Leyser Maternal Kin

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The Past and Present Society

Maternal Kin in Early Medieval Germany. A ReplyAuthor(s): K. LeyserSource: Past & Present, No. 49 (Nov., 1970), pp. 126-134Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

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DEBATEMATERNAL KIN IN EARLY MEDIEVALGERMANY

A REPLYEDMUND BURKEONCE WROTE: A VERY GREATPART OF THE MISCHIEFSthat vex the world arisesfrom words". ProfessorBulloughmighthave borne his in mind when he chose to make wo passages f myarticleon the German ristocracyromthe ninthto the early welfthcentury the quarry of his observationson carly medieval socialgroupings.* In doing so he broke,as it were, iIlto the middleof adiscussion,an attempt o weigh and qualify he strikinglyoriginalanalysisof earlymedievalaristocraticamilystructures, he work ofKarl Schmid. The noble kins of the Carolingian nd post-Caro-lingian worldhad a fluidityand presentto the historianan oddlyhorizontal ather han verticalaspect, very different rom the laterdynastiesof counts, castellansand, by the twelfth cexltury, venknights,whoseemergencen NorthernFrance, or example,GeorgesDuby has so well set out.1 In the aristocraticlansof the eighthandninth centuries iliationand agnatic ineagesseeminglydid not yetform the backbeneof family cohesion. Kinsmen gatheredroundand sought to stand as near as possible to their most successfulrelatives,bishopsand counts, on whichever ide, so that the centreof gravityandeven the sense of identityof these large amiliescouldshift, sometimeswithinvery few generations. Some of this fluiditycan be explained y the importance f maternal elatives nd descent.They rankedas high as and even higherthan paternalkin, if theywere thoughtto be nobler and had better things to offer. Thebiographersf greatmen occasionally ppearo reflect heseattitudeswhen they recordedonly the maternal ncestryof their hero. Togive an unused example: the biographerof Bishop Bernwardof

* D. A. Bullough, "Early Medieval Social Groupings: lthe Terminology ofKinship", Past arzdPresetzt) o. 45 (Nov., I969), pp. 3-I8. For my article seePast and Present,no. 4I (Dec., I968), pp. 25-53.1 C;. Duby, "Structures amilialesaristocratiques n France du XIe siecle enrapport avec les structures de l'etat", in L'Europeaux IXe-XIe siAcles,24uxorigines des Stats nationaux, ed. T. Manteuffel et A. Gieysztor (Institut

d'Histoire de l'AcademiePolonaise des Sciences, Taraw I968), pp. 57 ff. and"Structures de parente et noblesse, France du Nord Xe-XIIe siecles"DIiscellaneaAXlediaevalian memoriaant. F. Niermeyer Groningen, I967), pp.I49 ff


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MATERNALKIN IN EARLY MEDIEVALGERMANY l27Hildesheimbegan his work thus: "The gifted young Berawardsprang rom the noble bloodof our people,the daughterof CountPalatineAdalbero nd he wasplaced n the careof Osdag,ourbishop,by hismaternal nclethe deaconFolkmar,aterbishopof Utrecht".Nothing was said about Bernward's ather. The two exaltedforbearswith whcMmhe authorwanted his readers to associateBernward ereOttoI's countpalatine n Saxony ndBishopFolkmarand they could be reachedonlythroughhis mother. Karl Schmid,whenhe explainedhe frequentpre-eminence f maternal in, drewattentioIlo what Einhard ndTheganhad to say about he ancestryof Hildegard,he short-livedbut mostimportantof Charlemagne'swives andthe Inother f Louisthe Pious.3 Onlyhermother'sbloodrelations, he Suabianducal family were mentionedand extolled.Now ProfessorBulloughobjectsto the use of the term cognatio todenote,in this case Hildegard'smaternalin.4 It was the way inwhich Karl Schmidhad used it and it seemed to me that it wasdfficult to be always ure whenthe wordwas employedn the widersenseof just C'kinship"r "a rin"and when t wasused in contrastoagnatio, a patrilineal escentgroup.>The question s importantor the light t mayormaynot throwonquite another problem, which seems to have escaped ProfessorBullough. In oneof his earliestdiplomata, nly fiveweeksafter iissolemnenthronizationt Aachen,Otto I settledtheendowment ndsecular overnancef his family'snewly oundednunnery t Quedlin-burg I 3 September, 36). He laid downthat f someoneof hisowngeneralio line) cameto be king afterhim then the abbeyand itsinmateswere to be underhis lordshipand protection defensio), utif the peoplewereto elect someoneelse as theirkingthen at leasttheadvocacyover the house was to remainwith the most powerfulmemberof the Ottonian ognatio.6 This pronouncement n the

2 Thang.tnar, Vita Bernwardi Episcopi, ch. I (Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica [hereafterMGH] Scriptorum tomus [hereafterSS] iv, p. 758).Bernwardwas entrusted to the care of Bishop Otwin (954-8i) rather thanBishop Osdag, his successor. This part of the vita was retouched or puttogether in the twelfth century but many of its ingredients, including thegerlealogy,rest on good and earlyauthority. See K. Algermissen(ed.) Bern-ward and Godehard on Hildesheim Hildesheim, I960), pp. I7 f., 20, 21 andn. 6.s K. Schinid, "Zur Problematikvon Familie, Sippe und Geschlecht, Hausund Dynastie beim mittelalterlichenAdel", Zeitschrift fir die GeschichtedesOberrheins,v (I957), pp. II, 23 f.4 Bullough,art. cit., pp. 5 ff.o K. Schrnid,art. cit., pp. 22 ff.6 MGH., Die Urkunden er deutscheKonigeund Kaiser, i (Hanover, I879-84)[hereafterDD O I.] no. I, p. 90 and K. Schmid,


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I28PQST AND PRESENT NUMBER 49

succession made in Otto I's name so shortly after his elevation haslways been called in evidence for the elective character of theermankingship at its very beginning and if cogrzatiowas used heres a blanketsubstituteforgeneralio hen Otto I canindeed be detectedo have felt uncertain about his family's chances to become or toontinue as the stirpsregia, the royal stock. On the other hand ifognatiowas employed here in contrastto getlercztiond rneantbloodelationsthroughfemales, mothersand daughters,then it is ternptirlgo think that Otto I perhaps saw the future of his house diSere1ltly.is diploma for Quedlinburgdespite its "ifs" hinted that only whenhe Ottoniangeneratio,the male line, failed would the people electomeone else, leaving the advocacy as of right to descendants ofaughters r of Queen Mathilda's,Henry I's wife's sisters.We must returnto Hildegard. ProfessorBulloughseems to ule toavebeen rushing his fences when he asserts sweepingly that myiscussionof her maternalkin, my argumento1lthis and much elseesideswhich he does not specify, rested on mistakentermillology.7nhis paperin Pasl andPresenthe did not in fact broachthe argumenttall but in a later review article he claims more boldly that myomments ere "to some extent vitiatedby a misunderstandingof theerms ognatio and agnatio and of the concepts of paternal andaternalin".8 This is of course nonsense for even if I had usedhewrong word when speaking of HildegardXsmaternal descent itastill her maternal descent I talked about. My suggestion washatinhardand Thegan did not necessarilywish to laud her Suabianaternalncestry at the expense of her Frankish father Gerold.9hatrompted them to do this was perhapsthe wish to banish thearassingemory of the savage treatmentmeted out to Hildegard'saternalin by Carlmann, Charleinagne'suncle, 2t Cannstatt in46.ProfessorBullough calls this "interesti1lg"and then falls backnis own explanationfor Einhard'sand Thegan's exclusive interestllhequeen's descent from the Suabianpri1lces hrough her mother.oim Hildegard's father was a homonosus whose marriageto thelemannicoblewoman raised him.l? Be that as it may it cannot7Bullough,art. cit., p. 5.8 . A. Bullough,4'EuropaePater:Charlemagne nd his achievement n theightf recentscholarship",Eng.Hist.Rev.,lxxxv (I970), p. 79, n. 2.Leyser, art. cit., p. 35. Einhard called Hildegard "de gente Suaborumraecipuaeobilitatisfeminam",a woman of distinguishedSuabiannobility:itaaroliMagni, ch. I8 (MGH. Scriptoresrerum germanicarumn usumcholarumhereafterSRG], HanoverandLeipzig, I9I I), p. 22. ForTheganv.isita ludowicimperatoris,h. 2 (MGH. SS. ii, pp. 590f.) arldbelow,p. I32.0ullough,loc. cit. and TheAge of CharlemagneLondon, I965), p. 45. Itayell be askedwhatbearing he terminologyof kinshiphason this reasoning.


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MATERNALKIN IN EARLY MEDIEVALGERMANY I29be proved, if only because it was after all Hildegard's own, muchgreater match which really made the Geroldings. The older Geroldhowever had rights of his own in Suabiaunconnected with his wife's.His family belonged to a group of nobles from one of the heartlandsof the Carolingian ruling strata, the Mainz, Worms arld Lorschregion.ll There is at least one other, small piece of evidence for theidea that Einhard and Thegan wanted to propitiate the memory ofthe killings. It comes from an earlier layer of Carolingianfamllyhistory, the AnnalesMettensesriores f c. 805. Here the treacherousseizure of the Suabian lords is likened to the miraculous and theirexecution glossed over and concealed.l2

But what of cognationd "cognatic"for maternal kin? If I havesinned I have at least done so in good company for IlOt only KarlSchmid and other German scholars but also Guy Fourquin in hisrecent synthesis Seigneuriet Feodalite u MoyenAgehave interpre-ted and used the terms in this way.l3 Professor Bullough reasonsasfollows. After a badly mistaken account of the classical Romanagnaliohe cites three later Roman legal texts of the second and thirdcenturies, Gaius, Ulpian and Modestinus, and two passages fromIsidore of Seville where the words agnatus, cognatus and a;/7inis areexplained.l4 Then he seeks to show, with a libera1 scattering of"semantic shifts", how their meanings variedand changed duringtheearly Middle Ages. For this scholarswill be in his debt, yet beforehe has proceeded very far on his journey and we may ask whetherthis part of it was really necessary he states categorically thatcognatio ould never mean "maternal kin" in contrast to agnatio,descendants throughthe male line.15 Now of the original definitions,Professor Bullough's startillg point, the orle that really mattered11M. Mitterauer, Karolingische Markgrafen im Siidosten (Archiv fur

osterreichische Geschichte, cxxiii, Vienna, I963), p. I0 and K. F. Werner"Bedeutende Adelsfamilien im Reich Karls des Grossen", Karl der GrosseLebenswerk nd tIachleben, , ed. H. Beumann(Dusseldorf, I965), p. III whowould even relate the Gerolds to the Bavarianducal farnily, he Agilolfings,whoare now thought to havebeen of Frankishoriginby some scholars ibid.,n. I00).12 Annales Mettensespriores, a. 746, ed. B. de Simson (SRG. Hanover andLeipzig, I905), p. 37. On the problems of this work and its intent v.Wattenbach-Levison,DeutschlandsGeschichtsquellenm Mittelalter VorzeitundKarolinger NVeimar,953), ii, p. 260 ff. snd O. G. Oexle, "lDieKarolingerunddie Stadt des heiligen Arnulf", FruhmittelalterlicheStudien, i, ed. K. Hauck(Berlin, rg67), pp. 276 ff.13 Schmid, above, n. 3 and "Die Thronfolge. . .", p. I32, and H. PlanitzDeutsche Rechtsgeschichte,nd edn. K. A. Eckhardt (Graz-Colognc, I96I)

p. 54, independent of Schmid and G. Fourquin, Seigneurieet FeodalitdaaMoyen Age (Paris, I970), pp. 54 f.4 Bullough, "EarlyMedieval Social Groupings",p. 7.5Ibid.,p.g.


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I30 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 49comes frore Isidoreof Seville'sEtymologiae,X, Vi., which howeverowed much to Gaius. Isidore'sencyclopaedia as the generalworkof reference or the educatedaIld,what is perhapsas important, orthe half-educatedlwoughout he Carolingian nd post-CarolingianWest. Its normativenfluenceover writers n searchof clarityandauthority n a world usuallythreatenedby disorderand too muchautonomy, annotbe gainsaid. This is what, accordingo ProfessorBullough, Isidore in his Etymologiae ad to say about agnati andcognati:

agnati are so called because they are added to the farnily when sons [al.children]are otherwise (sic) lacking . . cog7Xatire so called because they arelinked by the tie of blood relationship.These quotationsare incomplete and Professor Buliough haswithheld romhis readers n important artof Isidore's andGaius's)definitions f agnati and cognati. "They",the agzaati, Isidoresaid,are reckoned o be the first in a family because they arise through persons ofthe male sex, lilre a brother born of the same fadler, or a brother's son orgralldson; t is the same with a paternaluncle.

Of cognati sidorewrote:They are placed behind the agnati because they arise [the relationshipcomesabout] through persons of the female sex; they are not agnates but only bynatural aw blood relations.l7Does the femaleses excludemothers? Nor is this all. Sometimebetween842 and 846 tIrabanusAlaurus,abbot of Fulda(822-842)and archbishop f Mainz (847-856),compiledan encyclopaediantwenty-twobooks. As a writerand teacherhe did much to propa-gate the knowledge tored n the Etymologiaen new soil for he senta copy of his worknot only to Louisthe German ut alsoto a formerfellow-studellt,now blshop of Halberstadt mongstthe neophyteEast Saxons. Hrabanuswanted his presentsto be of use, as he'-s bid.17 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarumive Originum ibriXX, ed. W. M. Lind-say (Oxford,I9II), IX, Vi. I, 2: "Qui [the agalati]deo prius in gente agnoscunturquia veniunt per virilis sexus personas, veluti frater eodem patre natus, velfratris ilius neposve ex eo; item patruus". Of cognati:"Qui inde post agnatoshabentur, quia per feminini sexus personas veniunt, nec sunt agnati, sed aSiasnaturali ure cognati". For Isidore's influence on medieval descriptionsof agev. A. Hofmeister, "Puern uvenis,Senex. Zum Verstandnisder mittelalterlichenAltersbezeichnungen",Papsttumund Kaisertum,ed. A. Brackmann MunichI926), pp. 287 ff. For the relevant passages in Gaius's Institutessee F. deZulueta, TheInstitutes f GaEus, .I56 (Oxford,I946), i, p. 50 esp.: "at hi qui per

feminini sexus personas cognatione coniunguntur, non sunt agnati, sed aliasnaturali iure cognati": "Those connected through persons of the female sexare not agnates, but cognates related only by natural law" (Op. Cit., p. 5I)followed by examples.


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himself wrote in the letters which accompaniedthem. A chapteronthe appellationsof kinship duly found its placein his dererum aturisand here Isidore's definitionswere simply repeated.l8 The questionis how they applied or what they meant to peoples with partlybilateral modes of descent such as the German stems east of theRhine were.Now it is true of course that under Isidore's explzmationscognalioalso embraced kinship through the female sex on the father's side,like the descendantsof a paternalaunt or of a sister and if ProfessorBullough had conEned himself to pointing this out his fault-findingwould have been less captious than it is.l9 Yet it is also clear thatin a society much given to the cult of noble wives' ancestry,and inwhich fortunes could be owed to mothers as Inuc:has to fathers,cognatio was heavily weighted on the maternal side. There itincluded not only descendants but also forbearsand therefore moresenior blood relations, especially such important personages as amother'sbrothersand indeed her whole kin, whereason the paternalside the most importantroles and key positions necessarilybelongedto membersof the agnalio. AlreadyMarc Bloch has drawnattentionto the close bonds between nephews and maternaluncles in ckansonsdegesteand in medieval Germanepics.20 BernwardLf Hildesheim'scareerwas shapedby his mother'sbrotherBishop Folkmarandso wasAnno of Cologne's whose maternal uncle, a canlDnof Bamberg,virtually abducted him to a clerical life.2l Thietmar of MerseburgcanRotregalehis readersenough with the doings of his mother's kin,the counts of Stade. A good example comes also iErom igebert ofGembloux's Life of BishopDietrichof Mets. Sigebert praised hissubject's nobility no less than his devoutness both impartedto himby his exalted cognati nd afYines, the foremost me:z of Lotharingiaand Germany east of the Rhine. Sigebert was not slow in tellinghis readers who these cognatiand their affinity vvere. Dietrich'smother Amalrada was the sister of Queen Mathilda, the wife ofHenry I. One of the primateswas Archbishop Brun of Cologne,

18 HrabanusMaurus, De Universo,vii, 4 (Migne, PatrotogiaeLatinae, cxi.col. I89). For the lettersto Louis the Germanand Bishop Hemmoof Halber-stadtv. EpistolaeKaroliniAevi, iii (MGH. Berlin, I899), pp. 470 f., no. 36 sndpp. 472 f., no. 37. On Hrabanussee M. Manitius,Geschichte erLateinischenLiteraturdesMittelalters Munich, I9II), i, pp. 288 ff. and P. Lehmann, "ZuHrabansgeistiger Bedeutung", St. Bonifatius,Gedenkgabeum zwolfhundert-jahrigenTodestag Fulda, I954), pp. 473 ff.

19 Converselyof course for these descendantstheir mother'skin was againcognatio.20 M. Bloch, FeudalSociety(London, I96I), p. I37 andn. I.21 Vita Annonisarchiepiscopi oloniensis,h. I (MGH. SS. xi, p. 467 f.).


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I32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 49Mathilda's nd Henry'sson so that Sigebertcould rightlyspeakofDietrich's"imperial onsanguinity". The other, not mentionedbyname, was ArchbishopRobertcf Trier, the queen'sbrother. Heruncles, includingReginbern,a renownedvictor against he Danes,were not forgottenthough Sigebertmistook them for brothers.22In Thegan's amousand not quite accurate enealogy f Hildegard:Duke GottEried egat Huoching, Huoching begat Nebi, Nebi begat Imma,it is the last link n the chain,her motherImma, hat mustbe heededhere.23 The Suabian princes, including those who became thevictims of Carlmann'swrath, were her maternalkin, they werecognatio. Isidore'sand Hraban's"quiaper feminirli exus personasveniunt", hat is the cognaticrelatiorlshiprises hroughpersonsofthe femalesex, cannotbe ignored.There is no need to inspectevery soldierat ProfessorBullough'sparadeof learning. He goes astraywhen he defines the classicalRoman gnatio exclusilrely y the legal powersof the palerfamilias,the head of the family, as if all agnationceased between brotherswhen their paterfamilia3 died.24 On p. I6 he discusses a use ofcognalio in a ninth-centurySt. Gallen charterwhere it evidentlystood foragnatio, peopleof agnaticdescent, houghwhen I say so inthe case of Hildegundis, bbessof Geseke,I am, according o him,"confusing he issue". Hildegundismoreoverwas not, as ProfessorBulloughcalls her, a "Rhinelandabbess".25 Geseke,her house,lay in Westfaliawhich in the tenth centurywas very much part ofSaxorsy. Her ancestressWicburgahad made her gifts "secundumlegem Saxonlcam", ccording o Saxon aw, and the Lex Saxonum fSo2/3 had much to say about Westfalian ustom in the matterofdowerand property cquiredby a man and his wife togetherduringtheir marriage, nd does not ProfessorBulloughhimselfremindus26that the circleof kinsmenvariednot only from peopleto peoplebutlocally.27 His article ndson a noteof tartadmonition: in thosefew

22 Sigebert of Gembloux, Vita Deoderici ., ch. I (MGH. SS. iv, p. 464).Dietrich died in 984 and his L%ewas written c. eighty years later. Sigeberttook the passage about Reginbert from Widukind of Corvey's Res GestaeSanconicae,. 3I (ed. H. E. Lohrnannand P. Hirsch, SRG., Hanover, I935,p. 44). Dietrich attached himself to Archbishop Brun, his cousin on themother's side, who brought about his advancement.23 Thegan, op. cit., ch. 2: "Gotefridusdux genuit Huochingum, Huochingusgenuit Nebi; Nebe genuit Immam- Imma vero genuit Hiltigardam. . .".24 Art. cit., p. 6 and see W. W. Buckland, A Textbook f RomanLaw, 3rdedn. (Cambridge, 963), p. I05.25 Bullough, art. cit., p. 5. 26 Ibid., p. I5@27 DD O I no. I58 (ed. cit., p. 239) of 26 October, 952 and Lex Saxonum,chaps., xlvii, xlviii, v. Leges SaDconumt Lex Thuringorum,d. C. v. Schwerin(MGH. Fontes Iuris Germsnici antiqlii . . . separatim editi, Hanover andLeipzig, I 9 I 8), pp. 29 f.


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MATERNALKIN IN EARLY MEDIEVALGERMANY I33aspectsof medievalhistorywhereprecision s possiblewe shouldbeprecise".28 How precise are ProfessorBullough's emarltic hifts?How precise indeed can they be? When kinship itself was sofluidand often expressed n a welterof blendingor ambiguousermsthere s a contradictionven here.As against this vaguenessand its vernacularbackground,whatIsidorehad to say aboutagnatio nd cognatio nd otherrelationshipswas definite and clear. There remains he questionwhetherandhow the learningand teachingof the churchhelped to move earlymedievalaristocratic ocietytowardsa more patrilineal omplexionaTld ttitude. It is not one that can be answeredhere but it wouldbe rash to assume hat it was only the interestof hereditary ffice-holders,counts, castellans nd advocateswest and east of the Rhinewhich led to a moremarked tresson lineage. The Isidorian ablesof kinship nformed ishopsand nfluential bbots,anxious o preventuncanonicalmarriages, ut these againbecameharder o avoidwhenin the courseof the tenth and the firsthalf of the eleventhcenturyarelatively small number of royal and princely families, alreadyconnectedby marriageies iIl the past, emergedand ruled n most ofwestern and central Europe. When the Salian king, Henry III,wanted o marryAgnes of Poitou n I043) Abbot Siegfriedof Gorzewrote a letter to his like-minded olleague,Poppo of Stavelot,ex-pounding he sinfulnessand dangersof this match. It was accom-paniedby a family ree and contained detailedaccountof the brideand bridegroom's escentand consanguinity. Since meetingPoppoearlier n the year he abbotof Gorzehad made urther nquiries ntothis cognatio nd, it may be said in passing, he contexthere pointsto a set of relationshipswhollyon the distaff ide.29It remains rue however hat the development f a morerestricted,"dynastic" ind of family n the Reichwas not as whole-hearted sin the Test and it is even possiblethat for all its size, wealthandorganized trength he later Ottonian nd Salianchurchdid little toadvance he process. Its institutionswith their expanding esourcesand superiormanagement rovidedshelterand supportmainlyforthe kindreds f the nobility n all theirIocaldiversity nd nuancesofstandingand power. The many new proprietary anctuarieswereas a rulemeant o serve he lay andreligiousmembers f the founders'kin. The cathedralswith their large clerical communities, herising numberof collegiate hurchesnear and about them and the

28Bullough, art. cit., p. I8.29 For the text of the letter v. W. v. Giesebrecht, Geschichte er deutschenKawserweitnth edn. (Leipzig, I885), ii, pp. 7I4 ff.


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I34 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 49reviving older mollasteries could and did accommodatewhole familiesof nobles as prelates,fratres (brethren)or vassals. At Aschaffenburg,(diocese of Mainz) founded sometime before 974, it was laid downafter an ugly feud that no more than three members of a cognatio,(here "a kindred") within the sixth degree of proximity, should beadmitted and that sons should not become canons together with theirfathers.30 A very large kin, promoted in or through the church,benefited from the career of Archbishop Anno of Cologne, a reformerand nepotist on a truly regal scale.31 Anno, like Wolfgang of Regens-burg came from comparatively modest Suabian steck. Somearistocraticfamilies can be recognized by their clerical and monasticdignitaries far more easily than by any of their members in layestate. The two brothers, Bishops Franco and Burchard of 57orms,Archbishop Heribert of Cologne and his brother Bishop Henry ofWurzburg, the Immedings at Hamburg and Paderborn and Gero,later Archbishop of Magdeburg IOI2-23) who followed his maternaluncle into the imperial chapel, may serve as examples.32 The churchin Germany could help to palliate the effects of partible inheritancecustoms, it could not end them.Magdalenollege,xford K.Leyser

30 For Archbishop Willigis's settlement of the feud and ordinance forAschaffenburgv. Mainzer Urkundenbuch,. ed. M. Stimming (DarmstadtI932), no. 2I95 pp. I34 ff. and K. H. Rexroth,"Der StiftsscholasterHerwardvonAschaffenburg und das Schulrecht von 976", IOOO 3rahreStift und StadtAschaffenburgAschaf5fenburgerfahrbuch, (Aschaffenburg,957), pp. 205 ff.31 For a compendious survey of Anno's relations and their careers v.F. W. Oediger, Die Regestender Erzbischofe on Koln im Mittelalter(Publika-tionen der Gesellschaft fur rheinische Geschichtskundexxi, Bonn, I954-6I),i, no. 839.

32 J. Fleckenstein,Die Hofkapelleder deutschenKonige(Schriften der MGH.I61ii, Stuttgart, 966), ii, pp. 87 ff., II3 f., I8I. The Immedings cannot easilybe separatedfrom the so-called stirps Widfakindi,he posterity of the eighth-century Saxon duke, Widukind. For a list of its clerical dignitaries v.K. Schmid, "Die NachfahrenWidukinds",DeutschesArchiv ur ErforschungesAlittelalters, xx (I964), p. 36 f. The eleventh-century Immedings are notincluded but see p. 38, n. I30 where perhaps Bishop Immad of Paderborn(I05I-76) could be added. The most prominent ay figure of this family groupin the tenth century was a woman, Queen Mathilda. For other importantclerks n ArchbishopHeribert'skin v. Oediger,op. cit., no. 562.

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