tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post4412842285814539395..comments2023-11-29T07:39:34.401+00:00Comments on Carla Nayland Historical Fiction: Intermarriage in early medieval BritainCarlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-31371817992146100702009-10-17T19:20:40.151+01:002009-10-17T19:20:40.151+01:00Constance, Katherine - you're welcome.Constance, Katherine - you're welcome.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-91068575553922084662009-10-16T01:34:43.526+01:002009-10-16T01:34:43.526+01:00Carla,
Facinating information on the timeing of Ae...Carla,<br />Facinating information on the timeing of Aethelbert's conversion and possible relationship with the Merovingians. Thanks!Katherine Christensenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06661935192502507877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-5905791814144728142009-10-14T05:35:16.162+01:002009-10-14T05:35:16.162+01:00Very interesting read, thanks!Very interesting read, thanks!Constance Brewerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17964121072645959593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-7314641222270818442009-10-12T20:41:02.601+01:002009-10-12T20:41:02.601+01:00Annis - if she looked anything like the portrait, ...Annis - if she looked anything like the portrait, blue eyes or not, I can see why she had such an impact on her contempories! Yes, Rhianmellt is the subject of <i>Queen of the Lightning</i>, which is an approximate translation of her name<br /><br />Doug - Indeed, Oswy was converted to Christianity on Iona, where he lived in exile with his brother Oswald (and possibly other members of the family) from the age of about 5 to about 22. Rhianmellt didn't need to do anything, assuming that she was a Christian of the Brittonic church (highly likely if her grandfather Rum was a prominent churchman; there's a theory that he was a bishop of Carlisle). As the Brittonic and Irish churches both followed the same way of calculating Easter, there wasn't even that difficulty to negotiate! Eanflaed was part of the reason for Oswy deciding in favour of the Roman Church (since she had been raised in the Roman tradition in Kent, and the subsequent conflict with Oswy's Irish Easter prompted the Synod of Whitby), so that would have made her highly important in Bede's eyes. <br /><br />Rick - Indeed, for most of us Katherine Hepburn is the mental image we have of Queen Eleanor.<br /><br />Bebba certainly didn't convert Aethelferth, but we don't know her religion. Oswy was already a Christian when he married Rhianmellt (Bede says he converted in exile on Iona, see above), so she had no need to convert him. If Rhianmellt was a Brittonic Christian, as is likely if she came from the royal dynasty of Rheged, Bede would certainly have disapproved of celebrating Easter on the wrong date (he even criticises St Aidan for that; it was clearly a point very close to his heart!) and that may have been a reason to ignore her. Whereas Oswy's second wife Eanflaed belonged to Bede's favoured Roman Christianity, as well as being the daughter of Bede's hero King Eadwine. Bede says that the Britons never preached Cristianity to the English. Whether he was right, and whether interaction might have varied in different regions and at different times, is a different question.<br /><br />Katherine - Bertha is usually credited with having helped with the conversion of Aethelbert to Christianity because she provided a gateway for St Augustine's mission to Kent in 597. However, it's notable that although she had a Frankish chaplain with her from the beginning of her marriage, Aethelbert didn't convert until after St Augustine came. This may be because the Frankish chaplain didn't try, or wasn't very persuasive, or may indicate that Bertha had relatively little influence, or it may indicate that Aethelbert wasn't about to accept Christianity from a Frankish clergyman in case that made him subservient to the Merovingian kings, and was therefore sticking out until he got a direct line to the Pope in his own right. Frankish-style artefacts turn up in Kentish graves of the late 6th and early 7th century, which indicates some sort of trade and/or cultural contact across the Channel (as one would expect for reasons of geography). There is also a reference somewhere to the Frankish kings having hegemony over Britain at about the same time (cannot remember the source offhand), which is unlikely to be literally true but may indicate some sort of Frankish over-kingship over part of Brtiain, the most likely candidate being Kent on the grounds of (a) the Frankish artefacts found there, (b) geography, (c) Bertha's marriage. One possibility is that Aethelbert saw himself as having some sort of 'special relationship' with the Merovingian kings but wouldn't accept Christianity from their priest in case that turned him into a client king (possibly the Merovingians already saw him as a client...) <br /><br />Carol - I only have a hazy idea of the family trees, but I think Eleanor was at least as closely related to Henry as she was to Louis, which rather shows up the political nature of her annulment! Indeed, she must have been a remarkable lady, and her beauty was probably only a part of her charisma.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-76159305745022977062009-10-12T13:23:37.635+01:002009-10-12T13:23:37.635+01:00I'm just in the middle of Alison Weir's El...I'm just in the middle of Alison Weir's Eleanor of Aquitaine. Its a great book but trying to follow the family ties and the consanguity with both Louis or Henry 11 is mind boggling. Beautiful or not this lady must have had a great presence to have had such a lasting interest.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12165688485434172060noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-69342964142660327932009-10-10T21:20:52.220+01:002009-10-10T21:20:52.220+01:00Hi Carla,
Interesting discussion.
I've been c...Hi Carla,<br />Interesting discussion.<br /><br />I've been curious about the relationship between Ethelbert, the King of Kent, and Bertha, the daughter of the Frankish Merovingian King Charibert -- marriage was somewhere around 580AD. <br /><br />Many texts say she influenced the introduction of Christianity to the Anglo Saxons through this marriage by opening the door for Pope Gregory's missionaries, but I have not seen any evidence of cooperation or alliances between the Kingdoms. . .Katherine Christensenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06661935192502507877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-27787641495563041582009-10-10T21:17:27.384+01:002009-10-10T21:17:27.384+01:00Hi Carla,
Interesting discussion.
I've been c...Hi Carla,<br />Interesting discussion.<br /><br />I've been curious about the relationship between Ethelbert, the King of Kent, and Bertha, the daughter of the Frankish Merovingian King Charibert -- marriage was somewhere around 580AD. <br /><br />Many texts say she influenced the introduction of Christianity to the Anglo Saxons through this marriage by opening the door for Pope Gregory's missionaries, but I have not seen any evidence of cooperation or alliances between the Kingdoms. . .Katherine Christensenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06661935192502507877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-23785660064341647232009-10-10T02:58:38.226+01:002009-10-10T02:58:38.226+01:00Eleanor is indeed described as beautiful, often en...Eleanor is indeed described as beautiful, often enough that it probably isn't just flattery - especially from monkish chroniclers who were not singing her praises. But they didn't get around to giving any details.<br /><br />This is one reason why no actress can own Elizabeth I the way Katharine Hepburn owns Eleanor - real Eleanor doesn't get in the way, because we don't really have a first hand sense of her.<br /><br />I think you are right that Bede simply didn't see these queens as relevant to his concern. But your mention of what <i>was</i> his concern, such as queens who converted hubbies to Christianity, points to a dog not barking in the night.<br /><br />Presumably the 'British' queens were Christian. (Maybe not Bebba.) If any had converted her husband, Bede would surely have taken note of her. But in fact I have the impression that part of his critique of the Celtic church was that they did diddly squat to convert the English. For the Roman church, working through queens to rope in their hubbies was SOP.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-47061145639404497262009-10-10T00:10:56.651+01:002009-10-10T00:10:56.651+01:00Ah, misread you, I thought you were implying that ...Ah, misread you, I thought you were implying that Oswy remained non-Christian after his marriage to Rhianmellt, if he was converted before their marriage then this is consistent with her not having converted him!Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02204909202506240971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-35573213318209561682009-10-10T00:07:20.782+01:002009-10-10T00:07:20.782+01:00I would expect that Oswy had already been converte...I would expect that Oswy had already been converted when he married Rhianmellt. He was little more than a baby when he had to leave Northumbria, and it was in exile that he was converted. Bede probably had nothing to say about her because Oswy's second wife Eanflaed was another of his preferred race, Northumbrians, so stole the show. <br />Very informative article, as usual, making the best of the limited information on Anglo-Saxon queens.Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02204909202506240971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-9432078541101541382009-10-09T23:52:52.455+01:002009-10-09T23:52:52.455+01:00Artist Duncan Long had a go at picturing Eleanor o...Artist Duncan Long had a go at picturing Eleanor of Acquitaine, based on a sculpture of her created around 1152, when she was aged about 30. Robert Fripp has used this <a href="http://robertfripp.ca/index.cfm?Fuseaction=ArticleDisplay&ArticleID=513&SectionID=152" rel="nofollow">portrait</a> as the cover for his novel about Eleanor. Fripp comments that contemporary reports say that Eleanor had blue eyes, but doesn't mention his source.<br /><br />The story of Riemmelth is featured in Kathleen Herbert's novel "Queen of the Lightning", isn't it?Annishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02367569632016734415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-30131242711532744722009-10-09T10:39:10.412+01:002009-10-09T10:39:10.412+01:00Ian, Rick - I thought the chroniclers at the time ...Ian, Rick - I thought the chroniclers at the time described Eleanor as exceptionally beautiful, though without giving any details? So we might have a bit of a clue (with the caveat that flattering a great lady is unlikely to have been a bad career move so it may have been diplomatic to talk up Eleanor's looks). But certainly we don't have any detailed information. <br /><br />Yes, Bearnoch might have been a nickname or perhaps a title. It wouldn't take very much to get from something like "Lady of Bryneich" to "Lady Bryneich" and then just "Bryneich" as if it were a personal name. It was common practice to attach the name of the territory to the name of a king, e.g. Urien Rheged, and in later medieval usage it was standard to refer to nobles by their titles (Gloucester, Kent, Buckingham etc) rather than by personal names. Perhaps something similar happened with Bearnoch.<br /><br />Given the general paucity of evidence, it's striking that there's reasonable documentary evidence for at least two intermarriages. Whether that means it was common practice, or common in some regions but not in others, or whether they were recorded because they were exceptional, is open to question. (As it always is when trying to argue from the particular to the general!). As you say, there's no hint that the chroniclers thought there was anything particularly unusual, and HB in particular cheerfully digresses into moral judgments when it feels like it (see Vortigern). One could argue that Bede's lack of detail about Bebba and his failure to mention Rhianmellt at all is indicative that he disapproved of Brittonic queens; on the other hand, neither converted her husband to Christianity so it could simply be that they were not immediately relevant to his church history.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-5302413821929950442009-10-08T23:18:41.085+01:002009-10-08T23:18:41.085+01:00Ian - the curious thing is that we don't have ...Ian - the curious thing is that we don't have a clue what Eleanor of Aquitaine looked like. <br /><br /><br />'Bearnoch' might also have been a nickname that stuck in place of her foreign real name. <br /><br />The sources are very brief, but there's no hint in them that anything was seen as unusual about these alliances.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-45627712774666845922009-10-07T19:44:01.430+01:002009-10-07T19:44:01.430+01:00SO does this mean Eleanor of Aquitaine was well en...SO does this mean Eleanor of Aquitaine was well en-dowered with great... Tracts of land?<br /><br />...<br /><br />I'm so sorry. I couldn't resist.<br /><br />Ian_MAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com