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Could anyone offer me an informed opinion as to how much credence can be placed in the following line purporting to trace Charlemagne's wife Hildegarde back to the Merovingians? 1. Sigebert I, King of Austrasia, d.575 2. Chlodosindis, m. Chrodoald 3. Fara, Duke of Bavaria, d. 641 4. Theodon II, Duke of Bavaria, d. 716, m. Regintrude, dau. of Dagobert I 5. dau., m. Godefrid 6. Houching, Duke of Allemania, d. 727 7. Hnabi, Duke of Allemania, d. 788 8. Emma, d. 798, m. Gerold I 9. Hildegarde, m. Charlemagne sources: 1-3: Settipani's La prehistoire de Capetiens p.81 3-5: Reallexicon der Germanischen Altertumskunde art. Agilolfinger 5-9: Weis & Sheppard's Ancestral Roots 7th ed. Luke Stevens

Could anyone offer me an informed opinion as to how much credence can be placed in the following line purporting to trace Charlemagne's wife Hildegarde back to the Merovingians? 1. Sigebert I, King of Austrasia, d.575 2. Chlodosindis, m. Chrodoald 3. Fara, Duke of Bavaria, d. 641 4. Theodon II, Duke of Bavaria, d. 716, m. Regintrude, dau. of Dagobert I 5. dau., m. Godefrid 6. Houching, Duke of Allemania, d. 727 7. Hnabi, Duke of Allemania, d. 788 8. Emma, d. 798, m. Gerold I 9. Hildegarde, m. Charlemagne sources: 1-3: Settipani's La prehistoire de Capetiens p.81 3-5: Reallexicon der Germanischen Altertumskunde art. Agilolfinger 5-9: Weis & Sheppard's Ancestral Roots 7th ed. Well, Settipani himself sums up the ambiguous evidence and attendant doubts about the identity of Chrodoald's wife, in the text you cite.  I remain a little uneasy with his convenient transformation of 'amita' in the quoted source into 'paternal aunt'.  And while elsewhere he supports 5-9 (i.e. Godefrid-Hildgard, but not necessarily the Agilolfing connection), you should note that nowhere in _Prehistoire_ does he even mention Regintrude, wife of Theodon II (gen. 4), a difficulty which does not specifically invalidate the descent as you give it here, but which would make one want to examine the evidence cited in the Agilolfinger piece extremely closely.  Have you done this? Nat Taylor

Could anyone offer me an informed opinion as to how much credence can be placed in the following line purporting to trace Charlemagne's wife Hildegarde back to the Merovingians? 1. Sigebert I, King of Austrasia, d.575 2. Chlodosindis, m. Chrodoald 3. Fara, Duke of Bavaria, d. 641 4. Theodon II, Duke of Bavaria, d. 716, m. Regintrude, dau. of Dagobert I 5. dau., m. Godefrid 6. Houching, Duke of Allemania, d. 727 7. Hnabi, Duke of Allemania, d. 788 8. Emma, d. 798, m. Gerold I 9. Hildegarde, m. Charlemagne sources: 1-3: Settipani's La prehistoire de Capetiens p.81 3-5: Reallexicon der Germanischen Altertumskunde art. Agilolfinger 5-9: Weis & Sheppard's Ancestral Roots 7th ed. Well, Settipani himself sums up the ambiguous evidence and attendant doubts about the identity of Chrodoald's wife, in the text you cite.  I remain a little uneasy with his convenient transformation of 'amita' in the quoted source into 'paternal aunt'.  And while elsewhere he supports 5-9 (i.e. Godefrid-Hildgard, but not necessarily the Agilolfing connection), you should note that nowhere in _Prehistoire_ does he even mention Regintrude, wife of Theodon II (gen. 4), a difficulty which does not specifically invalidate the descent as you give it here, but which would make one want to examine the evidence cited in the Agilolfinger piece extremely closely.  Have you done this? Nat Taylor I have not yet read Settipani (it is on order!). The above descent seems to follow in steps 2-5 (excluding Chlodosindis dau. of Sigebert) a reconstruction by K A Eckhardt [1]. Eckhardt (p.105) has Chrodoald (d.624/25) m. about 610 a name unknown dau. of Gisulf duke of the Lombards. He is tentative (and well he may be) in making Theodo II (d.716) the son of Fara (d.641). E Zoellner's very influential paper [2] addresses many of the central problems of his subject particularly the question of the origins of the Agilolfings and he has Eckhardt's hypothesis on this question in his sights. Zoellner (or Stoermer) may have done the article on the Agilolfinger in the rather more generally accessible *Lexikon des Mittelalters*. M Werner [3] discusses Regintrud at some length (pp.221-236 see also his chart at the end of the book). He considers the siblinghood of Adela of Pfalzel and Regintrud to be firm. He is more tentative in adopting the rest of Hlawitschka's well known articulation of the structure of the Hugobert/Irmina family [4] - in particular the claim that Hugobert and Irmina were parents of the two sisters Adela and Regintrud. He follows and develops (again tentatively) Jarnut's hypothesis that Regintrud married twice. Her first marriage was to a man unknown and by whom she had a daughter Piltrud (Bilitrud/Beletrud/Plektrud) who in turn married successively the brothers Theodold and Grimoald dukes of Bavaria. These two men are known sons of Theodo II. Another son of Theodo II (and his immediate successor) was Theodebert (d. by 717/18) duke of Bavaria. Theodebert was Regintrud's second husband by whom she had Hucbert and Guntrud and possibly a second son who is identified as Tassilo II. So Piltrud married her step-uncles. This hypothesis originally proposed by Jarnut [5] set out to explain the claim in the sources that Swanahild second wife of Charles Martel was the niece of Piltrud and of Odilo duke of Bavaria. According to the Jarnut/Werner hypothesis Swanahild was the daughter of Piltrud's half-brother (possibly Tassilo II) by a sister (possibly named 'Imma') sister of duke Odilo. While the Jarnut/Werner hypothesis rules out certain options when attempting to solve the problem of the origin of duke Odilo (and of his putative sister Imma), the hypothesis as such does not commit one to a particular answer. Jarnut (p.351) does think it probable that Odilo (and his unnamed sister) was son of duke Gotfrid of Alemannia. In this he agrees with Eckhardt. But B Behr [6] disagrees with them both. The last of the Agilolfing dukes of Bavaria, Tassilo III, was the son of duke Odilo by Hiltrud daughter of Charles Martel. This is not in dispute. The onomastic argument for the Jarnut/Werner genealogical hypothesis is interesting. Hucbert (d.735) has a variant of the name of Regintrud's probable father, Hugobert; and Guntrud (who married a Lombard king) has a variant of Regintrud's name (guntrud - gerentrud - regentrud). 'Piltrud' is a variant of 'plektrud' which was name of another of Regintrud's probable sisters (first wife of Pippin II). How is it that Odilo (d.about 748), if he was son of duke Gotfrid (d.709) of Alemannia (following Eckhardt and others), became duke of Bavaria? Eckhardt explains this by having a daughter of Theodo II (d.716) marry duke Gotfrid. This is not really plausible on chronological grounds. His onomastic argument is interesting but I think his onomastic points points may well invite an explanation of the relationship between Odilo and the previous dukes that did not rely on Odilo's mother being a daughter of Theodo II. On several reconstructions of the early Agilolfings, the succession of the duchy was shared by collateral branches of the family group (eg Eckhardt himself on p.105). An onomastic case could be made for the Alemannic family being a collateral branch of the (in the male/female line of the Agilolfings). Behr does not think there is any solid evidence that Odilo was son of Gotfrid (i.e. a member of the Alemannic ducal family). Zoellner (pp.103-106) canvasses the evidence and possible hypotheses regarding Odilo's origins. Now to Hildegard. What is known for certain is that she was the daughter of count Gerold by his wife Imma sister of Ruadpert and daughter of Nebi/Hnabi. In Thegan's Vita of Louis the Pious Nebi is made a son of Huoching son of Gotfrid. Behr accepts this as probable but not certain. There is some difficulty (noted by Eckhardt [7] p.62-64) with the name 'Huoching'. Strictly speaking, so goes his argument, 'Huoching' is not a personal name but a clan name like 'Agilolfing'. The personal name would be 'Hoc/Huoch'. Thegan or his source misread/misheard the original source and the line should have been reported thus: duke Gotfrid  begat Nebi/Hnabi, Nebi Huoching begat Imma. On this account 'Huoching' properly refers to the clan name of the Alemannic ducal family. Thus according to Eckhardt Gotfrid would be g-grandfather of Hildegard instead of her g-g-grandfather. ES [8] XII:24 gives the certain information on Hildegard and relies heavily on Borgolte [9]. The latter points out (p.185) that The Nebi in question had interests in the middle Rhine region not in Alemannia (Swabia) and Borgolte follows T Mayer in rejecting a connection with the Alemannic ducal family, or at least considers it not proven. There was a Nebi who may have been connected with the ducal family and whose interests lay in Alemannia. Thegan's genealogy of Hildegard most likely confused the two. The claim that Hildegard has a descent from the Merovingians through the Agilolfings seems very weak. The claim that Hildegard descended from duke Gotfrid is is weak. It is almost certain that Regintrud was not a daughter of a Merovingian king but the daughter of Hugobert count of the palace and his wife Irmina of Oehren. It is also likely that she was not the wife of Theodo II but of his son Theodebert. The best chance for an Agilolfing descent rests on Alda/Aldana being the daughter of Charles Martel by the Agilolfing, Swanahild. For reasons recent postings to this group that chance is slim (following Hlawitschka I am agnostic on this filiation for Alda/Aldana). One should also note that K F Werner ([10] pp.161-166) thinks that an Agilolfing connection for Hildegard comes through her father, Gerold, but his argument has to do with name groups and not with precise filiations. [1] K A Eckhardt *Merowingerblut II: Agilolfinger und Etichonen* (Witzenhausen, 1965) pp.105, 153 [2] E Zoellner 'Das Geschlecht der Agilolfinger' in *Mitteilungen Oberoestereichischen Landesarchivs* (Linz, 1978) vol.2 pp.83-110 [3] M Werner *Adelsfamilien im Umkreis der fruehen Karolinger: Die Verwandschaft Irminas von Oehren und Adelas von Pfalzel* (Sigmaringen, 1982) [4] E Hlawitswchka 'Die Vorfahren Karls des Grossen' in *Karl der Grosse, Lebenswerk und Nachleben I* (1965) ed. W Braunfels [5] J Jarnut 'Beitraege zu den fraenkisch-bayerisch-langobardischen Beziehungen im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (656-783)' in *Zeitschrift fuer bayerische Landesgeschichte* 39 (1976), pp.331-352. [6] B Behr *Das alemannische Herzogtum bis 750* (Frankfurt, 1975) pp.184ff] [7] K A Eckhardt *Merowingerblut I: Die Karolinger und ihre Frauen* (Witzenhausen, 1965) [8] ES : D Schwennicke (ed) *Europaeische Stammtafeln: Stammtafen zur Geschichte der Europaeishen Staaten - Neue Folge* Band XII (Marburg, 1992) [9] M Borgolte *Die Grafen Alemanniens in merowingischer und karolingischer Zeit: Eine Prosopographie* (Sigmaringen, 1986) [10] K F Werner 'Important noble families in the kingdom of Charlemagne - a prosopographical study of the relationship between king and nobility in the early middle ages' in T Reuter (ed) *The Medieval Nobility* (Amsterdam/New York/Oxford, 1978, 137-202. Translated from the German by T Reuter.

We see a number of these 7th or 8th Century Marvels on SGM.  Sometimes we see even earlier fanciful treatments. I'm not criticizing Richard Bothwick in any way.  He's asking honest questions. But, in the final analysis