False Merovingians

False Merovingians include those characters who sometimes appear in some family trees of the Merovingians , about which there is ambiguous or doubtful information about the reality of their existence, or about their belonging to the Merovingian dynasty.

Content

Princes or queens invented in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, scientists were not satisfied with the dry information contained in the writings of Gregory of Tours . These authors began to add new characters to their stories, little conforming to the truth of reality. All the characters of this section are united by the fact that they are not mentioned by any modern documents attributed to their life activity. Their mention is only in later sources.

Amaltheed

Amaltilda was the daughter of Childeric II , King of Australia and Bilichild ; niece of St. Nyvard , Bishop of Reims , who married Riel , the future Bishop of Reims (mid- 7th century).

These data can be found in the History of the Reims Church of Flodoard . Flodoard probably interpolates the Life of St. Nivard , who says that the King of the Franks Hilderic had a daughter who married Count Riyol and that she is the niece of St. Nyvard. He tried to identify this king Childeric with King Childeric II of Australia, but this identification faces some chronological and genealogical problems:

According to the Life , Saint Nyvard was raised at the court of this king. Nivard became bishop in 655, and Childeric II became king only in 662.
The wife of Chilperic II is the daughter of King Sigibert III , which means that Nivard, as the uncle of Amaltis, must be a Merovingian: a son, or Sigibert III, or the son of Clovis II , but neither of them has such a son.

Gabriel Tikka identifies this Childeric with another little-known Merovingian: Chilperic , King of Toulouse , son of Haribert II . Most likely, medieval authors wanted to introduce a certain number of saints into the royal family tree.

Ansbert Senator

Ansbert was the husband of the alleged Princess Blichilda , the alleged daughter of King Hlotar I (497-561) or Hlothar II (584-629). According to several medieval documents, they would be the parents of a son named Arnoald . The first of these documents is Commemoratio genealogiae domni Karoli gloriossimi imperatoris , compiled in the bishopric of Metz in 810 . The earliest versions of this genealogy are called the father of Hlotar I, and only by the year 870 a version appears in which the father of Hlothar II appears.

Ansbert probably really existed in reality. Although he is not found in contemporary documents and his name is cited by the compilers of the Commemoratio genealogiae at the end of the 9th century to indicate the relationship of the Arnulfings to the Merovingians, the presence of the name in the Arnulfing genealogy itself, as well as the Ans root found among its alleged descendants, for example Anzegisel , makes its existence possible. The compilers probably used genuine documents to write the genealogy, and even the name of Blythilda could be real, but, wanting to prove the relationship between the Merovingians and the Carolingians , they made her a daughter of one of the Hlotars.

Gregory of Tours gives a fairly complete list of the children of Hlotar, but does not name Blichild among them. As for the instruction that Blichilda is the daughter of Chlothar II, it is chronologically incorrect: Arnoald is a contemporary of Chlothar II and probably was the same age as him, whereas according to Commemoratio genealogiae domni Karoli gloriossimi imperatoris he is his grandson.

Literature

Settipani C. Les ancêtres de Charlemagne. - Société atlantique d'impression, 1989 .-- 172 p. - ISBN 2-906483-28-1 .
Settipani C. La préhistoire des Capétiens: 481–987 / éd. Patrick van Kerrebrouck. - Villeneuve d'Ascq, 1993 .-- 543 p. - (Nouvelle histoire généalogique de l'auguste maison de France, vol. 1). - ISBN 2-9501509-3-4 .