Piety as Power

Jestice, Phyllis G.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-77306-3_6

Phyllis G. Jestice⁴

Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

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Abstract

This chapter opens with the motif, new in the tenth century, of the Virgin Mary as queen of heaven, demonstrating how images of Mary and the Ottonian queens were conflated. Jestice argues that queens carefully cultivated a reputation for piety, but their virtue was distinctly royal, marked by benefactions that showcased the wealth and prestige of the dynasty. Several imperial ladies won a reputation for sanctity, and Adelheid was formally canonized. This queenly piety became an important political tool, which members of the dynasty were able to use to enhance their position and influence members of their society.

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Notes

1.
On the composition of the Marian hymns, see Henry Mayr-Harting, “Artists and Patrons,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3, ed. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 213.
2.
Rosamond McKitterick, “Women in the Ottonian Church: An Iconographic Perspective,” in Women in the Church, ed. W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 88–90.
3.
Patrick Corbet, “Les impératrices ottoniennes et le modèle marial: Autour de l’ivoire du château Sforza de Milan,” in Marie: Le culte de la vierge dans la société médiévale, ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat, et al. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996), 131.
4.
See Jonathan Shepard, “Marriages Towards the Millennium,” in Byzantium in the Year 1000, ed. Paul Magdalino, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 20.
5.
See discussion in Laura Wangerin, “Empress Theophanu, Sanctity, and Memory in Early Medieval Saxony,” Central European History 47 (2014): 727. See also Ordo III in Ordines Coronationis Imperialis, ed. Reinhard Elze, MGH Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usum scholarum 9 (1960), 7–8.
6.
Thilo Vogelsang, Die Frau als Herrscherin im hohen Mittelalter: Studien zur “consors regni” Formel (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1954), 39.
7.
Pauline Stafford, Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983), 133.
8.
Dominique Iogna-Prat, “Politische Aspekte der Marienverehrung in Cluny um das Jahr 1000,” in Maria in der Welt, ed. Claudia Opitz, et al. (Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 1993), 245–48, referring to PL 142: 1029.
9.
Bruno of Querfurt, S. Adalberti Pragensis Episcopi et Martyris Vita Altera, ed. Jadwiga Karwasinska, Monumenta Poloniae Historia, Series Nova, vol. 4, 2 (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydownictwo Naukowe, 1969), (II) 4.
10.
Annales Quedlinburgenses, a. 985, p. 476; Corbet, “Impératrices ottoniennes,” 125.
11.
See Jan Gerchow, “Sächsische Frauenstifte im Frühmittelalter: Einführung in das Thema und Rückblick auf die Tagung,” in Essen und die sächsischen Frauenstifte im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Gerchow and Thomas Schilp (Essen: Klartext, 2003), 14–15. The complete text of the Institutio sanctimonialium Aquisgranensis can be found in MGH Concilia 2.1 (1906), 421–56.
12.
Katrinette Bodarwé, “Roman Martyrs and their Veneration in Ottonian Saxony: The Case of the Sanctimoniales of Essen,” Early Medieval Europe 9.3 (2000): 347; see also Karl J. Leyser, Medieval Germany and its Neighbors, 900–1250 (London: Hambledon Press, 1982), 63–64.
13.
Elisabeth Van Houts, “Women and the Writing of History in the Early Middle Ages: The Case of Abbess Matilda of Essen and Aethelward,” Early Medieval Europe 1 (1992): 54.
14.
See for example Gerd Althoff, “Ottonische Frauengemeinschaften im Spannungsfeld von Kloster und Welt,” in Essen und die sächsischen Frauenstifte im Frühmittelalter, ed. Gerchow and Schilp, 30–31.
15.
See Gerd Althoff, “Zum Verhältnis von Norm und Realität in sächsischen Frauenklöstern der Ottonenzeit,” FMSt 40 (2006): 128.
16.
Gerchow, “Sächsische Frauenstifte,” 12.
17.
Althoff, “Ottonische Frauengemeinschaften,” 29.
18.
Ibid., 37.
19.
Vita Mathildis posterior, (16) 178.
20.
Thietmar, (VI.84) 374.
21.
Ibid., (VI.75) 364.
22.
Adémar de Chabannes, Chronique, ed. Jules Chavanon (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fils, 1897), (I.11) 13–14.
23.
Hermannus Augiensis, Chronicon, MGH SS 5, a. 995, p. 117.
24.
Thietmar, (IV.55) 194.
25.
Ibid., (IV.57) 196.
26.
Ibid., (IV.58) 198.
27.
Ibid., (II.3) 40.
28.
Ibid., (II.4) 42.
29.
Vita Mathildis antiquior, (3) 118.
30.
Ibid., (3) 117–18.
31.
As Bernd Schütte, Untersuchungen zu den Lebensbeschreibungen der Königin Mathilde (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1994), 2 points out, the older vita of Mechtild presents an ideal of royal piety embodied in the queen’s good deeds and holiness.
32.
Vita Mathildis posterior, (5) 154.
33.
Thietmar, (I.24) 30–32. According to the Council of Trier of 927, no sexual intercourse was permitted during Lent, Advent, feasts of the more important saints, when the wife was known to be pregnant, and for thirty days after birth. See Canons of the Council of Trier, 927, MGH Conc. 6, 1 (1987), canon 16, pp. 84–85.
34.
Thietmar, (I.25) 32.
35.
Katrinette Bodarwé, “Bibliotheken in sächsischen Frauenstiften,” in Essen und die sächsischen Frauenstifte im Frühmittelalter, ed. Gerchow and Schilp, 88.
36.
Ibid., 93–105.
37.
Michel Parisse, “Les chanoinesses dans l’Empire germanique (IX^e–XI^e siècles),” Francia 6 (1978): 123.
38.
Vita Mathildis antiquior, (1) 112, (2) 115.
39.
Widukind, (II.36) 96.
40.
Ekkehard IV, Casus s. Galli, ed. Hans F. Haefele (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980), (144–45) 278–80.
41.
Rosamund McKitterick, “Ottonian Intellectual Culture in the Tenth Century and the Role of Theophanu,” Early Medieval Europe 2 (1993): 63.
42.
Vita maior Bardonis archiepiscopi Moguntini, ed. W. Wattenbach, MGH SS 11: (1) 323; Thietmar, (IV.16) 150.
43.
See the discussion in Patrick Corbet, Les saints ottoniens (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1986), 96–102.
44.
Thietmar, (VII.55) 466–68.
45.
Chronicon Hujesburgense, ed. Ottokar Menzel, Studien und Mitteilungen OSB 52 (1934): 130–45.
46.
Timothy Reuter, “Introduction: Reading the Tenth Century,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, ed. Reuter, 8.
47.
Ekkehard IV, Casus s. Galli, (82–84) 170–74. This seems to be the same tale as Thietmar, (I.21) 26, although Thietmar does not include the names of the wife and husband. David Warner in his translation of Thietmar’s Chronicon points out that the tale originated in a dialogue of Gregory the Great. See David Warner, trans., Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 82, n. 61.
48.
Rather of Verona, Praeloquiorum libri VI, ed. Peter D. Reid (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984), (II.17) 60.
49.
Adalbert, a. 966, p. 177.
50.
Thietmar, (VII.3) 400–402.
51.
Althoff, “Zum Verhältnis von Norm und Realität,” 134.
52.
Vita Mathildis antiquior, (5) 122.
53.
Kurt-Ulrich Jäschke, “Tamen virilis probitas in femina vicit. Ein hochmittelalterlicher Hofkapellan und die Herrscherinnen—Wipos Äußerungen über Kaiserinnen und Königinnen seiner Zeit,” in Ex Ipsis rerum Documentis. Beiträge zur Mediävistik, ed. Klaus Herbers, et al. (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1991), 433.
54.
See Josef Fleckenstein, “Hofkapelle und Kanzlei unter der Kaiserin Theophanu,” in Kaiserin Theophanu, ed. Anton von Euw (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1991), 2: 309.
55.
Thietmar, (II.40) 88–90.
56.
See for example Alpertus of Metz’ description of the good abbess Liutgarda, whom paupers constantly besieged “like a mother.” 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.3) 12.
57.
Stefan Weinfurter, Heinrich II. (1002–1024): Herrscher am Ende der Zeiten (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1999), 27.
58.
Gerd Althoff, Otto III, trans. Phyllis G. Jestice (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 92 points out that it was not only Thietmar who regarded the dissolution of the diocese of Merseburg as a sin.
59.
Sancti Adalberti Pragensis Episcopi et Martyris Vita Prior, ed. Jadwiga Karwasinska (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1962), (14) 20.
60.
Thietmar, (II.44) 92.
61.
For Widukind’s interpretation of Mechtild, see Sverre Bagge, Kings, Politics, and the Right Order of the World in German Historiography, c. 950–1150 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 62.
62.
On the couple’s joint plans for Quedlinburg, see Vita Mathildis posterior, (7) 158. The Quedlinburg annalist reports under the year 937 that Mechtild began construction of the community “as Henry had previously decreed” after Otto I became king. Annales Quedlinburgenses, a. 937, p. 459.
63.
See Gerd Althoff, Die Ottonen: Königsherrschaft ohne Staat (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 2000), 87.
64.
Thietmar, (I.21) 26, quoting II Macc. 12:46.
65.
Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis, in Opera, ed. Joseph Becker, MGH SS rer. Germ. in us. schol. 41 (1915), (IV.15) 112–13.
66.
Vita Mathildis posterior, (23) 194–95.
67.
Thietmar, (II.18) 60.
68.
Vita Mathildis antiquior, (10) 130.
69.
Widukind, (III.74) 150–51.
70.
Corbet, Saints ottoniens, 35.
71.
Vita Mathildis posterior, (16) 178.
72.
Annales Marbacenses, ed. Hermann Bloch, MGH SS rer. Germ. in us. schol. (1907), a. 973, p. 26.
73.
Thietmar, (II.3) 40. In (II.11) 50 Thietmar simply calls her “sancta Aedith.”
74.
See MGH Poet. Lat. 5, 282–83 for the epitaph; see also Corbet, Saints ottoniens, 60; Thietmar, (IV.43), 180.
75.
Wangerin, “Theophanu,” 729. Wangerin also points to disappointment at Theophanu’s rank, distrust of Greeks, and her competing political ambitions with Adelheid as reasons why she did not win a reputation for sanctity. See esp. p. 718.
76.
Adso Dervensis, De Ortu et Tempore Antichristi, ed. D. Verhelst (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), 20.
77.
Odilo Engels, “Der Reichsbischof (10. und 11. Jahrhundert,” in Der Bischof in seiner Zeit, ed. Peter Berglar and Odilo Engels (Cologne: Bachem, 1986), 160; cf. Gerhard of Augsburg, Vita Sancti Uodalrici, ed. and trans. Walter Berschin and Angelika Häse (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1993), (I.21) 244–46.

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

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Jestice, P.G. (2018). Piety as Power. In: Imperial Ladies of the Ottonian Dynasty. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77306-3_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77306-3_6
Published: 13 April 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77305-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77306-3
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