of Tours and Bede. I don't have a copy
> of Bede but the GT reference (bk IV, 26) does not actually name
> Aethelbert: it just says she married a man from Kent and went to
> live there, the sort of vagueness that Gregory generally displays
> about foreign affairs.
>
> tom

If I remember right, Bede's _Ecclesiastical History of the English People_
says that Aethelbert of Kent married the Merovingian Bertha, as you say
above. In fact, Bede's history was somewhat patterned after and inspired
by Gregory's history--Bede probably knew of Gregory's reference to the
marriage of Charibert's daughter Bertha to "the Kentish man."

Jared

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