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Emma of Austrasia

Emma ( fl. early seventh century) was a Frankish woman, possibly a Merovingian , who married Eadbald of Kent . Emma was a daughter of the Frankish king Theudebert II , who ruled...

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Emma (fl. early seventh century) was a Frankish woman, possibly a Merovingian, who married Eadbald of Kent.

Emma was a daughter of the Frankish king Theudebert II, who ruled Austrasia from 595 to 612. He had previously shown little interest in the Kingdom of Kent, but Gregory the Great had written to him in 601, encouraging him to back Paulinus and Mellitus' missionary campaign, which was to be based in Canterbury.[1]

In 616, Eadbald came to the throne of Kent. His mother appears to have been Bertha, a Merovingian princess. He came to the throne following traditional Germanic religion, but was converted and gave up his first wife who, as his stepmother, was not considered acceptable by the Christian church.[2] This development appears to have initiated closer relations between Kent and the Frankish kingdom.[3] Eadbald made a second marriage, to a Christian named Emma, who is identified in the annals of St Augustine's Abbey as the daughter of a Frankish king - implying Emma, daughter of Theudebert.[2]

However, S. E. Kelly, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, holds that the belief that Eadbald married a daughter of Theudebert is the result of confusion between him and Adaloald, King of the Lombards. Kelly gives more credence to a suggestion that Eadbald's wife was the daughter of Erchinoald, the mayor of the palace in the Frankish kingdom of Neustria from 641 to 658.[2]

Christian Settipani mentions another plausible possibility. He notes that in 618, the year of the marriage, the only king of the Franks was Chlothar II and that one of Emma's grandchildren bears the similar sounding name Hlothere, concluding that Emma was a daughter of Chlothar II and his first wife Haldetrude.[4]

La Emma que se casó con Eadbald tuvo, como se describe en la Leyenda Real de Kent , tres hijos: Eormenred , Eorcenberht y Eanswith . [ 5 ] Se sabe que murió en 642, dos años después que su esposo. Fue enterrada junto a Eadbald en la Iglesia de Santa María, que él mandó construir en los terrenos del monasterio de San Pedro y San Pablo en Canterbury (una iglesia que más tarde se incorporó al edificio normando de San Agustín). [ 2 ] En ese momento, sus reliquias probablemente fueron trasladadas junto con las de Eadbald para ser reinhumadas en el transepto sur alrededor del año 1087 d. C. [ 6 ]

Referencias

  1. ↑ MOH Carter, La era de Sutton Hoo: El siglo VII en el noroeste de Europa , pág. 240
  2. 1 2 3 4 S. E. Kelly, " Eadbald ", Diccionario Oxford de Biografías Nacionales
  3. ↑ CJ Arnold, Arqueología de los primeros reinos anglosajones , pág. 124
  4. ^ Settipani, cristiano (1993). La Préhistoire des Capétiens [ La Prehistoria de los Capetos ] (en francés). vol.  Nouvelle Histoire généalogique de l'auguste maison de France, vol. 1. Villeneuve-d'Ascq: Patrick van Kerrebrouck. pag.  93.ISBN​ 2-9501509-3-4.
  5. ↑ Rollason, DW (1982), La leyenda de Mildrith: Un estudio de la hagiografía altomedieval en Inglaterra , Leicester: Leicester University Press, pág. 45, ISBN  0-7185-1201-4
  6. ↑ Véase, por ejemplo, el folleto guía de la Abadía de San Agustín (Londres: English Heritage, 1997), 20, 25.