Women in Tenth-Century Germany

Jestice, Phyllis G.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-77306-3_2

Phyllis G. Jestice⁴

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Abstract

In this chapter, Jestice places Ottonian queens in the context of women of the Ottonian reich. She demonstrates that, despite clerical and classical stereotypes of weak and dependent women, society in general valued women highly. Men trusted female family members and friends for advice and relied on their prayers. This chapter also demonstrates that women enjoyed property rights and were able to make decisions for themselves and their families. In short, Jestice demonstrates that the Ottonian queens were not exceptional, but rather existed as members of a society inclined to value them highly.

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Notes

1.
Thietmar, (IV.10) 142. I use here the excellent translation by David Warner in Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 158.
2.
Sabine Reiter, “Weltliche Lebenformen von Frauen im zehnten Jh. Das Zeugnis der erzählenden Quellen,” in Frauen in der Geschichte 7, ed. Werner Affeldt and Annette Kuhn (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1986), 215.
3.
Adémar de Chabannes, Chronique, ed. Jules Chavanon (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fils, 1897), (I.30–33) 33–37.
4.
Adémar, (I.37) 42.
5.
Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis, in Opera, ed. Joseph Becker, MGH SS rer. Germ. in us. schol. 41 (1915), (V.32) 150.
6.
Rosamond McKitterick, “Ottonian Intellectual Culture in the Tenth Century and the Role of Theophanu,” Early Medieval Europe 2 (1993): 63.
7.
Rosamond McKitterick, “Women in the Ottonian Church: An Iconographic Perspective,” in Women in the Church, ed. W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990), 79.
8.
Ibid., 88–91.
9.
Ibid., 86–87.
10.
Opus Caroli regis contra synodum (Libri Carolini), ed. Ann Freeman and Paul Meyvaert, MGH Conc. 2, supplement 1 (1998), 390. Translated and discussed in Janet L. Nelson, “Women at the Court of Charlemagne: A Case of Monstrous Regiment?” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John C. Parsons (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 48.
11.
Council of Trier, 927, MGH Concilia 6, 1 (1987), canon 6, p. 81.
12.
Aimo, Vita sancti Abbonis, PL 139: (12) 402.
13.
Council of Trier, canon 24, p. 87.
14.
Council of Trier, canon 27, p. 88.
15.
Thietmar, (VIII.1) 492.
16.
Rather of Verona, Praeloquiorum libri VI, ed. Peter D. Reid, CCCM 46, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984), (II.3) 47. “Vir itaque mente, mulier carne insurgentes et tu aduersus spiritum insanos uitiorum uoluptatumque tumultus forti mentis uigore stude deuince….”
17.
“uero per Apostolum tibi spetialiter ipse mandauit conditor Deus: sub uiri, inquiens, potestate eris, et ipse dominabitur tui.” Rather, Praeloquiorum, (II.11) 54–55.
18.
Rather, Praeloquiorum, (I.10) 14.
19.
Ibid., (II.11) 55.
20.
Rather, Die Briefe des Bischofs Rather von Verona, ed. Fritz Weigle, MGH Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit, 1 (1949), Letter 31 (June 968), 179–80.
21.
Sigebert of Gembloux, Chronica, MGH SS 6: (27) 352.
22.
Thietmar, (II.23) 66.
23.
Ibid., (VII.30) 434.
24.
Ibid., (I.9) 14.
25.
Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 569f. Where, it should be noted, Virgil speaks of women’s changeability in the context of Aeneas’ abandonment of Dido, rather than the other way around.
26.
Ekkehard IV, Casus sancti Galli, ed. Hans F. Haefele (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980), (120) 234.
27.
Anselm of Liège, Gesta episcoporum Tungrensium Traiectensium et Leodiensium, ed. R. Koepke, MGH SS 7: (59) 224.
28.
Thietmar, (IV.15) 148.
29.
Widukind, (I.18) 28.
30.
Adhémar, (III.45) 167.
31.
Ibid., (III.30), 150.
32.
Alpertus of Metz, De diversitate temporum et fragmentum de Deoderico primo episcopo Mettensi, ed. Hans van Rij and Anna Sapir Abulafia (Amsterdam: Verloren, 1980), (I.2), 10.
33.
Penelope Ann Adair, “Constance of Arles: A Study in Duty and Frustration,” in Capetian Women, ed. Kathleen Nolan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 9.
34.
Karl F. Morrison, “Widukind’s Mirror for a Princess—An Exercise in Self Knowledge,” in Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte, vol. 1, ed. Karl Borchardt and Enno Bünz (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1998), 50.
35.
Widukind, (III.7) 108; (I.31) 43.
36.
Ibid., (II.36) 95.
37.
Käthe Sonnleitner, “Sophie von Gandersheim (975–1039). Ein Opfer der ‘männlichen’ Geschichtsforschung?” in Geschichtsforschung in Graz, ed. Herwig Ebner, et al. (Graz: Institut für Geschichte an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, 1990), 375–76.
38.
Annalista Saxo, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SS 6, a. 966, p. 619.
39.
Gerd Althoff, “Ottonische Frauengemeinschaften im Spannungsfeld von Kloster und Welt,” in Essen und die sächsischen Frauenstifter im Frühmittelalter, ed. Jan Gerchow and Thomas Schilp (Essen: Klartext, 2003), 43.
40.
Thietmar, (VIII.3) 494.
41.
Ibid., (IV.63) 204.
42.
In his description of Oda, the fourth wife of Boleslav Chrobry; Thietmar, (VIII.1) 492.
43.
Thietmar, (II.39) 88.
44.
Adalbert, a. 950, p. 164.
45.
Thietmar, (II.39) 88.
46.
Liudprand, Antapodosis, (II.48) 58–59. Note that the French Flodoard also comments on the power of Marozia, naming Pope John as her son, but without the strident accusations of whoredom that Liudprand provides. Indeed, Flodoard seems rather to admire Marozia, commenting that she successfully held Rome against King Hugh. Flodoard of Rheims, Annales, ed. Philippe Lauer (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fils, 1905), a. 933, p. 54.
47.
Liudprand, Antapodosis, (I.39) 28–29.
48.
Ibid., (IV.12) 110.
49.
Philippe Buc, “Italian Hussies and German Matrons: Liutprand of Cremona on Dynastic Legitimacy,” FMSt 29 (1995): 207–25, cf. esp. 214–17.
50.
Liudprand, Antapodosis, (IV.13) 111.
51.
Ibid., (II.66) 67.
52.
Ibid., (IV.10) 108–109.
53.
Franz-Reiner Erkens, “Die Frau als Herrscherin in ottonisch-frühsalischer Zeit,” in Kaiserin Theophanu, ed. Anton von Euw (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1991), 2: 245.
54.
Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 800–1056 (London: Longman, 1991), 225.
55.
Thietmar, (VII.4) 402–404.
56.
Annales Quedlinburgenses, ed. Martina Giese, MGH SS rer. Germ. in us. schol. 72 (2004), 501–502; Thietmar, (IV.41) 178.
57.
Régine Le Jan, “L’épouse du comte du IX^e au XI^e siècle: transformation d’un modèle et idéologie du pouvoir,” in Femmes et pouvoirs des femmes à Byzance et en Occident (VI ^e –XI ^e siècles), ed. Stéphanie Lébecq, et al. (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Centre de recherche sur l’Histoire de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest, 1999), 65.
58.
Pierre Toubert, “La théorie du mariage chez les moralists carolingiens,” in Il matrimonio nella società altomedievale (Spoleto: Pr. La Sede del Centro, 1977), 245.
59.
Reiter, “Weltliche Lebensformen,” 217.
60.
Liudprand, Antapodosis, (IV.14) 111; see the analysis in Reiter, “Weltliche Lebensformen,” 218. Flodoard also comments that “Hugh, the son of Bertha” copulated with other women, although his wife was living, suggesting his strong disapproval of the situation. Flodoard, Annales, a. 926, p. 35.
61.
Jean Verdon, “Les femmes et la politique en France au X^e siècle,” in Economies et sociétés au Moyen Âge (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1973), 117.
62.
Le Jan, “L’épouse du comte,” 68–71.
63.
DOII 252 (July 12, 981).
64.
See for example DOI 114, DOII 119, DOII 283, DOIII 26, DOIII 32, and DOIII 68, all of which record the gift of a named couple to a religious house or make a gift to a married couple.
65.
DOII 182 (January 15, 979) and DOII 190 (May 20, 979).
66.
Thietmar, (I.3) 6; Vita Mathildis antiquior, (1) 111. Timothy Reuter, “Introduction: Reading the Tenth Century,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3, ed. Reuter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 18 discusses the tenth century’s turn toward patrilineality.
67.
Thietmar, (V.22) 247.
68.
Ibid., (VI.35) 316.
69.
Dennis M. Kratz, “The Gesta Ottonis in its Context,” in Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, rara avis in Saxonia?, ed. Katherina M. Wilson (Ann Arbor: MARC, 1987), 204–205.
70.
See especially Hrotsvit, Abraham, in Opera, ed. Paul von Winterfeld, MGH SS rer. Germ. in us. schol. 34 (1902), (II.4), 159.
71.
Thietmar, (V.38) 264.
72.
Ibid., (IV.23) 158.
73.
Vita Theoderici abbatis Andaginensis, ed. W. Wattenbach, MGH SS 12: (5) 40.
74.
Giovanni Diacono, Istoria Veneticorum, ed. and trans. Luigi Berto (Milan: Zanichelli Editore, 1999), a. 977, p. 140.
75.
Vita Mathildis posterior, (2) 149.
76.
Ibid., (preface) 145.
77.
Thietmar, (VI.85) 376.
78.
Ibid., (VII.3) 400.
79.
Ibid., (VIII.8) 502.
80.
Ibid., (IV.16) 150.
81.
Ibid., (IV.33) 171.
82.
Ibid., (VII.55) 466–68.
83.
Despite Gerberga’s heroism, the story has an unhappy ending. Gero appointed a man to watch and make sure he wasn’t buried by mistake when he was really still alive. But the man thought the bishop was indeed dead and he was buried, a mistake compounded when the cathedral clergy failed to believe the man who said he had heard Gero calling from the tomb. But that was certainly not Gerberga’s fault, who had done her duty by her friend at the cost of her own life. Thietmar, (III.3) 100.
84.
Thietmar, (VII.32) 436–38.
85.
Ibid., (I.12) 16–18.
86.
Ekkehard IV, Casus sancti Galli, (3) 107; Gerhard of Augsburg, Vita Sancti Uodalrici, ed. and trans. Walter Berschin and Angelika Häse (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1993), (I.1) 90–92.
87.
Chronicon Hujesburgense, ed. Ottokar Menzel, Studien und Mitteilungen OSB 52 (1934): 139.
88.
Liudprand, Antapodosis, (II.66) 67.
89.
Rodulfus Glaber, Historiarum libri quinque, ed. John France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), (I.6) 14.
90.
Adalbert, a. 947 [really was 946] p. 163.
91.
Thietmar, (V.14) 236.
92.
Ibid., (I.13) 20; (VI.84) 374.
93.
Ibid., (II.4) 42.
94.
Hermannus Augiensis, Chronicon, MGH SS 5, a. 947, p. 114.
95.
Thietmar, (VII.30) 434.
96.
Ibid., (II.39) 88.
97.
Ibid., (VIII.4) 498.
98.
Janet L. Nelson, “Queens as Jezebels: Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History,” in Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London: Hambledon Press, 1986), 47.
99.
Reiter, “Weltliche Lebensformen,” 215.
100.
Stephen L. Wailes, Spirituality and Politics in the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 2006), 209.

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College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA
Phyllis G. Jestice

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Jestice, P.G. (2018). Women in Tenth-Century Germany. In: Imperial Ladies of the Ottonian Dynasty. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77306-3_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77306-3_2
Published: 13 April 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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